I've searched and read and searched and read and its most peoples opinion not to drop the car on factory shocks/struts because they'll just give up after about a month. My situation is that I only want to drop the car maybe a half~inch max drop. I measured and since I have ridicusly huge tires on my car, thats all I need. Is that too much for stocks? I looked into gettin new shocks/struts and most people love their illumnas but do I need such a good strut/shock for this drop. I know if I should do something, do it right, but I wouldn't mind saving 300 bucks.

You should be good with stockers for more than a month. I dropped my hyundai 2" and didn't replace the shocks. Almost a year later and they are still holdin up good and I know Mitsubishi makes better shit than hyundai. I am not saying that for sure you will have no problem because if it was me I would do it all right the first time. You could just get some Tokico Blues or something for pretty cheap considering, but I love the Illumnias with ground control coilovers. Thats what we got on the Eclipse and its nice...

i have the tokico blues. i'm lowered pretty good. good enough that m y front camber is bad enough to screw my tires up. so yeah, just buy some 270 dollar, shipped to your house tokico hp's(blues) and put them on there at the same time. you'll save a huge headache when you have to go get a spring compressor. just do it once.:thumbsup

I'm at 60,000 miles on stock struts. I installed Suspension Techniques springs in march, and the ride has improved. even with 18" rims, the ride is better than before I had rims and springs.

btw: mine are approx 1.5 inch drop.