Eibach, Tein, Tanabe or Mazdaspeed??
 

I've heard alot of good things about all of these springs, and the prices are generally in the same area. I was wondering if any1 on this forum has experienced these different springs and can tell me what you think of them. Thanks

i have been an eibach dealer for years, and have had nothing but good experiences with their product. i haven't had any experience from the others, but from what i understand they all make good product. i personally going do the eibachs myself.

love the teins, perfect amount of drop and definite difference in handling.

What kind of difference in handling? I want to keep my 8 streetable, but also lower it.

check this out.

Should've posted a poll with this. I'd be interested in what others opinions are between the five.
Personally I like the Tein S Techs . Tanabe are good too. I see you didn't have Racing Beat in there but their good as well. I have some friends that don't care for the Eibach and have switched them out. I've even read on this forum where some have complained about the uneven drop of the Eibachs.

C'mon, tiggerlee... ya know what yo momma sez, "if you don't have anything good to say then STFU". :D :D :D

Seriously though. The proof is in the pic.

Oooppps! The last pic is my girlfriend...j/k

I'm just brutally honest some times :D

Wedge you've got a nice set-up there. I was just repeating was I was told and read. :D

I have the Eibach springs and am very satisfied. Lowered it just enough to even up the gap in the front and make the rear nearly flush. Gotten lots of compliments on it and it does make the stance more aggressive. Of course you can get whatever you feel like. But every brand drops it differently so make sure you look at pics before you decide. A simple search should yield some good results with pics. Also keep in mind that a LOT more negative attitude is expressed on here than positive. The few that have had problems are just that.....few. Eibach backs their product and will replace it if is not up to your standards.

Also be aware that if you go with the Mazdaspeeds, you HAVE to get the MS shocks. With the stock shocks the ride becomes lousy & unpredictable. I have the Racing Beat & I love them.

^ What the Fanman said.

We're of the opinion that with ANY aftermarket spring on the RX-8 you should upgrade the shocks, but you'll be better able to 'get away with it' with about any spring but Mazdaspeed. The MS springs are notably higher rate than the rest of the aftermarket, being roughly 70-80% stiffer than OEM. That will kill the OEM shocks in a hurry, and will generally make for a very, very underdamped and bouncy car.

Tein, Eibach, Tanabe, RB, etc. all run in the range of 15-30% stiffer than OEM (generally speaking), so that's a little more reasonable for the OEM shocks to handle. The car IS underdamped from the factory though, particularly in the rear, so eventually you'll want better shocks. But it seems many have success on OEM shocks with the springs listed in this paragraph.

All that said, we like Tein. And we sell all of them except RB and MS. Tein are inexpensive and work very well. Eibachs in general are more expensive, but also work very well. I've had Eibach springs on four of my personal cars over the years and have never found fault with them. Tanabe also makes good stuff, we just haven't done a lot with them.

People seem to overlook Tein H-tech (for the more aggressive S-tech), despite the H-tech being a better match for OEM shocks (about 15% stiffer than OEM springs rather than the 30% stiffer that S-techs are). We have H-techs and Konis on one of our cars, and it looks great and handles amazingly well. I'll see if I can come up with some pics. For around $175 shipped for H or S techs, you really can't go wrong. And I of course have to mention that we have them both in stock, as well as the Tanabe GF210 :).

I have Tien S tech springs and couldn't be more satified. Great drop, not that much of a difference in stiffness (the harder ride is only noticeable on very rough roads), handles the same or a bit better, and are inexpensive.

You won't regret going with the Tiens.

Yea, my friend just got s techs on his sti and i love the ride. Of course, his car will feel much different anyway being it is all wheel drive...anyway the point is i like them. Those are the ones i'm leaning towards at the moment. I think the stance with the tein is just so sweet looking :)! But, for the most part a spring is a spring and it seems like most of them get the job done. I think as of now though, the teins would be the way to go.

Glad I came across this thread. I'm currently learning about and researching springs for my 8. The main purpose is to give the car a bit more agressive look by lowering it. Up until now, I was really only looking at the drop rate, and not the 'stiffness' factor. Because of this, I was going to go with the MazdaSpeed springs as the drop was listed as .75 - 1.0 inch. I felt this was about right for me as I really want to avoid any 'bottoming out' problems. RB springs only list .5 inch and most of the others (Eibach, Tein) list 1.25 - 1.5 inches. Now, with the possible issue associated with stiffness and shocks, I have to re-think all this......why does it seem like everything mushrooms into soooo much more that anticipated? But, thank god for this forum! Anyway, does anyone know of bottoming out problems and the longevity associated with some of the other springs listed above?

How much would it be to get a shop to install springs for you? Or do you think this is a job that isn't too hard to do yourself?

Never had problem with bottoming out. However, I have the shinka edition which came with 14mm dampers instead of 12mm for the stock 8 so I can't say mine is typical.

You can DIY but it is fairly intensive and unless you have confidence in your skill or some experience then it may be over your head. I spent about $380 to get them installed in a reputable shop here. I have heard people quote paying $200 and less here in the forum but at expect at least $300.

If you do it yourself, be sure to get a spring compressor. It is almost impossible to do it without it. Unless you have a bunch of really heavy guys that can lean on it for you. Not the most elegant solution.

New lowering/different rate springs without new shocks is always a compromise, get a good set of matched springs and shocks at the same time and in the long run you will be happier and save money as you will have to tale everything apart again to install shocks later...

then you might as well just get the tein basic coilovers, which i may do


anyone have a pic of their car lowered with tein s-techs? I find it odd that eibach drops 1.2/1.2 but the s-techs lower it 1.4/.7 It just seems like the car would look weird/uneven with the s-techs

also, on the tein basic coilovers it drops like .1 - 1.3 in the back and 1.3 - 2.x in the front. I have to ask why?! Didn't Mazda keep the car level from the factory? Does Tein see something that Mazda didn't?

Remember they are all coilovers including the OEM, the only difference with some of the aftermarket ones is that they are adjustable coil-overs...

toe-may-toe, toe-mah-toe

very streetable, tighter corners. I have no data to back that up but the weekend after I had them put on we had a club run through some of the twisties just outside of town and I kept finding myself going about 5-10 mph faster through the turns than when i was stock, it didn't even occur to me until a little later on in the drive I was thinking"holy crap, I just took that turn way faster than last time, it just got more and more fun after that as I really started getting used to them on the way back :D

if you look at your car's fender gap you'll notice that the front is greater than the rears. A lot of cars (and SUVs) has this feature and is not exclusive of Mazda. The claims made of lower fronts than rears on most spring is done to address this issue and make the car look "more even".

BTW, on Eibach's they claim an even 1.2 drop but my fronts went lower than the rears after settling.

Could the fact that the Renesis is lighter than other engines and sits further back
also contribute to this uneveness in the 8's stance?. Maybe?