Quote:
Originally Posted by khronus79
Care to elaborate on said recipe???
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Gladly.
Six years ago I was picking through a friend's part collection when I ran across a set of these:
Arospeed coilovers for 89-97 MX5 Miata
The kit comes with 4 identical coilover bodies, 4 springs all the same length (2x 350lb, and 2x 450lb), and 4 urethane isolators.
You remove the strut assembly from the car, compress the spring and remove the strut nut to release the strut top/bearing, upper spring-seat, and stock spring.
Here's a pic of the assembly removed as a unit:
Slide the coilover body onto the shock body til it seats against the lower spring perch, and spin the adjuster all the way down to the bottom. Choose which spring rate you want, and place the spring onto the coilover body (I used the 450lb springs).
Now the tricky part. If you try to put the upper spring-seat back on you'll notice it simply won't work... The problem being that the stock spring diameter is way bigger than the Miata springs, which means the spring just flops around on the upper spring-seat. The solution is simple; flip the upper spring-seat and install it upside down. Through some freak accident of engineering, this seats the Miata spring perfectly. You'll need to put 2 or 3 1/8" thickness washers in between the upper spring-seat and strut-top bearing. You'll know you've done this right when you can spin the strut-top freely without any part of it contacting the upper spring-seat. Replace and tighten the strut nut, and reinstall.
That's all there is to it. With the coilover sleeve adjusted near the top of the range, you'll be close to stock ride height... Meaning with this kit you can drop the front of the car damned-near on the ground (-4"!!!).
How's the ride? Stiff, what do you expect?
Here's what they looked like on my car:
I've taken a lot of flak over the years whenever I post this mod. People think anything without a brand-name is junk, but I look at it differently. As far as I'm concerned, a linear-rate spring is a linear-rate spring... I ran this setup on my 436whp GSL-SE for 3 autocross seasons and 2 years drag racing and it performed like a champ. With the right set of shocks I cut 1.4s 60ft times at the strip and took home more than a few trophies in Emod.