With those rates you will probably want a stiff rear bar and a clutch pack diff.

 

Not gonna lie. I'm lit right now. I'll end up editing this tomorrow. I forget what rate I planned for the rear. I think it was 325.

Doesn't help that my friend is playing Glee music. And its taking me forever to type because my hands feel like clouds.

Edit: Its one dude singing female and male parts!! Nick Patera. Hahahahahaha

 

Have fun

 

I've had FM springs and Illuminas. It's a great combo for pounding around backroads and the best bang for the buck daily driver setup. Jumping up to Ebay coilovers brings out the harshness of the 5 setting on the Illuminas but for a budget setup it's fairly decent.

I recently swapped in rear NA Bilies with 300# springs. I feel as if the Billlies control the rear better than the Illuminas but the stiffer spring rates probably play a role as well. With ISC top hats the ride is good but can be a tad harsh over broken pavement. Not abusive by any means.

 

It's not like anything you do to a Miata is going to give you jack for ROI. You do it because you want to go faster/handle better, not because it adds monetary value to the car.

 

I will give you that, but there are enough here that do (at least need something far better than tein basics). I never said $3000.00 shocks, but good quality and pricey equipment. I had no way of knowing if you had a clue or not. I am sure there are others that would agree with me that your statement reaked of cluelessness.

I still stand by my statement that your list of shocks for a well prepared race car was moronic. I will admit that my statement of you having little experience was little moronic as well.

 

250 - racelands
300 - used bilsteins, ebay coilover 450/350 - value
400 - used FM's stage 2.5 v1
450 - tokico illumina,ebay coilover 450/350
450 - kyb agx,ebay coils,qa1 350/250,nb tophats
500 - used bilsteins, ebay collars, qa1 springs 700/400, nb top hats
595 - FM V-max
750 - koni sports, collars, qa1 springs
800 - revalved bilsteins, ebay collars, qa1 springs 700/400, nb top hats
800 - used tein flex - value
850 - tein basic
900 - Megan Racing Street ('90-'05, new)
930 - P5 sportdrive
940 - FM's stage 1.5 v2
1000 - D2 custom valved and sprung
1100 - tein ss
1129 - Stance GR+
1200 - koni race, collars, qa1 springs - value, better than flex IMO
1400 - bilstein pss9
1500 - tein flex
1650 - fatcat - the best street setup money can buy
1799 - Xida CS *
1800 - tein mono flex
1900 - jic magic a2
2000 - afco
2100 - v2 fatcats
2350 - Ohlins PCV
2700 - xida s
3000 - Ohlins DFV
3600 - Moton Club Sports
3700?- JRZ Double Adjustable
3800 - xida - the best money can buy
3960 - Koni 2812


$900 new - Megan Racing Street : http://www.street-power.com/meramamimx58.html There's quite a few local Miata's (and one S2000) that currently run these on the track and love them.

 

Somehow we are getting into a pissing match.

I believe the whole point of this thread is that each one of us on this site has a shock perfect for us which ranges from cheapest worst performing shock to the highest dollar shock.

A daily driver has his needs, and I guy like Savington has his needs. Yours is obviously somewhere in between. This thread lists them nicely and discusses some of the values and drawbacks that each possess.

 

Ok, I'm bored.

Pat you probably need to stick to rebuilding those deisels engines in Atlanta, then giving us suspension advice. Going to runoffs once in your life in 94 is cool, but the car has evolved a little since then. Here are my favorite quotes from you from miata.net

"I don't like the Raceland upper seat. It's designed to sit against the steel NA top hat. I think this is going to cause NVH. -"

"My tires are no name Chinese imports"

"I'm kinda impressed with the Doral SDL 185/60-14"

"Springs are over rated. Just get some good progressive bump stops and call it done "

http://forums.sbo.sailboatowners.com...ad.php?t=72537 lol

I've actually sailed Lake Lanier many times. We had a 28' Pearon out there, in fact I bet it is still out there, anyways. Pat, you sound like a nice guy, your a bit over your head here. There is no way in hell your Rocckkker coilovers are close to anything we are discussing, and I'm not even hating on cheap suspension.

 

Hustler, can you give 90r a "last place 1994 SCCA Runoffs" ribbon avatar.

 

It's economies of scale. JRZ and Ohlins cost more since they are better made than other brands and since they sell less(and the profit per unit is probably higher than the Bilstein retails for). If the market for them was bigger they could sell them at a lower price. The Bilsteins are inexpensive and they sell a boatload of them to Spec Miata racers since that class has created a demand for them. That's possibly why Bilstein never changed the NA valving.

Any $2000 coilover is aiming at a small target market. FM sells more Illuminas than they do AFCOs.

 

Not really. There's no new ground in it.

 

Because some of us are good enough to extract the benefits that a $3000 or $4000 coilover has to offer over an $800 coilover. I've driven a dozen different suspension setups in NA Miatas, everything from $300 Racelands to $3700 XIDA double-adjustables and lots of stuff in between, and I know exactly what the benefits of a good damper are. Making blanket statements like "$3700 coilovers don't make cars faster" is beyond idiotic.

