anyone know bout shocks/springs? whats good/bad?

Group buy is a purchase set up by a fellow CB5er with either a manufacturer or distributor that provides a discount when an item is purchased in bulk (usually 10 or more). If you go to the GB section, look for the group buys set up by S_Klass for Neuspeed springs and Koni shocks - this is a really good set-up and there are a couple of variations on it depending upon how you'd like the ride and how much drop you want. If you can tell us a bit more about what you're looking for we can provide more insight.

Regarding using stock shocks with the Neuspeed shocks. I have the stock shocks on mine with the Neuspeed Softsports. The softsports provide less drop so I was comfortable going with stock shocks but know this is a short term thing as I'll upgrade to the Konis within 15-20k miles (1 year for me). The stock shocks only had 7k miles on them btw.

Most folks on here will recommend doing both at the same time to save the labor charge but since you're doing it yourself, you can decide for yourself if you have the $$$ to do both right away. If not, plan on a much shorter life for the stock shocks and a quicker upgrade than if you left it all alone.

Nice to hear from a local Houstonian. Below are the current active GBs:

FK Suspensions

Neuspeed Spring

Koni Adjustable Shocks

Neuspeed Bilstein Sport Shocks

Good luck

I've posted numerous times in the past on this. Lower and/or stiffer springs will not wear out shocks faster unless you left off the bumpstops and kept bottoming the shock piston. That's a wive's tale. However, your OE shocks weren't even adequate for the OE springs and the B5's unsprung mass, and the stiffern springs are only going to make the mismatch worse. So it's recommended to do shocks with springs, or shocks without changing springs even. Furthermore, I would recommend changing only the fronts to stiffer shocks such as Bilsteins or Konis. The rear of a B5 is so lightly loaded and so stiff in roll resistance and shock damping that it already rides rough. I have my OE shocks on the back, Bislteins on the front, a rear SRS swaybar, and 1BE springs all around, and things are good. You already have front coilover shock/spring setups. To say "get them" is redundant, but what was meant was "get pimpy adjustable-preload coilovers that come with springs and shocks together." That's a very expensive way to get adjustability you can't use. These setups aren't magic at all, and their main advantage would be to allow you to adjust ride height and/or corner weights. Problem is, without access to a very expensive and perfectly set up set of wheel scales, you can't set them up properly. Search my other posts for more detail on this.

PS - I'm also a Houston-area guy.