Upgrading to Coilovers...
 

First off let me say that I do not have the reputation of being mechanically inclined, haven't done anything other than say change oil a long time back. I am thinking about getting some coilovers for my 04 RX8. How easy/hard is the installation to a newbie? And how many hours do you think it would take for someone with little experience. Would you recommend it?

My next question is, at the moment I am considering getting either of the two:

H&R Street-Perf. Coil-Over ($1,164)

Bilstein PSS9 Coil-Over Kit ($1460)

Of these I am leaning towards the Bilstein PSS9 as they are fully adjustable and offer different compression/rebound setting. The H&R ones do not appear to be fully adjustable, at least from what I have read about it on Tirerack. I could be wrong though.

I am also not interested in lowering and Bilsteins seems to lower the least. What would you guys recommend? If there is anyone out there with these coilovers installed please feel free to chime in. I am also open minded as to other brands if you have any suggestions.

Thanks.

Recently I had my experience with installing my coilovers for the first time. I wouldn't say that its really hard, but it is time consuming if it is your first time (im sure now if i did it it would only take me a few hours, but because it was my first time, it took me a whole day).

The best tutorial I found for installing coilovers was actually http://www.hi-impact.org/ryang/modify/modify.html . Scroll down and you will find instructions for both front and rear.

I suggest starting with the rear. They are probably harder than the two, but its best to get those in and out of the way. Just remember to go nice and slow, and if you can have an extra set of hands, that would be even better. If not, make sure your car is on jack stands so you can use your jack to support things (the wheel hub, etc).

Make sure you have a good place to get an alignment, because your alignment is going to be wayyyyyy off, and you dont want to be driving around too much with an offset camber and whatnot.

Between the two that you listed, i would go with the PSS9. I did a ton of research and honestly I heard nothing but awesome things about the PSS9's. I would have got a set myself if i didn't get such a great deal on my Stance kit.

If you have any questions, shoot me a note. I just did it about 2 weeks ago so it is all still fresh in my head.

BTW: here is my thread https://www.rx8club.com/series-ii-wheels-tires-brakes-suspension-165/stance-gr-2010-sport-%5B56k-beware%5D-201730/ , if you go to page 2 you will see pics from Beefy98. He just recently installed the PSS9's.

Thanks for your help! The Robin Yang how to looks pretty detailed so I will give it a shot. I did have a question about step # 12:

Step 12: Use a sharpie or other implement to mark the location of the alignment cam (the flat washer with marks on it circled in red) relative to the bracket. When reassembling this part you want to line these marks back up.

Which picture is he referring to and what marks? I can't seem to make anything out from the pic atleast...

The first time is a little tricky but not too hard. The alignment won't be horrible unless you slame the car. You don't have to disconnect anything that will effect the alignment, so you just get increased neg camber and toe in from being lower.

Tips- do one side at a time so you have something to compare against.
- when taking apart the trunk, not all the fastners are the same, so pay attention. Also don't lose them, they are small and disapear. pay attention to how the rear strut bar comes a part. It's easy to try to install wrong.
- On the front you disconnect the upper control arm, which is preloaded. So when you put it back together you need to leave the bolts loose until you get your ride height correct. Then tighten them with the wheels on and the car down.
- Measure the floor to fender when stock so you know how low to go or how low you went.

Don't remove that bolt circled in red, you just need to pull it down and out of the way. It can be tricky but it's better then messing with the alignment. Imho.



Unless the coilovers come with upper mounts, dust shields and bump stops, you will need a spring compressor to remove some stock pieces.

http://www.hi-impact.org/ryang/modif...ock_rear_7.jpg

The alignment cam is the bolt that has that huge "washer" on it with the notches scored in it. If you are using coilovers, and they are set at a height lower than stock, you will need to remove this bolt so that you can freely move and align the lower control arm with the shock assembly.

Heres the thing, making the "sharpie" mark only makes sense if you are replacing your suspension with suspension that is the same height. If you are putting in some coils that change height, just skip this step, remove the bolt, and manually (temporarily) align the cam until you get to the shop.

The way the cam works is if you turn the head of the bolt (which is on the far side, pointing towards the front) it will adjust the LCA and add or reduce camber on your wheel hub. If you install the coilovers at a lower height, you will notice that your camber will be dramatic ( your rear wheel would look something like this -> \ ). Place a wrench or socket on the head of that bolt, and turn it until you can eyeball the camber to look straight up and down. Again, this is just temporary but will help when you want to drive down to the shop.

Shoot me a private message and I will hook you up with my email address or phone number if you need some more help. Like i said, i did this not too long ago so its all nice and fresh in my head

edit: btw i know you said you arent looking to lower the car, but the LCA will need to move because due to the nature of a coilover, the strut length will be a lot shorter than a standard shock. For example (crazy exageration on these numbers), lets say the stock shock assembly is a total of 20 inches, your coilover assembly length may be like 16 inches but provide the same height.

