Spoon Sports’ Rigid Subframe Collars are one of the most cost effective upgrades available for almost every car on the road, offering improvement to your driving experience in everything from normal road use daily drivers, all the way through to out and out track use cars.
These high grade, highly durable, aluminium collars offer a simple, reasonably easy to fit and low cost solution to a common problem with modern vehicles.
So, why do they exist?
When cars are built, the engine and suspension are usually pre-mounted to the subframe and the body is then lowered over them before they’re bolted together. In an effort to improve productivity and efficiency in their production chain, manufacturers often use a larger hole in both the subframe and the chassis than is actually necessary for the subframe bolt in order to reduce the manufacturing time as it means the subframe requires less alignment to be secured to the chassis, which saves them time. However, this creates a large gap around the subframe bolts. This gap allows for movement between the chassis and the subframe, which commonly leads to vibration and movement between these two major parts of the car, even under normal road use at low speed.
How do Rigid Collars fix this?
Spoon Sport’s Rigid Collars offer an effective solution to this by sliding over the bolt and fitting between the subframe and the chassis to fill those manufacturing tolerances. The vertical section of the collar slots on a taper into the chassis and the subframe, reducing lateral movement around the bolt and centring the subframe much more precisely onto the chassis - this in turn offers a significant improvement in alignment consistency and overall rigidity. Further to that, the aluminium Rigid Collar’s horizontal base offers a second function. As both the subframe and the chassis are usually steel, unless the mating surfaces are perfectly flat, which is a very uncommon occurrence, they won’t sit perfectly flush against each other. When you install Rigid Collars, the soft aluminium base plate will form itself into the profiles of the steel faces of both the chassis and subframe as the subframe bolts are tightened. As a result, the collar effectively sandwiches the subframe and chassis together much more tightly, almost entirely removing unwanted movement between the two and dramatically improving the surface contact points. This helps them act much more like one part working in harmony, rather than two parts working against each other. The end result is about as close as you can come to welding the subframe to the chassis - a practice that’s generally only reserved for motorsport.
Installation
In many cases, installation in a workshop is reasonably simple - it involves unbolting and lowering the subframe by around 40mm to allow for the collars to be inserted into the subframe. The bolts can then be refitted and the whole assembly can be lifted back up and bolted to the chassis. Contrary to common belief, you don’t actually need to completely remove the subframe and the components mounted onto it - you just have to temporarily lower it, which can often be done without having to disconnect parts such as the exhaust or driveshafts. It’s important that a full 4 wheel alignment is carried out afterwards to ensure your alignment is correct. Any movement of the subframes will change your wheel alignment settings and that must be corrected to get the full benefit of the upgrade. Furthermore, your existing wheel alignment will have accounted for the subframe misalignment that your new Rigid Collars will have now corrected.
The Results
From almost every angle, having a tighter chassis will improve your car. Once you then get out onto the road, you should feel a significant enhancement in straight line stability, most notably a huge reduction in the amount of steering correction required to keep the car straight over bumps, as your suspension can work as it was designed to without being countered by subframe movement. This additionally reduces jolts from bumps, and allows for more confident, and crucially, much smoother driving - and as everyone knows, smoother driving is generally safer and often allows you to be faster. Overall, the result of these collars is remarkable - you can expect an improvement in chassis rigidity, and a much more consistent wheel alignment whilst driving, even when going over bumps at any speed. This leads to a much more predictable driving experience, better ride quality and noticeably improved steering feel.
You don’t even need to own a Honda. Whilst Spoon Sports are globally renowned for their high grade Honda tuning, the Rigid Collars are also available for non-Honda models, including various Nissans, Toyotas, and Mitsubishis, and also a host of European models including vehicles from Audi, BMW, Porsche, Mercedes, Alfa Romeo, Renault, Volvo and more!
For more information, please find the full range listed on our website here.