Time for another little update….
Those of you that have done track days will always know that while driving your car on track, you will always find parts that need improving on the car to shave that little bit of extra time off your laps. Last time I was out on track, was the first time I had taken my car out and was a way of getting to know the car and find out what areas I felt needed some improvement.
The first area where I felt I could improve the car was on the handling. I knew the car was running on standard ARB’s and the Dampers/springs had been on the car for about 10 years, so were probably past their best for this type of application. Plus I noticed that the car sat a bit too high on the front due to the lack of height adjustability of the dampers. This was noticeable under acceleration out of the corners, causing the car to understeer a bit.
Recently I broke a 5th gen prelude and this was fitted with Tanabe Front & Rear Anti-roll bars.
The ones that fit the 5th gen are not a direct swap onto the 4th.
For the rear, 4th gen drop links are required and a rear arb mounting bracket from a 5thgen with a redrilled whole is required.
For the front, the droplinks are the same but if running standard suspension, the ARB will catch on the subframe which will need some manipulation to get it to fit. However, if fitting on a very low car, this should clear the sub frame.
Upon inspection, the front ARB was in good condition, but the rear needed a little TLC
So firstly I removed the drop-links and investigated a little more. The ARB was starting to show signs of surface rust that had started to bubble and lift the protective paint coating.

So I went and removed all the loose paint and bubbled paint and sanded back the surface rust to bare metal.
Once the bare metal was exposed, I applied a good coating of Kurust that prevents any further corrosion. This turns black when it oxidises with any surface rust as you can see in the pics.

So I set-up a bit of a paint booth in the garage and painted it with 5 coats of Hammerite smooth Red finish paint.
A little before I decided to do the work, I orderd a new set of 4th gen drop-links for the front & rear.
Droplinks Fitted and all Painted.
Also, I wanted to say thank you to
@Damon for sending me through a rear arb mounting bracket to enable me to fit the rear ARB
Not long after the track day, I decided to bite the bullet and buy myself a set of
Meister-R GT1’s
https://www.meisterr.co.uk/products/gt1/
When making the call for the order, they wanted to know a fair bit about the car, so that they could adjust the valving and apply the correct spring rates.
This involved asking about weight distribution, weight of the car, use of the car and tyres used. So I felt like I was already getting a good service.
After a 4 week wait time they were finally ready and looked oh-so-shiny when they arrived.
So the other weekend I went about fitting these with the help of Matt
@STKPrelude
However, all didn’t go to plan.
Decided to do the rears first. Where one the dampers meets the Lower Control ARM (LCA), the bolt had seized to the internal collar of the poly bush. So the only way I could remove it was by cutting off the ends of the bolt and bashing out the bolt with a lump hammer that was seized to the collar
So, I had bit of a panic and needed to get the car home, Matt went to every garage he knew of on Good Friday with the dimensions of the collar I needed… He couldn’t get an exact pipe, but managed to find something similar that would do so I could put the suspension back together to get it home until I got a new collar the right size.
I made a few calls to see if anyone had a spare one, but to no avail. In the end I spoke to an engineers and they made me one up the next day…….HAPPY DAYS.
And with it pressed back in place…. I’m just glad I keep old tubes of LUBE lying around…LOL
So back to it and its Out with the old & In with the new
Rears fitted with Tanabe ARB:
Front fitted (The white stuff is Lithium Grease to protect the Dampers to ensure future height adjustability)
So before the work, the car used to look like this ride-height wise:
And on the GT1’s now looks like this:
So whats next…the Lude is booked in for a full Geo set-up Performance Autoworks, fitting of the front ARB and a Cambelt change.
In between these bits I’ve also bought Endless RF-650 brake fluid for my track-work which has great reviews although is a little expensive £30 per 500ml bottle
And Ive also purchased a Carbon Fibre bonnet …. As you can see it needs a little TLC, but all this will be in my next update…

More to come soon.