No new ground in the NA chassis? Cali crew has dropped every single Miata lap record at every single Cali track in the last 2 years, and we're not done yet. 2011 is going to be absolutely wacky.

The mistake you've made here is assuming that we all suck at driving, none of us get seat time, etc. - if you spent more time here you'd understand how utterly false that assumption is.

 

So, you're talking about my car? I've been driving my car to and from the track for the last two years, winning at HPDE.

Actually, I'm driving it to and from the track to hopefully go "mid-pack" in TTB next season. Still a street car, still drives to the office a couple days per week, still absurdly fast at the track a couple days per month.

 

For a street legal Miata that sees some track duty, which would improve times more-stiffer springrates/better coilovers or areo, wings, splitters, under tray?

 

that would partially depend on power and what level of suspension you already have/are going to. im most cases suspension wins.

 

Well, to disagree with 90R, I drive my car exclusively on the street, and its running with stock power, on moderately sized good all season tires. So clearly I don't actually go that fast. Let me point out that I am planning on FI, I just don't have the money yet. I am going after chassis, then suspension, then brakes, then power in that order very intentionally.

However,

The OE suspension left a hell of lot to be desired. The first thing I did when I got the car was replace the blown stock shocks with AGX units, which were ok. I found that the car had delayed reactions to steering inputs, I identified this as largely due to worn OE bushings. I replaced my bushings with new ones from ES and the car started reacting more quickly to my inputs. It took a lot less time to "take a set in a corner". After that I investigated chassis flex and determined that with less flex I could use softer springs, which in turn would allow me to use more suspension travel to absorb road imperfections, hence keep the tires on the road. Since I drive a lot of roads with bumps and potholes this was a critical realization. So I put in the FM butterfly, and it helped a good deal. The car no longer felt like it was about to die going over rough roads. Then I decided that I really wanted more steering feedback, so I depowered the steering rack. There was some play so I rebuilt another rack and had the input pinion shaft welded. That helped a lot.

Then came suspension...

After about 8-10 months of reading and research I decided to go with a set of FCM non-adjustable coil overs. I ended up with 375/275 springs 13/13.25 ride heights, and the FM 1" FSB. Combined with -1.5* camber up front and -1* in back I have a very predictable car.

All in all, including alignments and tires, I have put about 3-4 thousand into my chassis and suspension. The results are fantastic! One of the most important byproducts is that the car is completely controllable on either side of the stall slip angle: even deep into a 4 wheel drift at 70, 80, or even 90 mph, the car is completely stable. I am no longer terrified of hitting a mid corner bump, the new set up simply absorbs it and keeps going. The confidence of knowing that even in a slide I will have complete control helps me to get a good deal more out of the car.

In essence, expensive chassis/suspension set ups can make a huge difference, even on a purely street driven car. If the driver is good enough to use the extra precision and grip, then it makes a difference.

I don't know what 90R is complaining about, but nice suspensions absolutely make a huge difference in the right hands.

 

Fair point, but consider:

Bracing 400
Bushings 300
Wheels 400 (used with tires, I was happy to find such a good deal)
FCMs with tax 2000
FM bar 120
Corner weighting/alignment/height adjustment/alignment bolts 600

Total 3820

I think there is a real distinction between buying off the shelf parts and trying to make everything work together and having your shocks valved for your application.

 

So we're not supposed to highlight excellent or expensive products because new members will go out and blindly buy them? It's not as if that's ALL we discuss - there are like two or three other coilover packages that I specifically commented on as "good values" or "good for budget" or whatever - Bilsteins/collars, used Flex, KONI RACE/GCs come to mind.

If you **** gold and you're "cruising the web" looking for the best coilovers for the car, XIDAs are it. Just because you can't drive the car to their potential doesn't make the coilovers any less excellent.

For whatever reason, though, you're still hell-bent on badmouthing expensive coilovers because you don't think they're worth it.

 

Better coilovers. At SOW last weekend Emilio was driving a Spec Miata with XIDA Clubsports, 9s and 225 NT-01s, and I was driving my car with GTC-200, splitter, Koni RACEs/GCs, 9s, and 225 NT-01s. I'm not sure what rates he had on that car, it was either 700/400 or 800/500. My rates are 700/450. There's one section of SOW that is a left-right-left increasing radius complex, starting at about 60mph and ending at ~85mph in a stock-powered Miata. It's a little bit bumpy and the pavement changes at least once in the middle of the right-hander, and he would catch me through that section based purely on the damper's ability to keep the tires on the ground and not upset the car.

Aero doesn't help when the tire isn't on the ground - good suspension allows you to maintain contact patch as much as possible. Everything else you do builds on that (aero, wheels/tires, etc). It doesn't take a $4000 coilover, either - the $1800 Xida Clubsports will outperform everything else on the market at that price.