Hello, Thank you for purchasing one of our lift kit products. PLEASE READ THIS GUIDE IN ITS ENTIRIETY BEFORE PROCEEDING TO INSTALLATION! This guide will help you install your basic lift kit or leveling kit. While you do not need to be a master mechanic to install this kit, you should have at least used a wrench before. Also, please read the CV joint supplement document available on our website to help prevent excessive wear on your CV joints. WARNING! A HIGHER RIDE INCREASES ROLLOVER RISK!!! By attempting to install this kit you understand that you are mechanically competent and can be responsible for your own safety. The end user also recognizes that working on any car can be dangerous; that everything about mechanical work has the potential to hurt or kill you, and that mechanical work is dangerous whether or not you follow this guide. Products sold on this website space the strut from the chassis to generate a lifting effect on the chassis, the end user recognizes this method of lift as their own idea, thereby claiming any damage, incident, physical or personal harm resultant from purchasing, installing, or operating a vehicle in which the product(s) is/are installed, as their own doing and as their own responsibility. This kit has not been tested by any safety organization and is not legally approved for cars operating on normal roads. Any misalignment in the tires or headlamp/ license plate height issues are the sole responsibility of the end user. Cars break naturally of their own accord, the end user agrees this is the truth and that any mechanical problems or breakdowns of the car this kit is installed on following installation are due solely to chance or failure of the user to properly install the kit. Follow all manufacturer or tool instructions where applicable. Professional installation is highly recommended, read all installation files or forward them to your installer. With that said, you are solely and personally responsible for any pain, damage, injury, death, that happen as a result of purchasing, installing, acting on advice obtained from the installation or technical files available on this website, or mimicking any products on this website. All provided mechanical documentation found here is to be taken as advice only and know that whatever you do, under guidance of any content contained here in this website or presented electronically or otherwise, is your own personal responsibility and nobody other than yourself can be held accountable for your actions. Never let advice trump your common sense. All risks accompanying the use of products on this website, including but not limited to, mechanical failure, auto accidents, premature wear of vehicle components, or any injury/death/dismemberment to oneself or other or damage of property are hereby agreed to as inherent to the nature of the products on this website and thereby purchaser, user, and/or installer of this product will hold legally exempt Colorado Mountain Rally, any of its employees, assets, or relations, from any legal, financial, or representational ramification. Purchaser, user, and/or installer further declares, by a successful purchase or installation, that they were presented an opportunity to view this disclaimer either by its presence in the installation files, a link presented during checkout, as an available link on the website, or otherwise an thereby willingly agrees and is bound by all stipulations in this legal contract.
This install is pictured on a Honda CR-V from the 1997-2001 generation. Your car may be slightly different but the principles are the same and components should be located in about the same place. Here are the different kits. Pictured left is the lift kit with the standard install option, right is the leveling kit. All of them work by increasing the distance between the body and the control arm, but in slightly different ways. Here is the install procedure: 1. Get your tools together. At the bare minimum I recommend a 17mm wrench, a 14 mm socket, a crescent wrench, a flat head screw driver, a hammer, penetrating catalyst (especially for cars operating in humid or salty environments), safety glasses, a file, and the spare tire jack and lug wrench from your car. The crescent wrench is an easy substitute for other flat wrenches but you may find it easier to also have a 10mm and 12mm wrench handy. I also highly recommend a professional jack, jack stands, and wheel blocks, as well as a torque wrench (rented for free at auto parts stores or $20 at Wal-Mart), flash light, and a full socket set. To install the standard lift kit you will also need spring compressors, rented for free at auto parts stores, not needed to install the leveling kit. You can get by with less than what is pictured but trust me when I say these tools or some equivalent are going to make your life easier. Not pictured is Loctite, a thread locking compound available at hardware stores. You will need to apply Loctite to all the bolts before torqueing them to spec. This will prevent the bolts from loosening over time.
2. Get your jack out and jack up the car. There are two points indicated by arrows under the frame where you should make contact with the jack. Here are pictures of the front (left) and back (right). When you are jacking up the car, raise the jack until some weight is off the tire but the tire is still touching the ground. This is when you will de torque the lug nuts, so loosen them without taking them off. Then jack your car the rest of the way until the tire is off the ground a little, now take off the lug nuts and take off the tire. Raise the jack stand and let gently set the car on the jack stand. Remember that when you are supporting a load, only support at strong points in the chassis frame. Jack stands are the safest way to support a load, so please use them for your own safety. There is no particular order you have to go in, but we will start with the driver side front tire. 3. The next step is to loosen the upper strut mounting nuts. Pop up your hood and look above the tire. The 14mm upper strut mount flange nuts (top picture) will be under a little black box. This little box can be moved if you take out the 10mm bolt that secures it (bottom picture).
