bassik277

I recently installed my Tein flex coilovers, and in order to give the car an aggressive stance, I lowered the front about .5 inch more then the rear. The car looks great, but I have started to notice that at night, my Xenon headlights point toward the ground because of the cars new stance. Is there any way to adjust the beam of the Xenon lights? Please help me out guys.

Thanks in advance
-Alex

Air Force RX8

Got pics?

sohcpunk

Yes, open your hood and look for a hole in your headlight housing. If you look close enough, you will see sharp metal teeth like things inside the hole. Stick your philips screw driver in there and turn it to adjust the aim. BTW, the Tein Flex is my choice of coilovers to get when I plan to upgrade. What are your impressions of it? Also, wouldnt lowering the front more than the rear cause a little more understeer?

wakeech

you bet, it'd ruin the dynamics substantially, but considering he said "aggressive stance" i don't think he's worried about performance.

PUR NRG

Based on posts I've read from bassik, he wants his cake and eat it too. Primary emphasis seems to be on rice (staggered wheels, "aggressive stance") but he's getting into autocrossing as well. He's worried about performance but it doesn't seem like his priority.
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Vapir no2

bassik277

For the most part, I am indeed concerned about performance, and you can bet that during an autocross or drift day, my car is dropped an even 1.2" all around (a number i've determined to be ideal through trial and error). Here lies the beauty of coilovers; their sheer adjustability. I am currently sponsored by a local import shop (O HC motoring in Northridge) from which I recieve my parts at a substantial discount. Under the contract, I am forced to attend various shows, for which they indeed prefer my car to be "slammed" and "aggressive". In my opinion it is a small price to pay, having to sacrafice vehicular dynamics for a show (which I would probably have attended anyways) while being able to get more performance out of my car, because I can actually AFFORD all the parts i'm putting on. In terms of my staggered setup, I am slightly pained, but resigned at the descision I made. You see, I would have never been able to afford volk, or one-piece forged wheels if it weren't for my sponsorship, and again, under the contract, the shop has a large say in which parts they decide to sell to me at a significant discount. In terms of wheels, he again really wanted staggered 19's to emphasize the look, which some of you refer to as "rice". This does not bother me anymore, because for track days, I swap in the stock 18's, which have performance tires mounted on them (Falken Azenis; again because I could get them at a discount). Although some of you may percieve this sponsorship as severely limiting, I can assure you that its a small price to pay, for I now have coilovers, high performance tires, all at an excellent rate, and the price I have to pay is a small decal on each rear window (see pic below) which is sufficiently subtle.

As for Wakeech and PurNRG, you are both members that I have a good amount of respect for, however (at least with PurNRG) I always feel that I am having to "defend" myself, and my "performance virtues" when I am simply asking a question. Although agreeably, some of my posts may lead you to believe that I have no interest in performance, please don't jump to conclusions based on mere speculation. If I had the means, and freedom to buy ANY parts that I wanted, I assure you that it would be FULLY geared toward the car performing better. Mods that dont contribute to the cars performance are fairly futile as far as i'm concerned, which is why on my car, you dont, and will never see any kind of body kit, or completely tasteless appearance mod, I am trying to fulfill my sponsors "aggressiveness" standards yet being as low key and true to performance as possible. Please note that I fully understand why both of you would come to such a conclusion, but don't make "analyzing other members' performance creed" a priority in your postings on the forum, because I know for a fact that you both have a lot more to offer then that. As for sohcpunk, thanks for answering my question, and as far as the coilovers go, I will do a full write-up shortly, with lots of pics of the edfc install, etc.

-Alex

BTW, heres a quick picture i took in my garage of my "slammed" car, and of course that "atrocious" decal on the rear window which was my ticket to all these parts in the first place.

PUR NRG

"Performance virtues" is an interesting concept (mostly because I'm not entirely sure what it means) but stating you have sponsorship obligations that dictate certian parameters goes a long way. Good for you that you landed sponsorship but you never mentioned it when stating you liked the look (or tried to justify) some things I would consider rice.

What is rice anyway? Personal definitions vary but my criteria is this: modifications that look like performance enhancements (pictures of drilled rotors placed behind the hubcap) or mods the owner thinks are performance enhancements but are not for that car or configuration (rear wing on a front wheel drive car).

