EDIT: I no longer have the Quest kit. I removed it as it was too stiff for my taste on my daily driver. If you want help installing it I will still try to help, but please be specific and include pictures. Please post questions on the boards (suspension wheel forum or this post) so EVERYONE can learn from your question, and so I don't have to keep answering the same question over and over. If you want, PM me with a link to your post and I will go reply to it.

This is actually a pretty easy install, just time consuming. Here I have the Quest suspension, but most of this should apply to any set of full replacement coilovers (TEIN, etc), or just swapping out struts (I4 to GT, whatever). Most of these pictures are of the rears, but the fronts are functionally the same for what we're doing.

Begin by removing the wheel.

Here's the suspension with the wheel off:

(Please note, that is not a great place for a jack stand, I have yet to find a place on the rear of the car besides where you are supposed to put your jack. The spot pictures is where the 'frame' follows, but if I lower my jack with a stand there the body start creeking. I put the stand there purely for safety, not to hold the weight of the car.)


Pointing out everything that needs to be removed:


Remove the clip from the brake line by putting a screwdriver underneath the edge of the clip and tab it away from the strut with a hammer, gently. It is a Jesus clip, so be careful.
Remove the 10mm from the ABS sensor line and move it aside.
Remove the 14mm from the sway bar and pull it out. It is best to jack both side of the car up equally to keep tension off the sway bar. If you only jack one side up, the sway bar will have lots of pressure on it (that's the whole point of it). You will need a 14mm open end wrench, too. Place the open end on the back side of the nut right where the rubber boot is. Push the rubber boot towards the middle of the car to get it out of the way. There is a 14mm hex there. It is hard to get the wrench on it, but I assure you, it is there. You will see once you get it off.
You can remove the two main 17mm bolts now if you like. I did. You may need someone to help you out here in a second...

Here are the three strut insulator bolts coming into the inside. This is the rear. You need to remove the plastic piece where the seat belt comes out of and remove the seat belt pulley (one bolt, cake). The front is far more obvious, so I won't include a picture.


Remove the three 12mm bolts. If you already removed the two 17mm hub bracket bolts, your whole strut assembly will fall out now. It is handy to have someone there to grab it for you, or undo the bolts while you hold it so it doesn't fall down and do something bad, like cut your ABS sensor line.
If you didn't remove the hub bracket bolts, the suspension will fall down and put a lot of pressure (weight of the whole suspension). It might be a good idea to put something underneath the hub to hold it up while you can take the hub bracket bolts off.

Empty wheel well after strut removal:


Here is the whole strut assembly out of the car:


Now it is time to reassemble the new coilover system. For my application I am reusing the strut insulator piece. If you have pillow mounts, the pillow mounts replace the stock strut insulator.



The spring is still loaded, so you need spring compressors so you can take the strut bolt off the top without the strut insulator flying off at high velocity. I picked up a pair at Autozone for about $35.

Spring being compressed. In these pictures the strut insulator is already remove. Compress the spring until the spring is loose in the strut assembly, then undo the strut bolt in the center of the strut insulator.


Then remove the spring, set it aside, and undo the spring compressors


You'll have to adjust the coilovers so the spring perch is low to reassemble them (if it is too high you wont be able to get the top piece on due to spring load). Put the strut bolt back on and you have your coilovers ready to install. Installation is the same as removing the stock assembly. Three 12mm bolts up top, the two 17mm at the bottom, sway bar bolt, ABS, brake line clip. (See above pictures)

Here is the assembly installed.


Again.


Adjusting:

The spring perch needs to be raised now because we had to assemble it with almost no load.

The wrenches you'll need to adjust the perch collar rings:


Measuring the spring preload. The shorter the spring, the more preload it has, or the higher springrate and stiffer the ride. Please note than in this picture I had 9". This is before I started adjusting. 9" is WAY too short! You'll want at least 10", probably closer to 11".


Again.


There is also a damper adjustment on the bottom. For this set, clockwise is tighter, and it clicks in so each side can be matched. With the lowest damper setting (all the way ccw), the car will bounce. With it all the way up, it rides like it has a solid suspension. The damper should at a minimum be turned up enough to keep the car from bouncing, old Cadillac style.

