Eibach Spring Pro-Kit Set Focus RS 2016-2018

By now, we all know that the Focus RS is an excellent performance car right out of the box with its turbo charged engine, all-wheel drive and excellent chassis. This car's at home on a road course or an auto cross.

There's one complaint a lot of RS owners have though. It is the ride height as this car does tend to sit a little bit on the higher side. We all know lowering the car, lowering the center of gravity, is going to increase performance even further. Today we're going to install Eibach Pro-Kit lowering springs on our Focus RS.

The Eibach Pro-Kit springs are an excellent choice for our RS because they're going to lower the car, improving the center of gravity, but the same time not sacrificing ride quality. These springs are going to give you approximately a .7 inch drop in the front and a 1 inch drop in the back so it will lower the car which will look better and perform better, but it's not going to slam into the ground, it's not going to give you any kind of issues with too much negative camber or any kind of clearance problems.

For this installation, need a lift and pole jack, or a jack and jack stands, three-eighth ratchet, 8mm socket, 10mm socket, 13mm socket, 15mm socket, 5mm Allen key, T30 torque bit, short extension, half inch ratchet, 15mm socket, 19mm socket, 15mm wrench, 18mm wrench, panel removal tool, clip removal tool or small flat-head screwdriver, pry bar, and a spring compressor.

Freddy here is going to give me some help with the installation. Have you ever done a Focus ST? The springs on the RS are basically the same thing. You've done the ST, you know how much fun it is to separate the spindle from the strut. We'll let Freddy have that fun for me today. We're going to show you how to take it apart.

We have to remove the front strut assemblies, obviously, to take them apart. The first step is going to be to remove the cowl because the bolt for the strut assemblies are actually underneath the cowl. You can remove the whole cowl which requires removing the wipers. Honestly, I wouldn't go that route because the wipers can be a pain to put back on. What we're going to do is just remove this lower section, pull that out. That'll give us access to our struts.

We'll start with the torques bolts on each side. Once that's out of the way, we can remove this cover and access this bolt underneath. We're going to remove that next. The hardware off, now remove this seal from the front. Just press fit. Get a grip on the end, it'll slide right off. Now you can see these 4 clips behind it. They get removed next. If you don't have the proper tool, a small flat head will just do the same thing. Pull the center out and remove the clip.

With everything out of the way you can lift up the outer cowl and then remove the lower. Now you can actually see the bolts that hold the struts to the strut tower. We're not going to remove them, we're just going to loosen them up for now. With the strut tower bolt loosened up, now we can move down to the wheel well area.

Now to get the strut assembly off, we have to do a few things first to get to it. We're going to remove the brake hose by removing this bolt here, separate not only the ABS sensor, but the sway bar by removing this back here, and the last bolt is this one back here. The first few bolts off, make sure you get the clip for the ABS. Now we can move onto the bolt that holds the strut to the spindle. What we're just going to do here is to remove this bolt all the way. The strut is still pressed into the spindle so it's not going to go anywhere.

What we have to do now is actually spread this apart. There is a gap back here. You can spread that apart to separate the strut from the spindle. The easiest way to do that, this side here is not threaded. The other side is. What we're going to do is thread the bolt on the other side. We're going to put a piece of metal right in that gap. Get it so it's tight. You want to give it about 3 or 4 ratchets. You don't want to push it too far because if you get it too spread apart you'll have a hard time getting it back together. Just get it enough that it starts to spread. When you have a little bit of play in this strut you know you're good.

Now the fun part is separating this strut from the spindle itself. There's two ways you can do this. You can actually, if you want to try, you can unbolt it from the strut tower and the try to separate it that way. I found sometimes it's easier to leave those bolts loose, push down on the spindle itself with the strut attached and a lot of times you get lucky and will separate. This part is the hardest part of this installation. It definitely can be a little frustrating and it will be stubborn, but if you keep pushing down on it, get the right angle, it will come off.

I hope it comes apart for you as easy as it did for us. Now what you're going to do is remove the bolts that you loosened on the strut tower and remove the strut assembly.

Unique to the RS is the adapted suspension so you do have to trace the lineup and unplug it, then you can remove the strut assembly. To get this clip off, the first thing you have to do is pop the 2 clips off to get the cover off of it. Once you remove the cover there's just one small clip. Pull it off with your nail and separate. Now you're going to fish the wire down and we can then remove our strut.

To get the spring off the strut assembly you're going to want to use a spring compressor. You got to compress the spring so you're going to remove the nut on the top and remove the strut mount. To get the strut nut off is a little more challenging because this wire. What we're going to do is we're going to install one of the bolts for the strut down here and we're going to put a wrench on that. That will hold the strut mount and keep it from spinning then you can use the wrench to get it off.

You want to make sure you remove the entire assembly. That will actually separate from the boot, or you can pull the boot out with it and remove the spring. Now we're just going to reverse the process. Going to put the spring onto our strut assembly, we'll compress it, then reinstall the strut now.

To get this tight is a little more challenging. You do it yourself, an extra set of hands will make it easier. What we're going to do now is put 2 bolts in. Going to put a pry bar between them and use the wrench to tighten it up.

You want to install the strut, basically this bump here is going to face inward toward the engine. What you want to do now is fish the line back up through. To fish the wire through, we just dropped a piece of wire down through the hole from the top. We're going to tape it to the wire on the strut and fish it back up through. While Freddy holds the strut I'm going to get the bolt started. Now, basically, it's the reverse process of taking it apart. We're going to get the strut back in the spindle, get it back up into place, tighten everything down and move onto the other side. You want to make sure the strut does bottom out in the spindle. There is a bracket on the strut, as you're tightening it down, the strut will fall down and hit that bracket on the spindle then you can tighten it back up.

With the strut back in place, now we can put on the brake hose, ABS line, and the sway bar and link. With everything tightened down now you can move up and tighten the 3 nuts on the strut tower itself. Once that wire's reconnected we'll reinstall that mount and then repeat the process on the other side. Your installation's a little less involved. What we have to do is, basically, support this arm, move this bolt, lower the arm down, and remove the spring. Now we're going to lower this down. It should actually just come out. You may need a small pry bar if it doesn't, it looks like ours is going to cooperate, and remove the stock spring.

We're going to install the insulator on the top of the spring. You'll see there is a little cut up for it. Turn it till it locks into the spring and put it back up into place. The lower part here with the rubber insulator, you're going to turn that as well. Basically, it locks in place. There's a little tab right here. You look up you should be able to see just the tip of the spring sitting through that corner there. You do that, you know it's in place and we can jack it back up.

Getting this lined up, this can be a little bit of challenge putting it back up. You may need to use a small pry bar to line it up. What I'm doing now is using a Philips screw driver, kind of line everything up. This is kind of the harder part, to get everything right where it needs to go. Get it lined up and reinstall the bolt. We're going to repeat the process on the other side and your installation's finished.

In my opinion the Eibach Pro-Kit springs look perfect on our RS. It's low enough that you can tell it's lowered and you're going to improve performance, but it's not slammed to the ground either. It'll still align to OE specs with just a little more negative camber to make the car perform a lot better. Overall, the installation's not too bad. I figure about 3 to 4 hours and you'll be back on the road in no time.