Will Monroe Senstrac shocks and H&R sport springs (1.75" drop)work together ? I only plan on driving the car a couple more years....and i can get a really good deal on the shocks and springs and a professional install....advice, thanks!

 

I thought the Monroe Senstrac were OEM replacements... I could be wrong, If you have a professional doing the install ask him if they will handle the added drop, don't forget to get a camber kit as well!

 

Sensatracs don't work with anything, they are a horrible damper. They are designed to provide very soft damping at and a bit to each side of static ride height (for soft ride comfort), but to become stiffer when suspension travel moves further into bump or rebound (to cope with hitting larger bumps). This is acheived by the provision of shortish vertical grooves in the wall of the shock body at / near where the piston will be at standard ride height, allowing fluid to 'leak' past the valveswhen thepiston is in / nearthis position. This is crude to say the least, the damper effectively being intentionally partially worn out in part of it's stroke from new!

This makes the damper very soft in slow frequency response at / near ride height, and it's slow frequency response at / near ride height that is most important for good response and handling. Lowering the car will tend to increase stiffness in bump (move piston into the stiffer zone), but decrease it in rebound (more of the soft zone in rebound). Rebound stiffness is very important to handling, Sensatracsdampers are hopeless for handling at standard ride height, and could possibly be even worse if the car is lowered. Stiffer than standard springs will only make matters worse.

Fitted Sensatracs to one of my cars some years ago, made it handle even worse than the worn out dampers I replaced! They are not worth having, even if they were free!

 

damn...Thanks JohnL..Any more advice on this subject ?

 

Your right there Nate..Those are OEM replacements...
WheelBrokerAng

 

So that means they wont work ?

 

The Sensatracs will 'work', in the strict definition of the term, they are dampers, and they will fit, but they work very poorly (IMO). They are supposed to be 'standard replacement', but the real standard units will be far better, and far far more expensive from Honda!

The problem I found when replacing 4 dampers on my CB7 was that I could get standard Honda, quoted AUD$1,400, a couple of different lesser brand (but known brand) for about AUD$700ish, or Koni Sports ('yellow') for AUD$850. At these prices it was no contest, Koni are widely recognised as among thebest 2 or maybe 3 brands in the business, can't go wrong with them.

Adjustable rebound too, renowned for exceptional longevity, and rebuildable when they do finally wear out! I've found them to beabsolutely great dampers, adjustable from very soft to very hard to suit your taste. I like mine very stiff, sharpens steering response very nicely, but the car still doesn't hop or skip over bumps etc, very stable platform, and this is with the standard soggy springs!

To get the most out of these dampers (or any good stiffer damper) I strongly recommend you get good quality front and rear strut bars. These are important and do work well, but only good ones, cheap ones flex too much. The most common problem with poor quality strut barsis not usually the bar itself, but thebrackets that attach the bar to the top of the strut towers, these are very often much weaker than the strut bar itself and flex when stressed, defeating the purpose of the strut bar. These brackets must be robust in construction or else your wasting your time and money. The ones I've seen on Ebay are really bad in this respect, you can easily see how weak the brackets are. Mine are home made, much better than anything I've seen comercially available from an engineering perspective, but not quite as pretty as some (I do not care, they work and work well!).

More strut bar rave; It doesn't matter whether the strut bar is a one piece welded up unit (harder to fit), or a three piece bolt together (easier!), or how many bolts hold the bar to the two brackets (one each end of the bar is fine, two each end does not make it any stiffer in tension / compression from side to side, and this is how the strut bar adds stiffness to the chassis, not in any vertical manner). The only things that matterare how rigid the bar itself is and how rigid the brackets are (it can look pretty if you really need it to, doesn't hurt unless the pretty bar etc is less rigid than the ugly bar).

Fitting poly bushes to the upper damper mount is also very advisable for getting the most out of the dampers and for increased steering response. I'm cheap, so haven't got poly bushes here, but I have 'compressed' the standard rubber mounts (like little rubber doughnuts at the top of the damper) using 5mm thick spacer washers that fit over the crush tube. This removes heaps of unwanted undamped motion in the rubber at the top of the damper, assisting steering response and eliminating a 'jiggliness' that can occur as a result of the soft undamped rubber bushes.

