With you driving?

 

Hell, anyone up for Sebring? I can't think of a rougher track......

 

um, Florida sun in the winter.....dumb question man

 

Driveway Austin?
http://www.drivewayaustin.com/

Nice test track and Bill might be interested in driving.

 

Not sure what value that would have since SD revalved Xida's aren't an existing product. I'm pretty confident there is nothing to be gained on a 9" wide race tired 2200# Miata between 100-300whp by modifying OTS Xida's in any way. The only gains might be by adding the dual springs and spherical bearing upper mounts.

My guess it what most people really would like to see is a track and autocross comparison in controlled conditions between the following, in order of apparent interest by the masses:

Xida CS, single spring, NB mounts (single adjustable)
FCM single adjustable, single spring with FCM spec NB mounts
SD non adjustable, NB mounts
FCM non adjustable, NB mounts
Koni 2812, single spring, NB mounts
FM AFCO, with optional extended front mounts
JRZ twin tube single adjustables (from ISC Racing) with ISC extended mounts
Xida double adjustables

The reality is it ain't ever gonna happen unless some third party thinks its worth spending the money to do it. Not in 949 Racing's budget.

Any test of coilovers that could feasibly provide valid results would require fully controlled conditions by two drivers: A typical solid "1 second" club level driver and top national level competitor with suspension testing and development experience. Pro determines absolute speed potential. Amateur provide valuable feedback on ease of use, consistency and non-expert driving impression.

Same car
Same tires
Same day
Same course
Blind test
repeat control runs/laps
Full data logging

You'd have one hell of a wrenching job ahead of even a multiple mechanic crew to get even 3 sets installed and corner weighted, car dialed in for them on track and test in one day. Anything less that would leave the data gained pretty useless.

 

This is really pretty easy. Bernie you have the Xida shock dyno plots, can you make those plots, stroke, adjustablity, threaded body in a Bilstein? If you can then there is not much difference. It all comes down to features of the package. How much would adjustable bilsteins, collars, swift springs and spherical lower mounts cost? The thing with shocks is a good driver will make the gap between crap shocks and good shocks pretty close. Its that ease of driving on the edge that makes the difference for 90% that aren't Montoya.

Edit: I'm the one that started spreading your name around about 1.5 years ago after I saw your post on specmiata.com, and that sweet revalving dude in Cali died. I probably PMed 40 guys that were looking at other options. Lets just say that one of the Bilstein revalving companies was a total ***** about what I was looking to do with my car. So no hate here, but I doubt you can build a package for much cheaper than the XidaCS and how would you know if your valving was spot on, you don't race miata's do you? Your shock would be taylored to whomever works with you on the valving, which imo is somewhat driver dependant. I wouldn't start a pissing match with 949racing over shocks since your customers are two seperate individual's. Your customers are more the budget DIY guys and Emilio's are more plug and play. This is why you buy plug and play from Emilio...

http://autoeclectic.com/trackhq

 

Calm down, nobody started a pissing match.

949 Racing and Stewart Development are completely different. I tune and rebuild shocks, Emilio sells shocks along with other parts.

This started because there was talk of "magic" inside the shocks. Read my other posts and you will see that I am proving that it doesn't matter what you start with if you plan on revalving it. If you are the guy that has a set of Bilstein's, this will show that you don't have to spend the big money to get the same performance. If you want the features of the Xida, then by all means that is the shock for you. Emilio has one hell of a shock for the price. Those same features in a Penske would be much more. However, that doesn't mean one shock will outperform the other with the right shock guy. Like you said, if you want plug and play there is an option for that. If you want to revalve what you have, there is an option for that also.

 

ISC racing top hats or FM spherical bearing rear hats are options for the guys with Billies.

 

I'm calm buddy. I'd like to see what you could do with a pair of racelands...that would be a challenge worthy of your talents. If you can open those suckers up and revalve them for stiffer rates we would have a super budget track coilover. You should buy a pair and do a write up starting with intial dyno plots all the way to someone winning races.

 

The best way to revalve Ricelands is to cut the top off and stuff Bilsteins inside

 

Outward ricer, hidden baller.

