CrazyPhuD

Well along time ago I got a (cheap) set of Ground Control Tophats for both front and rear. I've lagged for a while actually installing them since my KW's were already installed. This weekend I finally got around to installing the fronts, the rears will have to wait a day or two until I find my magnetic wand. No way am I taking the rears out without it. You'll spend hours trying to reach the nut you drop without one.

At any rate. Info on the ground control tophats. For those that don't know...the 'special' attribute about the ground control tophats is that they are supposed to give you an extra inch of suspension travel. They do this by actually sitting higher than the OEM tophats and allowing the bumpstop to go up inside of it. Now the extra inch of suspension travel is probably overkill for the KWs, they already increase suspension travel, but since I got them cheap and I wanted to have my OEM setup complete I decided to put them on. The biggest question with these tophats has always been, will they clear the hood? Well I'm living proof that they do

So on to the install. As always these are just the steps I took. Follow them at your own risk.

Each GC Tophat should contain the following parts.(Note you won't use any parts from the OEM tophats)

1 Red Ground Control Damper mounting base
2 Nuts to attach mounting base
2 small washers for nuts
1 upper spring mounting cushion
1 bumpstop
1 1/2" flat washer

I actually bought an additional 1/2" flat washer for each TopHat at home depot and I explain later why.

NOTE these are designed for stock shocks and GC collars, to use them for the KW they will have to be modified slightly.

Here are the install steps I took Do the following for each coilover

1. remove the coilover from the car(there are a number of DIY).
2. Measure the height of the collar on the shock. Write it down so that you can return the collar position to its current setting.
3. loosen the small hex screw at the bottom of the collar. This makes spinning the collar up and down MUCH easier.
4. Spin the collar all the was to the bottom of the shock to remove tension from the springs. This is important, you either need to unload the springs or use a spring compressor BEFORE you take off the existing tophat.
5. Unscrew the nuts from the top of the existing tophat.
6. remove the OEM tophat, bumpstop and washer from the damper
7. Expand this hole on the GC supplied bumpstop to fit the position diameter of the KW. I actually had a perfectly sized knife to do this.
8. Slide the GC bumpstop onto the KW piston, the tapered end should point up.
9. Slide one of the 1/2 flat washers on top of the bumpstop.
10. Replace the springs back on the KW damper.
11. Place the spring mounting cushion from the GC on top of the KW springs. Do not use the purple collar provided by KW here. That is for use with the OEM spring mounting cushion and will not fit with the GC cushion. For me the GC cushion did not fit perfectly but with some effort you can make it fit. If you would like you can also reuse the OEM spring mounting cushion but you would need to reuse the purple collar provided by KW in this case.
12. Place the red mounting base on top of the damper now.
13. Use the second 1/2" washer(the one I bought from home depot) and place it on top the mounting base. I elected to get a second washer here because when I first tried torque down the nuts, the bottom one started to bite into the rubber bushing. The washer prevents this.
14. Screw the two nuts back on top of the new tophat
15. Spin the collar back up and measure, return the collar to the original position you wrote down in step 2.
16. Screw back in the small hex screw in the collar.
17. Return the shock to the car.

Remember when putting suspension back on the car to always load the suspension before you torque it down

One of the big questions with these tophats are if they will clear the hood. Some people thought they wouldn't clear the OEM hood *cough* Asura *cough* But in fact they will. However after driving around I do notice that they have left small impressions in the stock heatshield for the hood. They haven't gone through the heat shield just left impressions that they touch it. Since there are no supports behind the heatshield in this position it shouldn't be a major issue. You still have around 1/2"+ of space between the top of the adjustment nob and the hood.

Impressions.

I am definitely pleased with the build quality of the GC top hats they appear to be more rugged than the OEM ones. As for driving impressions, I'm not convinced that anything I feel would be anything more than placebo effect.

Note you most likely won't be able to use an STB without major modifications. The GC tophats are too tall to fit with the design of many STBs.

Also even with the collars returned to their preexisting heights, my car is now slightly lower. It is possible that somehow I misadjusted the collars but I measured twice.

A couple pics( I need to do full install picture steps when I do the rears)

comparison of Stock and GC tophats.


Assembled new coilover



pieces removed from OEM tophat
KW collar
KW bumpstop
OEM Mounting plate
OEM cushion
OEM washer



OEM vs. GC tophat

OEM



GC



Both



Install done



Left Side



Right Side

jlucas

Looks good. How about the Left Rear? That's the tight one.

CrazyPhuD

I don't think it'll be a big issue but I haven't done the rears yet because I need to find/get another magnetic retriever for WHEN I drop one of the nuts back in that little hole. I'm not going to start the rears until I get one. But I should do them in a day or so.

[AP2-2NV]

so where would one get these?

and what size (ID) spring do they accept?

Boofster

I had these on the Integra and always wandered if they would work on the S.

Thanks for the writeup.

boyguan

fyi.

stuff the holes with paper towels and you wont have any issue. i dropped a bolt last time and it took over 1 hr to get out.

i stuff it with paper towels now and its not and issue

CrazyPhuD

Since I've gotton a couple PM's on this I thought I would add a couple comments.

I did the rears, and they do fit. I worry a bit about clearance for the left rear side and the rubber covering there so I actually leave the KW adjustment knob on it to make sure we are not going to perforate it. I've had them on for 4+ years an no major issues.

Actually ASM style STBs will clear the top hats I'm not sure if any other STBs will fit. The cusco rear STB will also fit.

One other note that happened when I put these on. They actually lowered the car even more than before, so I had to raise it back up because it was too slammed for the street.

But so far so good and they are still on the car today.

Sobe_Death

Are those the "correct" GC tophats for the S2000? They look an awful lot like the 92-00 civic/94-01 Integra top hats. Only reason I'm asking is because the S2000 ones on the GC website look a lot shorter in height.

http://www.ground-control-store.com/produc...p/II=743/CA=188

AngryTurtle

and take the rear strut bar off.

What The

Will this benefit those that have lowered the car a lot?