Completely remove the 14mm upper flange nuts and keep them in a safe place, they tend to roll easily. Because of the lower tension from the sway bar, your struts will not drop out of place yet. 4. Before going any further be advised that when installing the lift kit and once the kit is installed, only work on one side of the vehicle at a time in order to avoid dislocating the CV joints during the install. This only applies if you are using a floor jack, hydraulic scissor lifts that lift the car all at once should be okay but we still recommend only working on one side at a time. On to the strut top, also called the upper spring seat or strut mount. The easiest way to get the strut to come away from the chassis is by removing the two 12mm sway bar to chassis nuts (red arrows bottom picture, do not remove the 14mm linkage bolts because they are a pain in the ass). This is where the penetrating catalyst is really handy, especially if there is a lot of corrosion on your chassis from winter driving or living in a coastal region. I think these bolts are undersized because they cannot always withstand the removal torque and shear, using the penetrating catalyst reduces the chance of this. Nothing will ruin your day faster
than a sheared sway bar bolt, which means you have to drill out the old bolt and re tap the hole. If you haven t already, go get some of the PB penetrating catalyst and blast these bolts with it. For best results, wait two minutes then lightly tap the bolts with a hammer and blast them again. Wait another two minutes and lightly tap them again and you should be good to go. Also I recommend you remove the two 10mm bolts that secure your ABS sensor cable (blue arrows top picture) and the securing tab from your brake line (green arrow top picture). This will avoid stressing the cables when the lower control arm drops. The securing tab is a little bent tab that holds a flange edge on the brake line flush with the mounting surface. There will be a little tab you can remove by pulling it with the crescent wrench, a pair of pliers, the flat head screw driver, or by lightly hammering it. 5. After the sway bar is disconnected from the chassis, you should be able to push down on the brake rotor and the strut mount will come down from the chassis. If you are installing a front leveling kit, simply slide the leveling disc onto the top of the strut tower. You will notice the holes are more beveled in on one side; this is the side that sits flush with the upper spring seat. The holes in the disc are for those top two bolts to go through so that the disc will sit flush on top of the strut mount. After that, push the two bolts on the strut top back through the two holes in the chassis and re-install.
If you cannot fit the spacer on top of the strut, look at part six. For the lift kits you will need to remove the front struts from the car. Depending on your car you may have the clearance to do this by only removing the 14mm fork pinch bolt (blue arrow bottom picture) but be emotionally prepared to remove the 17mm fork through bolt (green arrow bottom picture, note that the through bolt also has a 17mm nut on the other side that will have to be secured in order to de torque the bolt). I also recommend using the PB penetrating catalyst on these bolts as well. After removing one or both of these bolts, the strut assembly will now come out from the fork and out from the chassis. I recommend you take it out on the forward side of the control arm because that s the easier side. 6. For the lift kits you will need to take the original flange nuts from inside your engine compartment and use these to secure the lift spacer to the top of the strut. The new set of nuts and lock washers will be used in the engine compartment. Due to corrosion, you will most likely need to sand or file this corrosion off the edge/ rim of the flange nuts until the edges are shiny again (the flange is the part that looks like an integrated washer, you do not need to file the hex head). Now depending on which manufacturer made your upper strut hardware, you may have to do some more filing. Some manufacturers, like KYB, have points on their upper hardware. You will need to file these points slightly so they fit in the donut hole of the spacer.
7. Once the spacer is snugly fit on top of the strut, use the original flange nuts to secure the spacer by threading them onto the studs in the recessed holes. As mentioned earlier, you will likely have to sand or file the corrosion from the edges of the flange nuts so they will fit comfortably in the recessed holes on the spacer. Refer to the torque index at the end of this guide for proper tightening torque. 8. Step 8 is not necessary or recommended; this is just for your information in case you are having trouble with the install. Here is a way to install the spacers on the front axle without needing to rotate the upper spring seat. Rotating the upper spring seat is a more sturdy install, but consider this as a last
ditch alternative in your tool box. This small flange normally sits between the two pinch points in the lower fork. In order to rotate the upper spring seats without using spring compressors you need to bend this little flange out of the way. Otherwise, your strut will not sit deep enough in your fork to be secured by the pinch nut and that is bad. Take a flat head screw driver and wedge it between this small tooth and the body of the strut. This little piece of metal will bend away from the body. Bend this little tooth to at least the point where it is perpendicular to the strut. Alternatively you can simply file or cut this piece off, just be extraordinarily careful not to damage the strut body because it is filled with compressed gas and you do not want to rupture it as it could explode. Now take the strut and re-install it. Install the strut from the forward side of the control arm and rotate it 90 degrees so the bolts from the spacer go up through the two holes in the chassis. Tighten the nuts and washers in the engine compartment so the strut will not fall down when you let go of it, tighten these bolts the same as you did for mounting the spacer on the top of the strut. Re-install the fork by first seating the strut into the upper part of the fork and re tighten the pinch bolt. When you re-install the