I've found that the loosest 2 settings are way too soft to use. Two clicks CW from all way undone (CCW until it stops clicking) seems to be about the same damping as my stock 2003 GT shocks. Before you install, you may want to adjust all four shocks to feel like your stock shocks. You can find this by pulling the first shock, disassembling it (see above), and pushing on it. Now do the same with your aftermarket damper. Adjust until it feels about the same. With it all the way loose (CCW) it will probably be much easier than your stock shock. With it all the way up it will be nearly impossible for you to push it by hand. I suggest starting so it is about the same as your stock shock. Err on the stiffer side, because you will need to keep the new aftermarket springs in check with a stiffer setting.

Stuff I left out:

I didn't get to specific into reassembling the new coilovers, because this will vary depending on the set. This particular set uses the stock strut insulator. It comes with pieces that mate up perfectly. Some sets come with pillow mounts that replace the stock strut insulator and allow the top of the strut to be slid along a channel either towards or away from the car which changes camber. I do not have that, so all I can do is suggest trying to keep camber at zero.

awesome DYI.... almost makes me want to do this just because now I know I could. (Wasn't really thinking about any suspension mods before this)

Update:

Playing more with my adjustments, I started having a minor clearence issue with the ABS line bracket on the rear of the car. Hopefully this will help if anyone else has a similar issue:

The swaybar will touch the ABS line bracket because the bracket attaches in a different spot on the Quest kit than it does on the stock strut, causing popping noises.

I did not notice any real damage, just a minor scratch on the swaybar.



The fix:
Just bend the bracket a bit so the exit of the ABS line points upwards as it goes back into the car.


(excuse my dirty car! it's winter here)

It takes very little effort to move the bracket. The bracket is actually two separate pieces. The tube and the mount are not welded together. It's just too snug for it to not budge by hand.

Excellent DIY. Like said before, you got me thinking about suspesion mods now.

ok, I just got done installing my B&G springs that I finally recieved the other day. The install was relatively easy, just time consuming like I read it would be. THe only problem that I'm having is that the springs are making a popping noise whenever the wheels are turned left and right. I can't figure out whats wrong with the setup. Anyone have any suggestions?

Great DIY... Had no idea was that easy... Like stated just a bit time consuming...

ok we got problem....i got my quest ...too many adjusting **** goin on...damn it...the sway bar slot is adjustable...hm....and i have one question about the bottom part...once it gets on the car, it cant be changed right?? so i sort of have to guess what height it would be and put it on...

I have a question too..U know how tein we can adjust setting anytime easily..right? Is this like Tein? Or It is hard to adjust? Is that what U asked "Gwang-Ghetto"?

ya...u can adjust the same part as tein anytime...but also...good thing about this kit is that u can have any height with any stiffness...tein gets harder as u lower more....but quest have one more adjusting part on actual body...so...that's why i got this stuff...but man...this is pain in the ***...i'm sure it's goin to be one hella a ride....but juss time consuming...

so wait when you used the ruler to measure were you measuring how low you dropped your car? because the damper adjusts how stiff/soft the car hits bumps and such right?

has anyone had any trouble with one of the green nuts rubbing against the tire with 16" oem rims on?

im having the same popping noise at the front wheels, moving or not, its almost like a clunk noise... and its loud. I have quest coilovers and since i put on a new strut bar it does that sound even more often. any help would be appretiate. ohh and its not my top center bolt, i read some other people were having that problem, mine is real tight already. Ive been checking it every 3 days.

thanks

Hey can anyone help me out with the two 17 mm main bolts? I'm having problems taking them but I don't have an impact wrench or anything like that. I tried elbow greese but I'm a skinny as a blleeeppp. so yea any help would be appreciated.

