Well after reading many, many, many pages on this forum I've decided to go with Koni, Tein, and Progress. My question is which Teins are better for this setup, the S Techs or the H Techs.

 

S-Tech's are more for sport. The H-Tech's are more for ride comforts.

 

Well I've mostly read that the s-tech's are stiffer and offer a bigger drop, but I haven't read anything that compares them performance wise. There's people that are successfully auto-xing with the h-tech's and konis (olddragger comes to mind), so I guess you can say h-tech's are also performance oriented. What I would like to know is, if you have 2 cars with the same exact setup, one with s-tech's and one with h-tech's (all other things being equal) which would be the better performer????
If the difference is minimal, then I rather go with the h-tech's for the added comfort.
so the question remains........

 

Do H-techs. I found Konis with S-techs too low and not stiff enough for the drop. Bottom out a little too easy. Wish I went with H-techs instead. I'm going to try Mazdaspeed springs next, but I think I see H-techs in my future.

 

The drop is that same. Its like the Tanabe GF210 and NF210. Its just that one spring is stiffer the other softer.
What kind of "performance" are you looking for? Track and street, less body roll?
If thats what your looking for then get coilovers and sell your shocks.

 

I'm looking for track performance, as I intend to start tracking the car pretty soon, track days and hpde's for starters. Coilovers would be great but my wallet doesn't agree with my wishes.

 

Astral, I read this on another thread, and I'm glad to hear from your first hand experience. Besides bottoming out, how would you rate your s-tech's/koni combo?? over stock??? is it night/day???
Cant wait to put mines on.

 

Sprint Springs and some sway bars
Some pics of my friend Mikes car with just Sprint Springs
https://www.rx8club.com/rx-8-multimedia-photo-gallery-6/just-some-pics-96114/

 

There is actually more drop with s-techs, it's not the same.

 

I got both put on at the same time. Definitely less body roll and faster responses. At stiffer settings, neck-snapping transitions. Night/day? Yeah.

Since you're tracking it, you will probably enjoy the lower stance/center of gravity as well as the extra stiffness offered by the S-techs.

 

Yes and no.

I'm using an H-Tech/Koni combo as well for a daily driver/HPDE track car.
I chose the H-Tech for less of an overall drop to maintain streetability (driving around town, negotiating curbs, ramps, etc.) as my car is a daily driver. And yes, because it has less spring rate than the S-Tech.
However, with Koni's adjustability, the spring rate becomes less of a factor than if one would be chosing to pair with stock springs, so spring rate is somewhat of a wash (though, firmer is usually better for performance). Nevertheless, there are very good performance gains with the H-Tech/Koni combo. In the process, I maintained the ride height I was looking for and decent comfort as well.

 

I'm also looking for a similar combo. I had Eibacks along with Koni 5 way adjustable's on my FD and LOVED EM. Thanks for the info on S/h techs.

 

Not to barge in here, but somebody PM'd me asking about prices on Progress swaybars and I accidentally deleted the message. I have your prices for you if you wanna PM me again.

 

thanks southfl, this is what I wanted to know. My H-Tech's are on the way. What kind of drop did you get with the h-tech/koni combo???

 

"neck-snapping transitions" can't wait for the neck-snapping to begin

 

And to add to SouthFL's point, I believe that with the Koni's, the car will sit even lower with both H-techs and S-techs than if you were to just pair these springs with stock shocks. I also use my 8 as a daily driver and do not want the car too low. Plus I have the MS sideskirts which are pretty close to the ground already. Because of this, I'm going with H-techs and Koni's as well. Should be a great compromise of performance and driveability.

 

Yes, exactly, which is why I considered S-techs to be too low for me on Koni shocks (I do drive in Boston...)

The following photos show my car, blue, on Koni and S-techs, and altspace's car, red, on stock shocks and S-techs. Notice how my car is always lower. We installed everything in the same way. My car was lower the instant we put it down w/ the S-techs/Koni combo in it.









OK this is just my car w/ Koni/S-techs:



I think you made the right choice with the Koni/H-tech combo.

 

Wow, GREAT comparison photos. The difference is incredibly apparent. I wouldn't want the side of my car (with the MS sides) as low as yours for daily driving. Car looks good though. Thanks for posting those pics!

 

I'm on stock springs for the winter and going to try MS springs soon.

 

Astral, as the saying goes a pic is worth a thousand words (so you just posted 5 thousand words ). Thanks very much for those, you just put my mind at ease.

 

The h-tech and Koni seems to be a good combo. Lots of positive feed back. My car is stock suspension wise and I was looking for an economical way to lower/improve handling. And yet still maintian the ability to drive it everyday.

Any good recommendations for purchase sites/part numbers?

I'll do some searching but I wonder how this combo compares to the "cheap" coilovers; Tein basics.

Thanks

Hmm, think I found the answer

https://www.rx8club.com/series-i-wheels-tires-brakes-suspension-55/spring-rates-other-basic-suspension-info-79096/

 

I'm going to purchase my Koni's from therpmstore.com -- I believe they still have a promotion going for a set for $550 shipped. Just enter 'KONISET' at checkout. As for the springs, the average seems to be about $180 shipped, and you can easily find them on Ebay if you want a little better deal, or a vendor like mazdaparts.com who has them for $198.45 shipped. Just be wary of fake Teins on Ebay.

I've read some less than steller reviews of the Tein basics, and if I were in the market for some, I'd probably upgrade to the Tein flex. Lots of info and reviews on this site about each, though.

 

FWIW, I installed my Tein H-techs (on top of Koni yellows), so now the car looks like this:



(Pardon the dark photo)



It's

 

I'm glad I chose the H-techs, because that's about as low as I want to go. It definitely appears that the Konis allow the car to sit lower than if they were paired with the stock shocks.

Thanks for posting those pics!

 

Forget TEINS, get Swifts they (really stiff tho)