10 Oct 8th Gen Civic Coilover Install

8th Gen Civic Coilover Install: Dadmobile Makes Progress

By Aaron Gaghagen

Lowered cars just look straight up cooler than their non-lowered counterparts. Ever see a bad ass concept or prototype car that wasn’t sitting lower than the production version? We cannot recall an instance. The reason they’re lower is that it is aesthetically pleasing. So, when you take an already good looking car like a Honda, you’re just making a good thing even better. If you make smart decisions on your suspension you will improve the performance of your car at the same time.

The smart suspension decision for Project Dadmobile is from Progress Technology in the form of their Competition Series Coil-over System. Astute VTEC Academy’ers (VTEC’ers??!?! VA Heads??) will remember that our time attack, widebody DA Integra and Project 1992 Civic (the red B series one) use Progress Technology’s Competition Series II Coilover System. So, when they told us they had coilovers for the 8th Gen Civic, it was a no-brainer.

The Progress coilovers lower the 8th Gen Civic between .8 and 2.0 inches and are the result of thousands of miles in road testing and development. They didn’t just grab a threaded damper and a random shorter spring to throw them on the market. That’s especially important for a daily driver that needs to remain reliable and comfortable.

The kit itself is complete and very solid feeling. You will see in the video that the install was done at home in the garage on the floor at night after work and the kids are in bed. I did have an opportunity to do this at a friend’s shop, but I know not everyone has those kind of resources (I sure didn’t until recently!) and I wanted to give an honest opinion on the install that everyone could relate to. Especially when unexpected issues arise after the wheels are up and you don’t have a pro or the exact tools on hand to quickly remedy those issues.

This is the first time I’ve ever done anything suspension related on an eighth generation Civic so the process was new to me. All of the Progress parts fit perfectly and went together just as expected. Now that I have done this once, I could knock out the install in two hours no problem.

The final result is perfect. The increased spring rates with matched dampers have reduced body roll and increased cornering speeds (unofficially). We will put it to the test on the track to measure the improvement soon. Also, Project Dadmobile just looks so much better closer to Earth’s surface.

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