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Installing The Eibach Sportline Lowering Springs
Nissan is hoping that the Altima finds a niche with the tuner crowd and makes a huge splash with the younger generation that is far more car-conscious than those who buy mere transportation. It priced the car competitively at $17,900, but it’s hard to consider that $18,000 is reasonable—until you compare the Altima to what little you get out there for $17,900 nowadays.
To sweeten the pot, the new sport sedan offers drivers up to 245 hp, which means a lot of “spirit” for starters. With such a sporty car now coming to club meetings and compact car shows, the need for a suspension upgrade was imminent, not only for looks, but for all-around performance.
No sport compact car is complete without a lowered suspension. Not only does the lowered look fit with today’s ideal model of what a sport compact car should be, suspension upgrades actually serve a worthwhile purpose, too. A lowered suspension helps alleviate troublesome symptoms, dreaded body roll and sloppy handling. It goes without saying that not all suspension upgrades are created equal and while it’s easy to get that ground-hugging appearance, doing it with delight and a happy driving experience is a bit more elusive.
When given the task of lowering the new Altima, Eibach Springs and Network Alignment managed to tackle the challenge together and turn an ordinary-looking Altima into a much sportier package. Known for its great reputation within the racing community and aftermarket industry, Eibach makes several different spring assemblies aside from race springs and at various rates, lengths and ride stiffness. Depending on the requirements and intended use, Eibach has the full capability of sending you a spring that fits your needs.
Since the Altima install shown here was designed primarily for the street and the show circuit, it was decided that the Eibach Sport spring would do the trick. This gives racecar-like handling, but at a much more reasonable price than a full race setup. Installation is nothing more than what you would expect when changing a set of springs and that does not require a great deal of experience. It is, however, recommended that a professional shop do the installation, should you have little or no experience with such things.
Walk through the installation with us while we illustrate the necessary steps to install the Eibach Sportline kit—then decide if it is something that you can tackle or should have done professionally.
Before front suspension component removal, the brake line and sway bar linkage were removed and set aside. This is necessary because both are attached to the strut assembly, which will also need to be removed.
To replace the spring, the factory strut assembly is removed. To accomplish this, the two lower bolts are loosened and removed, followed by the three upper attachment tower bolts located in the engine compartment. Once the bolts are removed, the strut assembly is easily lifted out of the Altima.