 

So i should just stick with my first pick of KYB AGX adj. shocks and those springs...THANKS! and i have cheap matrix strut bars, so it's adviced i should get better quality, right ?

 

I have no experience with the HR springs, but I haven't heard or read anything bad about them, the opposite actually.Nor any experience with the AGXdampers, a lot of people seem to like them but I gather they're longevity may be suspect, especially if set up stiff (more stress inside the damper at stiffer settings, which is true for any damper, note that many off road racers use multiple dampers each set up soft rather than one damper set up stiff).

It's worth noting that the more adjustments a damper has the more expensive the totality of the internal valves etc will be for a given quality of component, so if the damper is cheaper but still has a lot of adjustability it's likely that costs have been cut to meet the lower price. It's harder to make an adjustable valve a good quality valve than it is to make a non adjustable valve a good quality valve. If thereare a lot of adjustments in the damper and the damper is cheaper, it's likely that the valves (and other parts) aren't top quality, and this will affect both the function and life of the unit.

Poorer quality adjustable valves can be unpredictable in their reaction to adjustment (i.e. X adjustment onone damper may be a quite different stiffness to X on the other damper on the axle line), can have a limited range of adjustability (sometimes 'hidden' behind a large number of adjustment 'click' positions, i.e. the difference between full soft and full hard may not really be all that much despite many clicks of adjustment). There are other things to consider too with lesser quality dampers, such how effectively it works with lowfrequency inputs AND high frequency inputs.Dampers are highly stressed, you want good ones to last the distance, and to do the job properly.

With most brands you'll get what you pay for give or take, but this isn't a hard and fast rule, some brands work hard to make the product look sexy and to build an image of quality that might not really be there inside the damper. Some 'coil over' products fit into this category. You can pay over the odds for image and bling appeal rather than effectiveness.

The only more common brand of damperlikely to compare favourably withKoni are Bilstein (both these brands are internationally recognised in racing circles to be at the top of the tree with very few other brands up there too, and those tending to be specialist racing damper manufacturers), but I get the feeling you'd be lucky to find any for an Accord(?), Bilstein seem to be focussed more on European cars(?).

Note that Bilstein dampers are not adjustable unless you take them apart and actually swap the valves for different ones. Their philosophy is that an adjustable valve is a less reliable valve. With this in mind how reliable is a cheap adjustable valve likely to be compared to a quality adjustable valve as used by Koni? Note that the valves used by Koni in their street dampers are the same units they use in their top end racing dampers (though rates may vary).

I don't know the "Matrix' strut bars, though I may have seen photos, can't recall. They may be good they may not, if they look robust (thick metal used in the brackets) then they probably are robust, if they look flimsy then they almost definitely are flimsy! The worst (weakest) point usually seems to be the circular or crescent shaped base plate that sits directly on top of the strut tower, it's often too thin. The little 'arms' that reach up to the bar itself from the base plate should also be stiff,thicker better than thinner but it depends too on the geometry of the arm design (good geometry allowing a bit thinner metal). It might be possible to re-inforce a weak strut bar bracket by welding thicker metal to the existing metal...

 

Wow, You give a lot of info, thanks! So basically what your saying is that im going to get what i pay for, damper-wise...One reason i went with the KYB agx's is that i only plan on driving the car for a couple more years, and i mean if they can last me that long i'd be happy...Why spend loads on a good coilover if im not going to have it the car that long?...and i needed a shock that can handle the drop from the Eibach pro-kit springs (f 1.2" r 1.2") ( i chose those now because i read a lot of reviews and those springs usually dont require a camber kit or multiple alignments ) and im only 16 so money could be an issue...

You made a good point, it seems, on the whole strut bar issue...It does seem to be a possiblility of reinforcing a weak bracket by welding more metal to it...I might try that eventually and let you know if it works..but thanks for all the knowledge...