Wheres the cheapest place to buy a front strut bar?

and

For lowering the protege, what is better the eibach springs, or coilovers?

 

I found nopi.com



It depends on what your looking for. A big drop, performance or price.
I got the eibach pro kit springs for performance and they are a lot cheaper than coilovers. I will upgrade to coilovers this summer cause I love the look of slammed cars.

The eibachs also have a real nice and clean drop. 1.5f and 1.8r anymore and you might as well get coilovers.

 

your best bet on the strut bar is to check out your local dealer and get an MP3 one. it will cost you about 100ish. if you have cruise control, this is probably the only one that will fit properly.

as far as suspension, like redrims said, it really depends on what your looking for. if you have the money, yes get JIC magic coilovers, or somethin a lil more practical would be the teins. if you get springs, you'll probably want to replace the struts anyway, so by the time you buy some good struts and eibach springs, you'll be spending enough to almost buy coilovers anyway. eibachs really wont perform well on stock struts because of the increased spring rates that the stock struts cannot handle. if i were you , id just get good coilovers, because you'll really get what you pay for. i got ground controls cheap, and they suck, ill defanitely be replacing them this summer with some good coilovers.

 

speaking of modding, has anyone heard of putting in performance chips? After getting yelled at about ebay, i went there to check out parts and i keep seeing these performance chips popping up every so often, and was wondering if its crap? Any ideas?

 

I think if you send your ECU to JET (not sure, maybe another company), they can upgrade your ECU for you. But it's expensive.

 

The cruise control thing is a very minor problem. All you have to do is shave it down with a dremel. Only takes like a minute. You'll also save money on buying a strut bar, made for cruise control, from the dealer.
I rather waste like a 2-5 minutes grinding instead of like $60+ extra dollars.

 

I have heard constant bad things about JET. Every car I have seen that I have seen in person with a modded JET ECU had power spikes of a few horsepower but netted less overall...

 

thats what i figured, i think i will stick with the regular parts that work.

 

Wait so your saying if i get eibach springs i need new struts or what?

 

No, you don't NEED new struts, at least not right away. Just know that after about 4-6 months, your stock struts may wear out since they aren't made for that ride hieght.

I see that most ppl change there struts to performance struts after their stock ones wear out. Ben00 had his eibachs on his car for more than 6 months without any problems.

 

well redrims is right partially. yes they will wear out after a few months, and also the spring rates of the eibachs cannot be handled by your stock struts. your car wont handle or benefit from just getting springs and it will most likely ride like ****. if your gonna do it, do it right and just get them right away and install it all at the same tiem. i learned the hard way and have to do it all over now. thats my advice.

 

Well my car seems to drive really good with my stock struts and eibach springs. I actually think it rides better, but I also got a strut bar. That may have made the difference But anywho, when my stock struts wear out, then I'm gonna get the MSP adjustable struts. But it handled extremely well now and I'm proud of it.

Just my info. Peace