I just read through your Bilstein thread. If I'm not mistaken, aren't you using revalved Bilstein HD's? Btw, when re-reading my e-mails from the engineer at Bilstein, he actually said the rear PSS9's take 60mm ID springs (not 65mm as I previously stated).

Is there a possibility that the shock bodies on the HD's and PSS9's are of different diameters?

It comes with the Moton's. Looks very much like the Good win part, only it is white.

Not sure why you would want to screw around with something that is likely not as good as your BS shocks. :dunno: Maybe you like doing things twice. At the very least a set of singles from AST would put you light years ahead of screwing around with Bilstein revalves. :Eyecrazy: Nice thing about the AST stuff is they are modular. Buy the singles now, when you have more money - or the aptitude with deal with a double (trust me, twice as much stuff to screw up) - you just purchase the other parts. :icon_tup:

I'm considering the AST's, along with the Ohlins and a few other manufacturers. With a revalve and the proper spring rates, these Bilsteins can be made to work really well as Jung proved by his car finishing 1-2 in STU.

And with five years worth of shock development you to can match the performance of a commonly available race shock. :rollingla I bet Rick is on revalve number ten by now. And it does not hurt that he is friends with the guy who does his shocks.

Aside from the cost of the revalve, look at the down time while you wait and your labor to remove/install them multiple times.

Real Ohlins are great. The JDM version that a lot of these places are selling are crap.

How can I tell the "real" Ohlins apart from the JDM crap? These are the ones I'm looking at and will be at the top of my 3K budget:

http://www.good-win-racing.com/Mazda...5-RX8-DFV.html

JDM... The "cheap" price gives it away.

The fact that they could not be bothered to build a shock with the right length body, its adjustable :scared: , is an indication that this is just another application tossed together from parts they had on the shelf.

The issue I've found with the adapters is that as the damper moves through it's travel, its axis relative to the top of the mount changes. The Motons could possibly have a smaller body diameter which avoids the issue, or it could just be that the body hits the delrin piece and glides along the delrin. Regardless, I'm not the only person to report rubbing, there is the person in my Bilstein thread as well as Robin Yang with his Motons who states: "this part sits at an angle and can rub against the shock body if it isn't shortened."

http://www.hi-impact.org/ryang/modif...ock_moton.html

Maybe it's a production tolerance thing? Certainly the rubbing I saw wasn't horrible and was near the top of the travel, but I decided to be safer and reduce a part count by not even using that part.

I'm not sure why Bilstein states the rear PSS9 uses a 60mm or 65mm spring. From pictures earlier in the thread, it's very clear that the rear PSS9 spring is a tapered spring that isn't a standard off the shelf size. Certainly the top of the spring has a diameter closer to 90mm than 60mm!

Gotcha. Thanks Jason. I guess I'll look elsewhere...

Unless you use a hydraulic perch on each end of the shock you will never eliminate side loading on the spring. As any spring moves up and down it also moves side to side and twist.

Yes, the perch on my Motons rubbed on the shock body, the delrin is not going to hurt the body, and over time is clearances itself. There are way more import aspects when it comes to choosing shock then if a piece of plastic touches it.

Agreed.

My only concern with that is there isn't a whole lot of material on the lip to start with and the rubbing will only make it thinner. While having it rub away in one spot isn't so bad, if the perch shifts you might have it rubbed away in any parts and then the chances of the spring unseating might be greater. Of course this is a concern that is unfounded probably 99.9% of the time, but I'm a little paranoid. Also for autocross applications, treating the perch as a consumable item isn't too bad. Just that I'm allergic to interference...

Price-wise the revalved PSS9's and KW Variant 3's will be a wash. These are my two front-runners at this time, as I'll have to go up another 1.5-2K to get to a better product and it's not in my budget to spend that kind of money.

The KW V3's will be the safe choice -- double adjustable, decent spring rates right out-of-the-box, etc. The PSS9's will be a bit of a gamble as they'll need a revalve, however, as someone who's input I value once put it "a good set of monotubes are a very real upgrade". Bilsteins can obviously be revalved to work very well in autocross as the results in ES and STU have indicated this year.