pinch bolt, take a few extra washers and wedge them in the little groove in the upper part of the lower fork, where the pinch bolt goes through. The little tab that normally sits in this groove has been bent out of the way, so this will ensure that when you torque the pinch bolt the grip is applied evenly on your strut housing. 9. For the recommended installation, use the spring compressors to tighten the coil spring. This picture is from the rear suspension but place the spring compressors as they are pictured here. Tighten the spring compressors by turning the hex heads to the right. Every set of compressors is different, so be sure to look at the instructions and heed any warnings. DO NOT use power tools on spring compressors! Tighten a little on each side and alternate frequently. In about five or ten minutes, you should have the springs down enough to rotate the upper seat 90 degrees. In the picture above the upper spring seat has already been rotated. This step allows the bolts in the spacer to go up through the holes in the chassis. QUICK NOTE: If you are having trouble getting the strut to fit between the control arm and chassis once the spacer is installed, you can keep the spring compressed with the spring compressors. This will allow the strut to be compressed and the total length of the strut assembly will be decreased while reinstalling. This will allow for the easiest install once the spacer is securely torqued to the upper spring seat. 10. Re-install the strut, fork, and sway bar assemblies by performing the reverse of the removal. If your bolts are highly corroded, I suggest cleaning them off with the PB and brushing them with a steel brush. You also may want to consider using some WD-40 on the bolts when you re-install. Use the tightening toque specs from the appendix at the end of this guide. Also remember that with corrosion the bolt can reach its torque before it is flush with the mounting surface, so be sure that all bolts and nuts are flush with a surface before torqueing them. The hardest part of the reinstallation on the front is putting the fork-through bolt through the control arm. If you did not remove the sway bar you can carefully push down on the brake rotor to get the holes of the fork end to align with the hole in the control arm. If you did remove the sway bar then the holes should easily align. Be sure all the bolts you removed or de-torqued are tightened to spec and reinstall your tire and tighten the lug nuts. Carefully
remove the jack stands and let the car down slowly, remember to torque your lug nuts the rest of the way after the car is on the ground. Once your lug nuts are tight, set the car down the rest of the way and pat yourself on the back, the front is the hardest part! 11. Now move to the rear axle. Jack up the car and remove the wheel using the same protocol as before. Use a flathead screw driver to remove the upper strut panels from your car interior, they are here. 14mm upper bolts. Remove the two 12. Next you need to remove the 12mm sway bar to chassis mount bolts (red) and the two 14mm upper control arm bolts (blue). Also remove the two upper control arm bolts (green). Again use the same protocol with the penetrating catalyst in order to prevent shearing or stripping. Here is what the sway
bar bracket looks like if you crawl under the car, assuming that you have the car properly supported on jack stands. After you have removed these six bolts the control arm will drop away from the body and the strut will fall down from the chassis. For the rear you do not need to remove the through bolt because there is enough clearance on the top of the strut if you rotate it out into the wheel well. If for whatever reason you feel like you can t get the clearance, know now that through bolt is a pain in the ass and I highly recommend you find a way to avoid taking it out, especially if there is a lot of rust under your chassis. I was able to do this install without removing the strut assembly. Here is what it will look like now.
Note the gap between the chassis and the top of the strut. Now use the procedure from step 9 to compress the spring and rotate the upper seat using the spring compressors. Once the spacers are secure, line up the studs on the spacer to go through the two holes in the chassis. Once the bolts are through the holes you can go back into the interior of the car and tighten the top nuts and lock washers. Tighten to spec.
13. In either case, you should now have the spacer securely mounted to the top of the spring seat and the strut re-aligned in the wheel well. The next step is to get the control arm and sway bar reconnected to the chassis. Do not try to muscle this one in, I recommend the use of the jack again. Also you have the same option that was mentioned earlier, leave the spring compressed with the spring compressors which will allow you to compress the strut and shorten the strut assembly without fighting the tension of the coil spring. Otherwise, with your car properly supported on a jack stand, you can take out the jack from under the car and re-position it so that it is lifting the point where the strut meets the control arm at the through bolt, the bolt that I recommended not to remove. Now remember that you are using a hydraulic jack against the active tension of the coil spring, BE CAREFUL! Before you do this be sure the upper spring seat is connected to the chassis through those bolt holes, you do not want the upper seat to come loose while you are jacking the strut back into place. When jacking up at this point, the control arm will start to come back into range. Keep jacking up until the two upper control arm bolts align with their threaded mounting holes. Tighten these bolts per spec as given in the appendix. Also reinstall and tighten the sway bar mounting bolts. Once all four bolts are reinstalled, it is safe to SLOWLY let the jack back down. Use the protocol from earlier to lower and re-install the wheel, and be sure to double check that all your bolts are torqued to the right spec. Torque specs:
GOOD LUCK! a. All upper strut nuts/ spacer nuts are 28 ft lbs b. Damper pinch/ fork upper pinch bolt is 32 ft lbs c. Damper through on the front is 47 ft lbs d. All sway bar mounts are 16 ft lbs e. The rear upper control arm bolts are 40 ft lbs f. The lug nuts for the tires are 80 ft lbs g. If you do not have a torque wrench, find some kind of table online to approximate how many fractions of a turn past hand tight are roughly equal to these torque values, I recommend a torque wrench so find these substitutes at your own risk.