To help get the two main bolts off:

First spray them down a few times with WD-40 and let it soak for at leasr20 minutes. In the mean time go to an autoparts store or hardware store and get a very long (at least 18") breaker bar and a 6 point 17 mm socket. Don't use a 12 point socket as it turns on the corners of the nuts and you might strip them. 6 point sockets grip the whole nut at once. If your "elbow grease" is not enought to break the nuts free, use some physics to your advantage... make your lever arm longer. You can do this buy placing a metal pipe on the end of your breaker bar and then pushing down on the end of the pipe "extension". Or you can lock a very long/large wrench on the end of your breaker bar like this

(Pictured is my wrench "extension" on a ratchet instead of a breaker bar, but you get the idea.)

Also, what might happen is that you start to turn the nut and bolt together. If this happens put a closed end wrench on the bolt head and rotate the two so that the open end of the wrench gets wedged up against something very solid.

If you have trouble getting the main nuts off, don't use a ratchet! I've blow two so far with all the times I've had mine taken apart. Go out and buy a proper breaker bar, preferably 1/2" drive. I've sheared a 3/8" ratchet's drive square off and blown the internal ratcheting mechanism on another.

Once you take off the bolts once, it is much easier afterwords, even 10,000 miles later. It's that first time that will really suck.

Actually the poping everyone is referring to is I believe because you didnt reuse the macpherson strut bearing from the stock setup. One person that bought these from the GB I ran had this problem and as soon as he said that noise I knew what it was and asked him and he acknowledged that he didnt put it on on hte front ones. There are none in the rear. You need that bearing on their so it can turn right. So everyone who has the poping please make sure you added the bearing.

i just bought coilovers and will be installing it soon. any suggestion for best damping setting?

did anyone else did this DIY yet? also after reading this

Coilover Discussion

it kinda scares me now about installing these. did anyone corner balance after you install them? also is it really necessary? anyone who did this DIY and didnt corner balance, how did it turn out?

I wanted to make a couple quick points about this as I just finished the front end of my car (rear will be done tomorrow):

1) The nut and bolt on the hub bracket on my '05 were NOT both the same size. The nut is 17mm, but the bolt is 19mm.

2) the top piece of the strut that is reused IS KEYED. This is so important that it's not even funny. It almost cost me a whole set of springs and an entire strut assembly. See, the shaft of the cartridge is flat on one side, and there is a corresponding flat side to the hole in the top piece of the assembly. The tricky bit is that you need to have the spring compressed far enough to get the top piece down onto the keyed portion of the strut cartridge (or "damper"). I made the mistake of not compressing the spring far enough on one. I didn't have the strut together correctly (you must also make sure the ends of the springs line up with there appropriate "bumpers" in the strut assembly). As I as pulling it apart, the top didn't "pop" off with the tension of the topmost coil as it normally does. As I started looking around, I noticed that the keyed bits weren't lined up exactly right, so the top of the assembly didn't want to come off of the damper.

3) Either use jack stands, or know that you will need BOTH SIDES OF THE CAR JACKED UP (or preferrably on jackstands) to get them both back together properly. I did the first side then went over and did the other and quickly realized that the bolt on the sway bar was not lining up with the hole in the tab on the strut. This was because I had the car lowered on the side I completed and jacked up on the side I was working on. This caused a significant enough twist in the body of the car that the sway bar bolt wouldn't line up to its hole properly.


These few tidbits of into could save you a couple hours of work. Read and heed.

One more thing to add:

For my '05 GT, the strut tower bolts were 14mm, not 12.

Freon great DIY! I'm a mid aged newbie and wondering if I need to replace struts. If so I'd like to try replacing myself with just stock stuts. Can I just re-use coil springs on the car?
My Tib is 6 yrs old and 66K miles. Ride seems more bouncy/clunky after hitting some bad winter pot holes and car just doesn't seem to handle as well. Are these the synptoms? Is there a way to check if struts need replacing?

I was able to use a lil bit of this info so ty and my right side end-links didn't come off so i cut them off and i have front end-link on order..so for right now the front right sway bar isn't hooked up lol..but the car looks mazing dropped. I got the Ark ST-P+ coilovers so i didn't have to deal with any of the extra stuff you did on the top part transferring the old to new..but either way good stuff.

great info put my tien s tec springs on today and all the above info was fantastic.. took me about 3 hours total thanks to this