Tell me anything I should know about the adjustable suspension on EA81s. I might soon buy an '81 hatch and I don't know if it has it or not. What's the good, the bad...? I heard that it was crap and cost more to fix it all the time than the car was worth. I don't know... Tell me what you know...

EA81 4WD have adjustable front and rear.

 

If its 2WD it wont have it.

 

-Brian

I'm pretty new to Subes. I don't really know how the adjustable suspension works. Anyone got any helpful pointers? I already have one hatch and I can experiment on it.

If you have the owners manual, it will be in there, and thats the best info on it, with pictures even.

 

On the front, there are two 19mm nuts on the bottom of the spring, lefty up, righty down, you have to do both or it won't work, gotta keep them even.

 

on the rear there is 1 nut, don't recall how big, in the middle under the rear seat.

On wagons you can lift the rear bench and gain access to the bolt to the rear torsion bar. I know on brats you have to crawl under the car to reach it, and i dont know how to reach it on hatches. Its 17 or 19mm, i cant remember.

 

-Brian

...I heard that it was crap and cost more to fix it all the time than the car was worth. ...

This MAY be in reference to the pneumatic suspension on the EA82/ER27/etc, vehicles.

you guys are way off. its 21mm

 

basicaly, you lube the hell out of the nuts/studs, lift the car, crank in the lift. two bolts on each front strut. i would recommend only cranking about half the lift in, for street driving. i crank mine all the way up when im offroading.

 

if you are cranking on the nuts, and it gets very hard to turn, stop, back off, add more lube and try it again. if you break the threaded stud(like i have done twice) you are sol without a welder to fix it.

 

its a great system. nothing different than the non adjustable except for the threaded studs, and nuts.

the suspension most people complain about is the air ride that came on some ea82 cars, those are the ones that are cheaper to replace with non adjustable ones.

Sweet, you are all my heroes now...