I went with the Eibach Pro-kit/Tokico Illumina adjustables route. Let me just say, the car is very responsive now:

-Very minimal body roll on sharp turns (i'm only on 3 out of 5 stiffness for the shocks too).
-More responsive feel when shifting.
-Car is more stable at higher speeds, kind of a bad thing since i go 80+ without noticing now.
-Car doesn't sit too low, which imo is a good thing, since i'm in philly (crappy streets). And I still clear most shops lift ramps.

Here are some tips for those who are going to do the springs/shocks themselves:

-Corbin's spring/strut write-up is EXCELLENT for walking you through everything. Thanks Corbin for your awesome work!

-Work with a friend, hell, work with 2 friends. It's definately something that is very difficult to do with only one pair of hands and no power/air tools.

-Expect to spend a whole day (mine was 10 hours) doing everything if it's your first time. Unless of course, you are lucky enough to know someone who's done it before, because i'm pretty sure if i had to do this again, it would only take me 3-4 hours.

-WD-40 is a godsend, make sure you spray everything and let it sit for a while. BE PREPARED FOR RUSTED PARTS.

-Definately definately have a breaker bar, or a very big socket wrench to loosen some of the nuts and bolts. I ended up using my beastly sized torque wrench for leverage.

-One thing of note: The one bolt where the swaybar linker (sorry don't know the technical term off the top of my head) is attached to the damper fork (when you go do it, you'll understand) was rusted in for me, would not come out for its life. Don't worry though, on the other side of the linker where it attaches to the sway bar, there is another bolt that can come off and you'll get the same results of getting the damn thing detached from the damper fork to take out the whole strut assembly.

-I had a spring compressor but I seriously don't think they are needed to take of the stock springs. It might just be because my old shocks were blown, but my springs didn't feel compressed at all. Don't take my word for it though, it's always good to be safe instead of sorry.

-With 15 Dollar camber mod, it may be a good idea to use 5 washers on each bolt instead of 4. With 4 washers (they're pretty thick too), my car barely made it to -2 degrees which is just within specs.

-A bolt cutter (or something like that) would have been nice. The stock bolts holding the spring to the shock were rusted to hell on my shocks. We literally spent 2 hours chiselling and drilling one of the bolts before it finally came off. And since tokico's give you new nuts with the shocks and you don't really care about your stock shocks (do you???), destroying the old shocks is not a problem.

-While your under there, examine the bolts and nuts for the toe adjuster. If they're in bad shape, spray some wd-40 on them so that the alignment shop's job will be easier.. or you might be in a situation i'm in right now where they'll break that bolt and have to have you buy a whole new assembly to replace it. Yea, i know, it's an usual circumstance, but hey, doesn't hurt to be prepared right?


Thanks to Chris W. on the ASOG north east boards for helping me out. 9+ hours of labor and he didn't complain at all!

If you have any questions, feel free to follow up in a reply and ask me. It's still fresh in my mind and I wouldn't want anyone else to go through the crap that I went through.

16.1 @ 87.11
http://www.virtuallyinfamous.com

ARD 57mm tb and p&p manifold, Neuspeed STB, Pro-kits, Illuminas, Injen CAI with K&N, 2.5" pacesetter catback,
AF/X UDP, Rear STB, Powerslot rotors, RRE SS Brakelines.