Since I first introduced you to Project: Daily – Touge there have been some advancements. mainly in the form of handling. Firstly through the addition of some coilovers from a company called Shockworks, along with the fitment of some Sprint Hart CP wheels I had in the garage and some new Toyo Proxes C100 tyres. The Wheels measure in at a not so beefy 14 x 6.5 +38 with 185/60 rubber bands.

You may have heard of Shockworks in drifting circles, or just through word of mouth. But in a future post I will show you some of their operation and how they go about creating the best handling suspension I have experienced. But this post is about the ED6.

In stock form, the ED hatch has a very tall ride height (as is to be expected from a basic commuter).

I would love to show you the fit out being done in some slick workshop on hoist’s, but such is life. Anyway, at least we had a trolley jack. The stock rear end setup isn’t overly inspiring, but it is coming out. YAY!!

Enter stage left, the new gear from Shockworks as well as complimentary workshop gloves, for the clean mechanic.

As a comparison between the stock and new rear shock setup, the unit is more compact and of a much higher quality. The stock gear was great for daily duties, but not up to spec for the plans we have in store for the project. So out it comes.

 

Rear Shock sitting in place waiting to be connected to the lower control arm.

With rears fitted and sitting at a sensible and conservative ride height, we called it a night. This was after a days work after all.

The next day work commenced on the front end install.

Something that is required for the kit is the use of EG Civic Front suspension forks, since the factory gear works fine and the EG has a larger diameter front strut.

These are alo shorter than the ED/EF forks, as seen in this comparison.

With the front suspension fitted, we then wound it down to full low and refitted the wheels.

Granted full low isn’t very low. But after speaking to Chris from Shockworks, he explained to me the reason. At this height the front suspension can retain full stroke travel, allowing for optimal tuning and handling characteristics. I am inclined to take his advice as he has campaigned an almost identical car in the Nugget Nationals series to a lap time of 1:46.2 at Winton Raceway (which is very fast in a car with only tyres and suspension).

Though after some discussion with Chris there are now some drop hats in the works, much like on their MX5 kits which will allow us to drop the front end to a more attractive height whilst still retaining correct geometry. After all this setup is about performance before stance. Something Shockworks are very serious about. But a bit lowered surely can’t hurt too much.