I'll continue reading, researching and speaking with engineers and autocrossers about both of my options and hopefully come to a decision in the next 3-4 months. :)

So wait how much are these coilovers?

They typically sell for ~$1,400 from most vendors. Revalving costs $125 per shock, so I'll be looking at ~$2,000 when all is said and done. The KW Variants 3's go for around 2K as well.

Actually there is no real Öhlins as Öhlin Sweden (HQ) dosen't make them, I spoke with one of their engineers (that happends to own a Blue RX-8) and dose ones at sale in USA and Japan is rebranded Coilovers.

But that dosen't make the USA version bad, not at all! I run on KW V3 and last track event there was an RX-8 with those Good Win Racing version and they where hands down better then my KW, no doubt.

The Engineer at Öhlins HQ thould me it was possible to make coilovers (as she had some on here RX-8) fo the neat sum of $8746,36 I said that I needed to think about it first... ;-)

Well, I've decided to go with a set of these for my RX-8. My budget is a little tight for 2010, and from my research these seem to be my best option in the sub $1.5K price bracket. I'll be ordering a set from Stranoparts in the next 1-2 weeks and hopefully this winter weather will cooperate and I can get up to my friend's place and install them shortly thereafter.

I also ordered a set. Should be in 1/04/10.
Going to run them stock for 10 and maybe revalve for 11 if I feel they need it.

Cool. I'll be more than happy to discuss settings and set-up info as my local season progresses. Do you have adjustable swaybars F&R?

I'm running progress fr/rr adjustable sways right now. Medium in the front and hard in the rear. . I'll go down to soft on the sways to start with when the coilovers are on. Will have to see if that's too much bar or not.
Only other mods so far are konis and a muffler delete. And 17s and star specs. As is I'm about 1.5 sec off the only 2 nationally competative drivers in our region. Once in the wet and once in the dry.

Those progress bars are pretty stiff, but Peppy liked them on his track RX-8 with the PSS9's. I wanted smaller bars that would allow for more "finer" adjustments to be made. I kept my Hotchkis MX-5 27mm 3-way adjustable FSB from B-stock and added the Eibach MX-5 16mm 2-way adjustable RSB.

Not sure what my starting points will be, but I'll probably try to attend a few T&T events at the start of my season to get any idea of how different shock & swaybar settings affect the handling of my car.

I wanted to do Dixie this year, as it's the only NT close enough that I'm off of work for this year. But I'll only have 1 event on the new setup before then. Not that matters a whole lot. It will be my first NT and won't have much prep on the car. I'll just go to have fun and try for not DFL.

S0l08 - I tried all possible settings with the sway bars and found that the Front bar in the middle and rear on soft was my favorite with front and rear shocks set to full stiff. This was for the track, you may find different settings better for auto-x.

If you guys have any questions with the setup or install, let me know. I'm taking my PSS9's off in the next few weeks as I'm returning the 8 to stock. Gotta get the RX-7 I just picked up track ready for the 2010 season. Chike I sent you a PM ;)

^Got the pm. Thanks for the offer. :)

S0l08, if you do attend the Dixie NT, don't fret the big stuff -- just try to focus on getting adjusted to the grip level of the asphalt surface and driving to the best of your abilities for that weekend. I've done that NT the last 2 years but I won't be going this year. I'm trying to decide between the Peru and Finger Lakes NT's. Peru has some grippy concrete that's broken up and bumpy in spots, while Finger Lakes is 80% asphalt with a small concrete section in the middle.

Asphalt is all ive ever raced on. Every region within local driving distance is on asphalt. Some very good on down to almost gravel. At one event site we actually made ruts on the line. I had to change my set up from one site to the next on my old STI. There are a few local people that have done Dixie, I'll ask which local site it is like and try to set up for it. Again it would be nice to have more time to get used to the new mods.

Chike, you doing a FatCat revalve?

I'm running the coilovers box stock for 2010. When I am ready for a revalve, I'll be going through the Bilstein office in Poway, CA. Not sure what I'll be doing beyond 2010 though...might actually try and pick up a co-drive in a ES Miata R.