where have you guys been all my life?

[IMURNME]

What's up everyone? I'm new to the whole "toyota" world...I'm more into hondas than anything else...I've had my solara for about a year now..haven't driven it much bc after I bought it in Alaska, I moved back down to NC and the car just sat up in AK while my parents kept an eye out on it for me...anyway, I just moved back up to AK for the winter and I was about to get rid of it bc I can't find anything for it...in fact I never even saw headers for my car until I stumbled up on this forum...anyways, I guess I might be keeping it a lil longer, given that everything works out...I'm on superhonda.com and been there for awhile so before I start asking any questions, I'll be sure to SEARCH for everything first...but if anyone wants to give any input on what kind of suspension setup I should throw on my car, by all means, go for it I'm kind of tired of feeling like I'm driving a freakin truck with my 18's on...but I'm also not looking to spend 1500 bucks on anything just yet...hopefully I'll be able to get some good help on this forum, bc I plan on having a pretty quick solara soon...if not, I guess I'll just have to throw some 20's on my solara and bag the shit out of it...thanks in advance for any help

[dwp_solara]

Heres some quick info about solaras:

The TRD kit which is made by molly designs are no longer in production. So basically you would have to by used from another fellow solaraguy or if youre really lucky and find a new one. Back then brand new would run you about $1500 then it dropped to $500ish and now its beginning to regain its value, now that it is becoming rare.I think theyre now $500-1000 range. Youre alternative to buying a trd fiberglass kit, which is poo . Does not fit right at all, just a waste of money. There are other kits , black widow, etc etc, but I dont know much about them.

Suspension:

Springs
TRD which is made by eibach
eibach
tein ( the front drops more then eibach, which makes for a better look)
vogtland
b&G
intrax

Struts
kyb -gr2
tokico
TRD made by blisten but I think are discontinued

Full Coilover setup
Tein SS
JIC flt a1 , a2
B&G s3
k sport
d2

Oh and stay away from ground control coilover, theyre just the sleeves so theyre poo


Struts
TRD rear sway
TRD front strut
White line rear sway
White line front sway
JIC front strut

okay im tired..

[IMURNME]

why are the ground control coilovers poo? when I had both my del sols I had drop zone coilovers on them, which were just the "sleeves" ( I guess that's what makes them crappy?), they didn't come with aftermarket struts or anything...I'd rather get the entire setup but I opted to just get them and see what they were like, and they were great...the sols rode fine on them, and the stance looked great...I was thinking I'd just get the GC's simply to lower the car and make it look better but it's getting ready to be winter up here in Alaska (so there's no point...if I was still in NC I wouldn't care but you know), so I'm just going to save up and get the tein ss' in the spring...same goes for whatever else I get...if I were to get racing seats or a racing steering wheel/shift knob and shift boot mods where could I find them? and can I get anything that's said to be for a corolla or anything like that? I don't see many things at all for solaras online...my interior's a tannish white color so I'm looking to go black instead...anyways thanks for the help! oh, and yeah I'm definitely gonna go with a lip kit...if I can't source a real trd lip kit, I guess I'll just get one of the knock offs on ebay or something...it's better than nothing, and besides...I think that a good body shop should be able to correct any imperfections found...so that's no big deal...

[RGB Guy]

I had coilover sleeves on my civic and it was fine. I had it slammed 3" in fact. But I wouldn't dare do that to my 3500 pound solora with a mushy suspension. Id go all out just to be safe. Honda have a much stiffer ride in comparison to Camry/Solara's. And your 2200 lb Del Sol is nothing compared to 3500 lbs...and thats with out a full tank of 18 gallons.

[dwp_solara]

Oh I didnt mean to knock on GC's but I guess it came out the wrong way. I had gc's and konis on my accord and they were great. But I had the GC's on my car and they werent what I expected. I dont think GC did all that great of a job on R&D for solaras. You can search www.solaraguy.org to get some feedback on the gc's and theyre all pretty bad. I dont think the GC's will fit the tokicos shocks and for sure it wont fit the kyb's.

For racing seats I think you might had to fab up some custom brackets, but Corbeau seats do have brackets for solaras. Steering wheel are custom fitted also, I heard that you can use celica's hub to make it fit. TRD makes a shift knob for solaras, but I do think theyre discontiuned. You can easily fit another knob on there though.

As for the trd fiberglass lip kit. If you have 99-01 then it might fit your car better then does it the 02-03. Even at that the kit was off to begin with. Whoever produced those kits, which are not in production anymore did some crappy work. The fiberglass you can see waves in them, and front and rear valances do not fit correctly and require some force and body work. Oh the the prices are almost the same. $350 for fiberglass + paint +body work = $600-800. For $800 Im pretty sure you can find one used of your color. I hope that helps.

[IMURNME]

Originally Posted by RGB Guy

I had coilover sleeves on my civic and it was fine. I had it slammed 3" in fact. But I wouldn't dare do that to my 3500 pound solora with a mushy suspension. Id go all out just to be safe. Honda have a much stiffer ride in comparison to Camry/Solara's. And your 2200 lb Del Sol is nothing compared to 3500 lbs...and thats with out a full tank of 18 gallons.

true...the stock suspension on the solara feels a little too bouncy at times...I don't like it too much...I'll just get a complete suspension setup...I'm more than likely going to get the tein ss'...thanks for the info everyone!

[SolaraTRD]

Tokico and Tein or Eibach is the way to go.

Or Bilstien and Eibach/TRD springs

If u got the $$$ might as well go for FULL Coil-over system with dampering systems


and the official MOLLY/TRD kit is the best. i heard the GC's for solara's wasn't all the great.


*Thats my car below with Tokico, Eibach and MOLLY kit. And no, my car is not multi-colored. Lol