My S5 N/A's head bounces so severely that it's almost comical. The question is, given that I am on a budget, would it be a better bet to change the front struts or the springs if changing both is out of question?

 

Your car has a head?

It's the struts/shocks.

 

+1 on shocks / struts.

Springs determine how much weight is transfered while shocks determine how quickly it's transfered. You basically have no dampening to your transfer of weight (nothing is in place to slow the transfer) so you constantly bounce due to bad shocks.

 

If you're on stock suspension, just get new shocks. Springs dont really go bad. Your car is bouncy cause of blown shock most likely. If you're trying to get something decent for your money, get a Tokico blue which is slightly better than stock but not too aggressive.

 

if you get new springs it won't fix it.

you can get new shocks for like $50 each and replace them yourself.

KYB GR-2s have a lifetime warranty

 

I'm having the same issue on my '86. Its difficult sorting through all of the performance stuff to find something more applicable to a daily driver.

I'm curious if anyone has any experience with Monroe struts, as they appear to be the budget buy at around $45.

Where can one find gr-2's for $50 a piece? Im finding them more around $75/shot.

 

Monroe Crapmatics, I assume you're asking about? Which tells you my opinion of them. Over the years I've had at least 5 of them fail on daily drivers (a Jetta GLi, Mazda 626, and a 200SX), all within 13-18 months of install, without a lot of miles or hard driving. Lasted just long enough to get past warranty. I went with them several times over a number of years, mostly because they were readily available and cheap, but after being bit a few times, I finally figured out sometimes cheap isn't.

If money's tight, go for the GR-2's - a decent strut at not much over what the Monroes cost; GR-2s are roughly comparable with the factory struts, which are themselves good ones, the GR-2s may be a little firmer than stock (they were for my wife's Saturn SL2. I have KYB AGXs on my heavily autocrossed RX-7 so I don't know about the GR2 on a 7). And the lifetime warranty is both an indicator of better quality, and actually useful. Both fronts blew on the wife's Saturn after about 40,000kms - I suspect a bad batch, but I did rallycross the car a few times, so they did suffer some abuse. The warranty replacements have been on the car for ~70K kms now, and they're still tight and with good control.

 

Better springs without shocks will even make it worse. +5 Get new shocks. Or both . I mean, it's about the same labor whether you do shocks only or springs and shocks, so if you want to upgrade everything eventually you might as well do it all at once.

Tokico blues are good on stock or mildly upgraded springs. Or even new stock shocks will be a dramatic improvement over worn out shocks. If you get adjustable you can't make it too much stiffer than stock until you get new springs. Soft springs + stiff shocks = short shock life.

 

Motor mounts.. since you say the engine's head bounces.

 

Must be a piston swap, if the engine has a head

 

If I understand correctly bad motor mounts would only cause heavy vibration, not bouncing. And you could tell the difference easily because bouncing happens on bumps and vibration happens the more you rev it.

Oh and I noticed the OP was thinking of only doing the front. I'd consider doing the rear at the same time or if not then soon after. Otherwise on a hard turn your tail will break loose before the front, and then fun things happen.

 

Answers like this are the reason i use this forum. thanks for the recommendation.

 

Pardon my English, by "head" I meant "front".

I ended up purchasing a whole set of KYB AGXs and Eibach non-Turbos from a forum member for a very reasonable price. So much better.