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I'm debating back and forth between either just doing Konis with some lowering springs or going full bore into Coil-overs on the RX8.
I've been reading some message boards and of course there are mixed reviews about both. This is MeL's daily driver and her request is that it continues to ride decently and that it can't be lowered too much so she won't have to deal with speed-bumps, etc.
Of course the big advantage of running Konis are their adjustability. Now, here's a big issue with that on the RX8. In ordered to adjust the rear Konis, you have to completely remove them and fully compress them to make adjustments. There's no way to do it while they are on the car. The kicker is that supposedly getting the rear shocks/springs out is not an easy thing. It can take over an hour and that's a lot of work just to make race-to-street adjustments between race days.
Sipes had his Konis modified to to have an external rebound adjuster at the top of the shaft just like the front shocks, but you still have to drop the shock to reach the adjuster or make a flexible attachment to adjust them in place and run it through one of the frame holes above the shock. The only advantage of this set-up is that you don't have to remove the rear spring to adjust them.
Now since adjustment is such a PITA, we basically have to run the car at race-stiff all the time and in turn will make the car more uncivil for daily driving. Also, I need to figure out which aftermarket springs will work well with them.
The other way to go is full coil-overs. It seems there are a few brands but a bunch of autoxers are liking the JICs. They seem to work very well as far as balance but are still decent on the street. Heck, Paul's car drives much better with his new coil-overs vs his pink springs. The advantages of full coil-overs are complete adjustablity, corner-weighting, ride-height, and a matched spring/shock.
"The FLT-A2 features a light weight, 15 way adjustable monotube damper that ensures high strength and fade free performance. The ride height is adjustable SEPARATE from the spring perch as the lower section which attaches to the car threads OVER the shock body giving you maximum suspension travel at any setting because you actually set the length of the shock. This also allows for proper corner weighting of the vehicle without effecting spring preload settings."
What to do....what to do? Any ideas? I think I'm leaning towards the coil-overs. Of course I haven't even started to address swaybars yet.
Oh yea, you might want to sticky this. Here are all the spring rates of all the RX8 springs and coil-over kits on the market:
Stock RX8 6spd
F 155.61 lb/in
R 112.86 lb/in
Stock RX8 Automatic
F 144.21 lb/in
R 101.46 lb/in
Mazdaspeed Spring
F 280 lb/in
R 190.4 lb/in
Tein high tech
F 184.8 lb/in
R 134.4 lb/in
Tein S Tech
F 207 lb/in
R 145 lb/in
RS*R
F 181.44 lb/in
R 122.08 lb/in
Tanabe Sustec NF210 (Normal Feel)
F 162.4 lb/in
R 112 lb/in
Tanabe Sustec GF210
F 179.2 lb/in
R 145.6 lb/in
Auto Exe
F 212.8 lb/in
R 145.6 lb/in
Espelir
F 212.8 lb/in
R 151.2 lb/in
Racing Beat
F 187 lb/in (calculated 20% Stiffer than Stock)
R 136 lb/in (calculated 20% Stiffer than Stock)
H&R
F 194~203 lb/in (calculated 25%~30% Stiffer than Stock)
R 141~146 lb/in (calculated 25%~30% Stiffer than Stock)
Eibach
F 180-187 lb/in (calculated progressive rate 15%~20% Stiffer than Stock)
R 130-136 lb/in (calculated progressive rate 15%~20% Stiffer than Stock)
--coilover--
Tein CS
F 280 lb/in
R 168 lb/in
Tein Flex
F 504 lb/in
R 392 lb/in
Tein Basic
F 448 lb/in
R 336 lb/in
HKS Hipermax II
F 448 lb/in
R 280 lb/in
JIC FLTA2S
F 448 lb/in
R 280 lb/in
JIC FLTA2H
F 560 lb/in
R 392 lb/in
I've been reading some message boards and of course there are mixed reviews about both. This is MeL's daily driver and her request is that it continues to ride decently and that it can't be lowered too much so she won't have to deal with speed-bumps, etc.
Of course the big advantage of running Konis are their adjustability. Now, here's a big issue with that on the RX8. In ordered to adjust the rear Konis, you have to completely remove them and fully compress them to make adjustments. There's no way to do it while they are on the car. The kicker is that supposedly getting the rear shocks/springs out is not an easy thing. It can take over an hour and that's a lot of work just to make race-to-street adjustments between race days.
Sipes had his Konis modified to to have an external rebound adjuster at the top of the shaft just like the front shocks, but you still have to drop the shock to reach the adjuster or make a flexible attachment to adjust them in place and run it through one of the frame holes above the shock. The only advantage of this set-up is that you don't have to remove the rear spring to adjust them.
Now since adjustment is such a PITA, we basically have to run the car at race-stiff all the time and in turn will make the car more uncivil for daily driving. Also, I need to figure out which aftermarket springs will work well with them.
The other way to go is full coil-overs. It seems there are a few brands but a bunch of autoxers are liking the JICs. They seem to work very well as far as balance but are still decent on the street. Heck, Paul's car drives much better with his new coil-overs vs his pink springs. The advantages of full coil-overs are complete adjustablity, corner-weighting, ride-height, and a matched spring/shock.
"The FLT-A2 features a light weight, 15 way adjustable monotube damper that ensures high strength and fade free performance. The ride height is adjustable SEPARATE from the spring perch as the lower section which attaches to the car threads OVER the shock body giving you maximum suspension travel at any setting because you actually set the length of the shock. This also allows for proper corner weighting of the vehicle without effecting spring preload settings."
What to do....what to do? Any ideas? I think I'm leaning towards the coil-overs. Of course I haven't even started to address swaybars yet.
Oh yea, you might want to sticky this. Here are all the spring rates of all the RX8 springs and coil-over kits on the market:
Stock RX8 6spd
F 155.61 lb/in
R 112.86 lb/in
Stock RX8 Automatic
F 144.21 lb/in
R 101.46 lb/in
Mazdaspeed Spring
F 280 lb/in
R 190.4 lb/in
Tein high tech
F 184.8 lb/in
R 134.4 lb/in
Tein S Tech
F 207 lb/in
R 145 lb/in
RS*R
F 181.44 lb/in
R 122.08 lb/in
Tanabe Sustec NF210 (Normal Feel)
F 162.4 lb/in
R 112 lb/in
Tanabe Sustec GF210
F 179.2 lb/in
R 145.6 lb/in
Auto Exe
F 212.8 lb/in
R 145.6 lb/in
Espelir
F 212.8 lb/in
R 151.2 lb/in
Racing Beat
F 187 lb/in (calculated 20% Stiffer than Stock)
R 136 lb/in (calculated 20% Stiffer than Stock)
H&R
F 194~203 lb/in (calculated 25%~30% Stiffer than Stock)
R 141~146 lb/in (calculated 25%~30% Stiffer than Stock)
Eibach
F 180-187 lb/in (calculated progressive rate 15%~20% Stiffer than Stock)
R 130-136 lb/in (calculated progressive rate 15%~20% Stiffer than Stock)
--coilover--
Tein CS
F 280 lb/in
R 168 lb/in
Tein Flex
F 504 lb/in
R 392 lb/in
Tein Basic
F 448 lb/in
R 336 lb/in
HKS Hipermax II
F 448 lb/in
R 280 lb/in
JIC FLTA2S
F 448 lb/in
R 280 lb/in
JIC FLTA2H
F 560 lb/in
R 392 lb/in
Me thinks most of this JDM stuff is made for the driftards, by tards. Good luck guessing which ones will be valved the best for solo2 use... 
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