Mods, if I'm missing a review thread for these gen 2 coils elsewhere, feel free to move this.

Just wanted to share my experience with the new XIDA setup from 949. With the K24 swap, it became very clear that the basic street Koni/GC setup was not up to par for track duty with the additional power. And as some of you may know, 95% of my track experience is with Hondas, so instead of re-inventing the wheel with a Miata, I asked Emilio for a bit of advice.

Overall couldn't be happier with the setup. I just installed them this week and aligned the car, along with fresh bushings and bigger sways per Emilio's recommendation. I went with 700/400 rates, and ran them on 225 NT01s. I may play with other rates in the future.

The new setup was such a dramatic improvement, and I noticed it just driving up and down the street after installation. On track, I no longer had to baby the throttle through corner exit. I could once again drive the car like a "normal" Miata, where you brake, turn in, and immediately plant the throttle with confidence. Lateral grip was significantly improved. The perceived bumpsteer that I had with the old setup basically disappeared as well, despite me lowering the car a bit more to pick up the camber. Overall, the car is now so confidence inspiring, it just asks you to push it harder and harder, and it sticks every time.

Car is set at 4" pinch weld height, with -2.7 degrees of camber all around (best we could do, although I wanted more up front).

Anyone else have any experiences on the gen 2s to share? I'm very pleased.

 

I just installed mine last week and took the car to the track for the first time this weekend too. This is my first experience with shocks nicer than basic konis/bilsteins, but... wow. I was always pretty happy with my old bilsteins, but these were a huge improvement. I drove the car to the track and back (3.5 hours each way) with 1000lb springs on the front, and the ride was WAY better than my old 550/325 and 700/400 bilstein setups. Very pleased so far!

 

I (once again) have made too many major changes all at once trying to prep the car for Laguna Seca and haven't found the right balance yet. But my Xidas helped me get under the spec Miata record last week for the first time. So I'd say things are getting pretty serious.

 

Excited to hear more about your K-swaps as well! We would really like to prove one in an endurance racing format

FYI You can pickup more camber using some simple offset bushings from ISC, be sure to secure them from turning around in there and watch your offset less you get rubbing but the small diameter Xidas shouldn't have an issue!

 

Damn, I am still torn between Xidas and FCM....

 

Are you really asking that? The Xidas win hands down.

 

Is your limited camber a year & model thing? I just dropped my NA on Gen-2's to the same 4" pinch height and had just over -4 degrees up front. Pulled it back to -3.3/-2.7.

Running 800/450 with 225 A6's & 9" Konig. Too early for conclusions.

 

Thanks, yes we have a couple customers in our next production run who want to run a K setup in an enduro.

Emilio told me the ISC bushings don't work well with 15x9s at that ride height. Anyone have experience with this?

I think my NB is just weird, because your numbers seem much more in line with what you'd expect for camber. And I've had the same issue with the OEM subframe and the K Miata tubular subframe, and no idea why.

 

You have bent upper control arms.

 

Not that I'm aware of. I just had all the arms off the car for new bushings. Cleaned, sanded, painted, spent some time with them. New long-bolts. Plus I've been in contact with STS guys here who had similar measurements, so I'm not the only one.

 

There's no way to get that much camber at that ride height with all stock parts. But getting it with upper control arms that were bent on purpose is nothing unusual.

 

interested in someone doing a Xida gen1 vs gen 2 comparison. I love my gen1 Xidas, hard to imagine they could get any better

 

Gen 2 Xida F-V plot. For those of you that know what you are looking at, yes those are DDP's, 46mm to be exact. The gen 2 features even greater range than the semi-legendary gen 1's. The adjuster now has 10 more clicks with that greater range so granularity (usefulness of adjustments) remains the same. Crosstalk, hysteresis match or improve upon gen 1's. We managed to actually improve ride quality on the softest settings on street tires with softer springs while further optimizing low and high speed damping curves for ultra high grip 225~275 Hoosiers and monster 1000lb front springs. Later we will have the remote electronically adjustable semi-active Xidas ready and these gen 2's can be upgraded to electronic.

 

Spoke with a certain someone on team NAMCO racing who works at HVT (they worked with 949 when developing the Xidas).

Had nothing but great things to say, I am kinda regretting not waiting a month or two for the Gen 2s when I bought my Gen 1s.

 

Didn't realize you were moving to a DDP architecture, oh the glory. Love that attainable rebound curve!

 

That was always the next step. It was what kept us from dialing in the gen 1 damping for higher spring rates. Going to to the DDP allowed us to really control 1000# springs on a 1900-2500lb car and still have the same high speed rebound we did 5-10 clicks back. As good as the gen 1's are, the gen 2's will do things the gen 1's can't.

 

Electronic adjustablitity will be great for the rear shocks! I will be able to put the trunk liner panels back in my car

I have been experimenting with the damper adjustments for street driving, and with my fairly soft springs I find that around 7 clicks stiffer than full soft is a good compromise for mostly smooth roads, and I just slow down a bit for rougher pavement. Anything near full soft they seem underdamped, 10 is great for smooth roads, but too much for roads that are not so smooth. So I settled on 7 clicks for now If I get stiffer springs later I will experiment with clicks 11 through 20

Keith

PS: Any shock dyno sheets showing the stock NB1 shocks? Not important, just curious.

 

GPS area controlled settings?

No need to manually adjust between track and street... (or different corners of course)

Now where is that Arduino project with a multi channel relay box with GPS control?

 

This is closer than you think

 

We can do this, We have the technology.

I'm currently reading GPS data into a National Instruments device and can plot latitude and longitude as xy coordinates. If I know what signal the shock controller uses its shouldn't be difficult to actuate it. The problem is making a map of every single track and knowing what is the optimum shock setting is for each corner and programing that. It actually sounds more and more doable the more I think about it.

Emilio what is the control method for the electronic adjustable shocks? Some kind of stepper or servo motor?