Thus in my worldview it's not rice to say you like the look of that rear wing on a FF provided you know it hurts your performance. (Hey, these are my rules; I make them up.) But trying to justify why staggered 19" wheels is not rice doesn't quite work.
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Adult video tubes

bassik277

If you are reffering to the thread where I speculated as to why there might be a performance benefit to staggered setups, then allow me to enlighten you as to my specific intention in posting that view. I attempted to find all the logic which could possibly support such a practice (staggered setup) in order to play the devils advocate, and seek some reasoning behind the import communities trend toward excessively sized rear wheels (of which I am victim). Upon reading the various replies (some extremely informative, including some of yours NRG) I have concluded as many of you have stated before, that there is indeed no benefit to running a staggered setup on an RX8. At the time that I posted the "possible benefit of staggered setup" I was debating whether or not to breach my sponsorship and sell my wheels (probably for more then I was able to get them for) in order to get a more "properly" size setup, or simply keep them, and deal with the fact that on the street and at shows, my wheels setup is not tuned for optimal performance (however I luckily still have my stock wheels for the track). There was clearly a slight bias in my posting, due to the fact that I was trying whatever logic possible to justify keeping the staggered wheels in order to continue persuing the benefits of my sponsorship. I decided to keep the wheels and consequently the sponsorship, because I realized that they are fairly flexible in allowing my car to be relatively subdued ("not too ricey"), and have an emphasis on performance (Coilovers vs. lowering springs, rwhp vs. decibles on a sound system). So I have decided to keep all this, because I really feel my sponsor will come in handy in the future when I pursue forced induction, and I have decided to keep this knowing as well that a staggered setup is indeed a performance detriment that I am making for the sake of show.

PUR NRG

This is totally off subject but have you considered pitching the autocross performance angle to your sponsor? Static displays at car shows are kinda boring. If I had that type of sponsorship, I'd have a monitor next to the car doing playback of the car in action--be it autocross, track events or just tooling around the street. Probably need subtitles since shows tend to be noisy. Regardless, the video would stress the performance advantages (real or not) of products the sponsor offers and show the sponsor is active in supporting competitive sports and knows their stuff.

I see this has two advantages. First it gives the sponsor more audience "hook" to stand out in the crowd. Second it gives you an angle to push for more performance-oriented gear instead of things primarily intended for show. Could be a win-win.
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Creampie Videos

wakeech

just take it easy guys. bassik, my comment wasn't a knock on you, just answering a question... 19's do fill the fenders on this car better ('cause they're so damn huge).

i would definitely agree with PURNRG's suggestion: the "import" scene needs more emphasis on actual performance instead of ricey bs (looking good isn't a crime, though )

Air Force RX8

Thanks for the pic, but I can't really tell much from the clutter and not a full shot of the car. My car is not going to be modded for racing or whatever, simply because I do not have the money to do so and I do not want the constraints of a sponsor dictating how and when I show my car.

Good luck in whatever you decide works best and I'm just curious as to the staggered and lower front look.

bgreene

At the risk of wandering back onto the topic, you might want to be careful about manually re-aiming your headlights in a "quick & dirty" manner if your car has the auto headlight leveling system.

there's probably some way to do manual trim on the lights, but it'd probably be dangerous to just pry on things without knowing how it'll affect the servos (also, if you're not careful, the automatic system might just decide to undo your manual adjustments).

Maybe look for one of the threads with links to an online posted shop manual and see what you can find in there.

PUR NRG

Auto-levelling doesn't work that way. You manually adjust the optimum beam height and auto-levelling uses that as the reference point.
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Vapormatic deluxe

bgreene

yeah, I looked it up in my shop manual last night. It's a little cryptic about how the adjustment screws work, and one of the do/don't tips didn't seem to make much sense, but maybe it'll be more clear once I take a look at the hardware.

I wasn't sure if there was some procedure required to disengage/reengage the servos in order to do a manual adjust.

PUR NRG

Speaking of the shop manual, there are what something like 1200 double-sided pages? I'd be very surprised if anyone scanned in all those pages. It sounds kinda expensive at $130 but it would cost about that much to xerox it at five cents per page.
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Yamaha Raptor 660 History

bgreene

There's a hard-copy shop manual, and a CD-ROM shop manual (the CD may be a pdf of the hardopy, or may have more/less/different contents). I've got a paper manual, but there have been som individuals who have posted copies of the CD-Rom data onto web sites.

look on ebay, the hardcopy is about $100-130, and the CD's are generally around $10-15 (I'
m halfway tempted to spring for the 10 bucks just to see what's on the disk, but I haven't done so yet)