Spoon Springs for DE5

[Gildiae]

Hey all, I just picked up an Integra Type S and I’m loving every bit of it (I came from many VW’s in the past). Being a past VW GTI owner I’ve modified every bit of them from air suspension, coilovers, custom interior, performance, etc.

Now that I’m in a ITS I’m looking at lowering springs so I can utilize the factory dampening settings. I’ve pretty much narrowed it down to Spoon and wanted to know people’s experience with the spring and its performance (on road and on track). Spoon satisfies my preference with the even drop around the whole car, which is why I’m leaning towards Spoon rather than H&R. Thank you and I’m looking forward to getting involved with this community!

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[UWU-mancer]

Had a dtr6054 swapped mk7.5 autobahn GTI myself. Welcome!

 

[Victorofhavoc]

Springs will negatively impact handling without alignment correction if you care about that sort of thing. @optronix autocrosses and added healthy camber up front with ball joints.

Boy, we're creating quite the "former gti owner" club around here! I had an mk7 autobahn dsg I was tracking frequently. We lose some interior quality, tech, and ecu registry control but we gain a much more aggressive platform out of the gate and dramatically better brakes.

DSC has their product out now for this car as well so might be worth looking into for you!

Welcome! The its is a blast! Closest thing we have to a clubsport s in the states.

 

[Gildiae]

I loved my GTI, but I was having some major issues at only 54k miles so I had to let it go and leave the VW brand forever lol.

I’ve read that camber adjustment is necessary and may require some lower control arms and ball joints, like you mentioned. I daily the car and only drive to work 3 days out of the week, so it won’t see much track time except for maybe a few times a year.

 

[optronix]

I don't think there's too much variance in what springs you choose. Spoon could be viewed as being excessively expensive for no good reason, but they are very popular. There was an issue early on with a pretty substantial reverse rake for the Spoon springs- there were a few discussions on this topic over on the FL5 forums- but presumably that's been sorted out with a newer revision since at least a year ago, but I'd keep an eye out for that especially if you buy a used set.

As for camber, yes I'd say it's mandatory. But I'm also quick to point out that I didn't notice the negative impact until the first run at autocross after the springs install. It was horrible, and adding camber made a literal "night and day" difference- but I've also chewed through several tires in the year since I've done that (also 100+ autocross runs had something to do with that).

My personal recommendation would be to shoot for ~2-2.5 degrees negative camber in the front (through ball joints/top hats) for a primarily street driven car, that should be pretty close to matching what to expect for the rear after the drop and give you a net benefit in turn-in and responsiveness. Otherwise if you don't foresee any significant track-oriented driving then it's probably fine to just go with the camber correcting control arms for the rear to bring it back inline with OEM, which is between -1 and -1.5 (there is a fair amount of variance in the OEM alignment from car to car... and even from side to side on the same car....).

I'll add that I've noticed MOST people who lower the car do not do anything with the camber. But you don't have to be like most people, who are doing it wrong IMHO.

Also FWIW I've recently started deeply considering geometry correction (i.e., roll-center adjusters) after noticing some bump steer on the street. My only concern with that is the "special" geometry of these cars, I can't really get a straight answer when it comes utilizing both the roll-center adjusters and adjustable lower ball joints. I personally am not aware of anyone who's done both at the same time so didn't want to be the guinea pig.

 

[Gildiae]

Great write up and information!

 

[MERAKIAUTOWORKS]

Spoon and Swift are our best sellers for the DE5!

-Josh

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