Well Today I installed Sub frame Spacers and a Rear Strut Tower Brace. I picked up the Kazama Aluminum Sub frame spacers for 7,800 Yen and The guy had Rear Strut Brace that was used he let me have for 5,000 Yen. Not a bad deal.
Tools/Parts Required:
12mm Wrench
17mm Wrench
Air Gun (the Sub frame bolts would not budge)
Jack and Jack Stands (Used a Lift and Tranny Jack)
Tin Snips
WD40
Sub frame Spacers
Rear Strut Tower Brace
Pry Bar
Well let’s do the Spacers first since any moron can install a Strut Brace. These were the easiest MOD I have done except for maybe and Intake or something. This is what the Spacers look like out of the box, the ones with the slots go up top against the car and the cup shaped ones go on the bottom:
Step 1. Get the car off the ground and the weight off the wheels. You could do this at your house with a floor jack and jack stands. I am lucky enough to have a lift available so I use the Lift. Once the car is off the ground and supported by Jack stands, Use you floor Jack and place it under the Rear Diff. Don’t jack it up, just make it touch so that it is flush. If you have a Lift like me, go ahead and jack the car up, then use a Mission Jack to hold the Diff up, remember just flush like this, then spray some WD40 on all the bolts I talk about in this write up:
Step 2. Let’s do the ones towards the front of the car first. You can see in this pic, that the Sub frame has this bracket held on by (2) 12mm Bolts. These come off quite easily and my car is 10 years Old so the ratchet works fine. Go Ahead and take these two bolts out and remove the bracket you see in the PIC….You can do both sides now:
Step 3. Now you can take out the sub frame bolt itself. It is a 17mm Bolt. I tried like hell with a ratchet and it just wouldn’t budge. I coulda used a breaker bar, but since I had air tools at my service, I grabbed the gun..go ahead and take the bolt all the way out:
^^^ Note in the Picture above the Bracket is still in place…I found out after that I could have just took the bracket out as per my instructions above…so follow the instructions above not the pic…I did it the better way on the other side.
Step 4. Now that you have the Bolt out. You can put the first spacer in. Use the Spacer with the Slit in it. The flat side goes up against the car and the side with the lip goes facing down. Lower the Jack that your Diff is on just a little bit, then use a pry bar to make room for the spacer to slide in like this:
Step 5. Now you can put the lower Spacer on. It will slide right in just like in the pic below.
Step 6. Now just tighten it back up, it will take a bit of torqing of you don’t have a gun, everything will have to seat back together, make it 80lbs of Torque:
Step 7. Now put the bracket back on and it will look like this when it is done:
Now Do the Other side!!!
Step 8. Okay now lets do the Rears. Go ahead and lift the jack that is holding your Diff up a little bit so that it is nice and snug. Now take out the Sub frame Bolt, this one was a PITA also for some reason. After you get the bolt out, remove it and the little cup like this:
Step 9. Now here is what I learned…Jack the Diff up a bit and then lower it down, this helps to get everything a bit looser. Now lower the jack that the Diff is on so that there is about an inch of empty space between the Diff and the Jack, this is your play space. Use a pry bar again as you did up front to make room for the spacer to fit in like this:
Now do the other side up do this point again.
Step 10. Now you can put the bottom spacer in, just slide it in, then put the cup back on like in the pic below. Then tighten everything down to 80lbs. Check to make sure all bolts on the front and rear are torqued down correctly and you can lower the car.
You are Done!!!!
BONUS:
As I mentioned I picked up a rear strut brace yesterday as well. Well this is easy, but we all like pics so here you go. All you do is cut out space for the Brace:
Loosen the four 12mm bolts and slap the Brace in. Then torque everything back down and your done!!!
OR
they help there to...everything is stiffer..
?
The Spacer/Collars raised it up a bit, or its just me thinking it did