There is a used set of bilstein pss9 coilovers in the for sell section, $1000 https://www.rx8club.com/rx-8-parts-sale-wanted-44/bilstein-pss9-coilovers-202006/

However the bilstein pss9 do not have seperate compression and rebound adjustments according to goodwin racing. To be honest unless you track the car, know what you are doing and need to fine tune your suspension, the seperate adjutment is not needed. AS far as I know the cheapest coilovers with sperate compression and rebound adjustments are the kw variant 3. They can be had for about $1700.

Is it necessary to use an impact wrench for this install? The Robin Yang tutorial only mentions using one if you have to put together the shock tower.

Nope, no impact wrench required. Torque wrench is necessary though

Well guys,

Just thought I'd let you know that I finally got them installed. It took a while and the rear ones were a pain in the a$$, but have them on now and it works like a charm :)
Thanks to everyone who replied, esp paimon, the Robin Yang tutorial was helpful.

Btw on a side note, I noticed that there were no camber adjustments for the front wheels? Is the camber for rear wheels only? What's up with that? Or is the guy who aligned it completely off his rocker?

^ off his rocker

to look cool what else?

^ I'm game...to best keep the tire in contact with road under all conditions? ..oh yea... and to look cool?? (thanx reverand). But basically easy to adjust and modify spring rates, shock valving (rebound and compression ideally), adjust ride height / suspension height and they are generally serviceable.

^ calm down Charles... it's too late ... the world has long ago gone to hell in a breadbasket with everyone in it :kiss:

corner balancing

I sorta agreed

stock suspension setups are "ok" for most people, but there are people who visit the track often and we all know stock setup not gonna cut it.

my point is if Stock is already the best, there would be no aftermarket.

i would disagree, the fastest guy in a rx8 i know at the local tracks drives a 8 with all stock suspension besides a set of swaybars,

aftermarket is there mostly for show cars IMO, or for casual owners who want their car to imitate race cars, and to support the culture. take example in products like cheap jdm coilover systems like stance and and tein, or cross drilled or slotted rotors, if form really followed function for most owners, then there would be less JDM whoring and stance whoring all around (not that im not guilty of any of the above)

I don't doubt the guy's driving skills. but lets put it this way, if Im already the fastest with stock setup. do I need to upgrade my car at all? The answer would be no, at least not anytime soon.

So the driver has swaybars installed because he knows that the stock one would give him too much body roll. a sway bar fixed his problem right now. and as time goes by, he will want even faster lap time then Im 99.99% sure he will start upgrading the rest of the stuff.

this is the biggest problem with the modding community, 99% of the people just mod their cars for the sake of "OMG 2f2f R26B in Mustang yo" they don't even know where that R26B came from.

Speaking of TEIN. my opinion is that their "higher end" stuff is actually really good. The "lower end stuff" is their problem. crap like "BASIC DAMPER" ... starting 800 something bux for a set of "shocks and springs" ? hell a good OE replacement cost the same if not more.

you know all those Civic guys with K20A think they're the shit with that 200 hp. most of them are poor fags who can barely afford the car, they want some "coilovers" without even knowing what to do with it, oh yes, LOWER IT, it looks cool. But they are a bunch of cheap fags, so what to do? Tein see the market and made a lot of "cheap ... err I mean lower price" "coilovers" to satisfy this group of cheap ass. Well, TEIN made a lot of money this way. but it totally killed their reputation and its effecting their higher end coilover sales, but I guess it don't matter, Business is Business, they're here to make money, right ?

Stance's coilover is actually really good for the price, I had a set for my FC, but I sold it shortly after cuz its too bumpy for NYC roads, even at softest setting.

Stance is an American based company. btw :P

yea ... most people don't know what they really need/want.

I track my 8 but stock stuff gave me too much roll(scary shit), even with sways. (damn that English town track, so many tight corners)

HKS served me really well(JUST THE COILOVER! customer service? NOTHING), too bad it got raped by NYC shitty roads (Im still pissed/crying), can't even work on the car/file claim/sue NYC AGAIN to get my money back till my right foot heal (stupid on my part).

Speaking of coilovers I probably gonna go Cusco this time. I was about to go Ohlins but I spoke with the director of Cusco at 7 stock. seems to be a pretty cool guy, and he cut me a pretty good deal on it so I dont see why not. The most important thing is, unlike HKS, Cusco has "customer service" and if my shocks gets fucked again, I can "at least" call and just buy 1 shock.

HKS? Yeah I called for like 3 days no one even picked up. wtf.