 

lol

 

Quote ( you don't race miata's do you? )
No Bernie does not, but I do race them, build them, and maintain over 20 spec and track day miatas and other cars (mazda 3, protege, lotus 211, etc...)
Have worked with Bernie for over 1 year and had nothing but great results.
His work is spot on and he will listen and work with you to get what you may be looking for.
We have spent more time on the phone than would take to build the over 100 shocks he has done for me.
Every thing we have decided on has been validated on track with extensive back to back testing, multiple drivers of varying skill from beginners to pros.
This has been for a road racing environment.
And before anyone asks to see my trophy case let me say that I have been involved in racing for over 45 years (yes, I am old)
Cheers

 

I'm finally ready to put a decent suspension under my turbo NB. For over a month I've been reading suspension threads in forum after forum - but after reading thousands of anecdotal posts, I'm even less confident about what setup to choose than I was when I started! The more I read, the more options I uncover - but there's no easy method for comparing them. I'd guess that many of us are in the same boat, which is why suspension threads so often just go in circles.

Throwing a bigger monkey wrench into the mix, most of us drive our cars on the street. Is a few tenths a lap at the track worth a harsher ride the other 95% of the time we're driving? Are a few tenths a lap worth another one or two thousand dollars?

A month ago, I thought I wanted an adjustable coilover (Koni+GC/eBay) and adjustable swaybars (FM) for a car which gets driven about 3K street miles a year and sees a dozen autocross and track events. Now I'm not sure if that degree of adjustability is even necessary on a car that mostly street driven and a sub-$500 suspension upgrade is all I really need, or if a $2000+ suspension would really blow the Koni setup I was originally considering out of the water. I've got no way to quantitatively compare these options, and have yet to find an unbiased resource to help me decide.

 

Unbiased isn't a good thing.

Unbiased means they have no bias. What you want is someone with the same bias as you.

If you searched on Miata.net for a couple minutes you'd find a hundred threads like yours.

All you really need, for a street and comfort based setup is FM springs and illuminas or revalves, with sways to taste.

 

...but at the expense of adjustable ride height. Is that something I'd later regret not having?

(Edit) I don't mean to hijack this thread with my own situation, I just wanted to demonstrate that with so many threads and so many dissenting opinions it's easy for casual readers to get lost.

I think it would be helpful if the suspension hierarchy list from this thread was fleshed out to include spring rates and shock info, and eventually, informed commentary on the biggest pluses and minuses of each suspension.

 

In practice, you'd miss it if:

You have a very steep driveway and a 'lip' on your car.

You want a certain look, and that look is slammed.

You're bottoming out on rutted gravel roads.

There are some situations where adjustment of height would help, but the FM springs are good for most street Miatas, most of the time. It's why I've had the springs on two of my cars so far.

My design for a street Miata would be:

FM springs
FCM mounts/NB mounts
FCM bumpstops
FCM/SD revalved bilsteins
RB hollow front bar
Rear bar to taste

On my last turbo Miata I started with heavier sways front and back, moved to RB front and then went to no sway. That was the best setup for what I was doing at the time (15-25mph tight radius turns on a bumpy and gravely surface).

The above might be too low for you though. I like my cars low. For a bit more ride height you can stick with NA tophats or get spacers.

However, with the price of ebay coilovers and your own rate springs, if you don't mind tinkering, you can get them (new) for the same price as FM springs (new). Just be prepared to spend time getting different rates, heights, adjusting your collars, ect. If that all sounds fun to you, no reason not to, except that you can get FM springs for about 100$ used, like I did. Used bilsteins as well, and some 14$ NB tophats... very inexpensive.

I'm biased though. I'm biased towards the research I've done over the years and all that I've read. I'm biased towards what has worked for me and why, and what I could have improved from what I did. If you're looking for unbiased, all you can do is search and read enough people's opinions to get a quorum.

 

unless your analretentive about corner weights and ride heights. Height adjustment is maybe a once a year check. Set it, check it one and leave it.

 

I originally went with the FM Stage 1.5. For strictly street use it's great but I decided to up the springrates to 450/300 for a mix of street, AX and hopefully open track.

 

270 - Rokkor
300- Raceland
300 - used bilsteins, ebay coilover 450/350
390 - Rokkor w/ correct rear springs
420 - Raceland w/ correct rear springs
450 - tokico illumina,ebay coilover 450/350
500 - used bilsteins, ebay collars, qa1 springs 700/400, nb top hats
750 - koni sports, collars, qa1 springs
800 - revalved bilsteins, ebay collars, qa1 springs 700/400, nb top hats
850 - tein basic
1100 - tein ss
1150 - D2 custom valved and sprung
1200 - koni race, collars, qa1 springs
1500 - tein flex
1650 - fatcat
1900 - jic magic a2
1800 - tein mono flex
2000 - afco
2100 - v2 fatcats
2700 - xida s
3800 - xida