Modellista 20mm lowering springs soon to be installed

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(slortz @ May 24 2006, 07:00 PM) [snapback]260617[/snapback]</div>

No opinion, as I have zero experience with them. I normally deal with Eibach on other cars, but they refused to consider creating springs for the Prius.

 

I would also like to note for the newbies that swapping out the springs to improve handling is a complete waste of time if you keep the Integrity tires. The OEM tires SUCK, they have completely floppy sidewalls. So lowering the car with stiffer springs won't do much good if you're flailing around on the OEMs.

Replace the tires with something better (which is just about anything), get the BT brace, then consider springs or shock/spring combos.

 

I won't state with absolute certainty that the mpg is better, as I haven't run the same corridor to Orlando that I have before, but on my trip to Atlanta this weekend, I pulled down 47.5mpg each way. That's with the cruise set at 73. I had 2 passengers. The last time I ran this trip with 1 passenger, and on 2 trips to Orlando with 1 passenger, setting the cruise at 73 resulted in 43.0mpg. The Atlanta trip is normally frustrating, as the hills on I65 and I85 tank the mpg. Normally it continuously drops throughout the trip. This time, starting at 44.2mpg, it went *up* throughout the entire trip up there (minus a couple really long uphills where it might have dropped a tenth or 2), and starting at about 45mpg at the start of the trip home, it went up to 48.0, finally dropping into the 47s as I encountered the rolling hills near home, and it was raining.

I will state it sure hasn't seemed to hurt the mpg, but until my Orlando trip next month, I won't state an increase. But it sure looks good so far.


FYI, I had to get the passenger front strut holes slotted a little bit to get the alignment within specs, so that cost a little extra in labor. But the car seems to handle the crosswinds on Interstates even better than before.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(PriusMax @ Jun 4 2006, 02:27 PM) [snapback]265669[/snapback]</div>

I think they'll do fine, the spring rate doesn't seem to be that much different than stock. Of course, if I had the money, or KYB ever gets around to doing the 06 shocks/struts, I might upgrade them then. If you can afford it all in one shot, it's almost always better to do both. The TRD setup seems to be decent, though a bit overpriced (I'm a bit spoiled on my DSMs, where a decent first-level upgrade is about $800 for all 4 corners, not $1K or more).

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Pinto Girl @ Aug 17 2006, 08:02 PM) [snapback]304981[/snapback]</div>

1 - Don't know, sorry. Haven't spent the time to calibrate it yet.
2 - Not really, as he shouldn't be doing it, unless he also does alignments. Slotting should only be done when on the rack in general, so you can slot it the least amount. If you have the time to park your car, the BEST method is to get the readout on the suspension, and see if the Toyota bolts can be used to tweak it back into spec. But I was leaving on a trip a couple days later, and didn't have time for that.
3 - Insights on this, or anything? ;-) Not much on this beyond what is in the VFAQ, as there's not much else to say about it. I'd say it was definitely worth it in the end.