That doesn't sound right - repeated and continuous track time is just plain more demanding it would seem what with engine, suspension, and brakes all asked to respond correctly & repeatedly over extended periods without failure. Autocross is perhaps more dramatically stressfull in some ways, but it only lasts such a short period. A whole day solo event might give 6 x 30-60 sec runs, a day or two of NASA HPDE is more like 2-5 hrs of solid track running. I mean the car comes in hot all over after that! :D

Unfortunately your absolutely right. Even saying that, acceleration improvements are fairly easy to measure, and if you've had your stock RX-8 on the track, one can use stock handling as a baseline to notice improvements. When the day comes on track that RX-8s are out in front of lots more cars than at present, hopefully the word of what helped will spread fast and far! All will not be lost!

Impressive setup! Those coilovers are like TWICE the MS springs stiffness. I guess if the shocks are set to match the springs, even if they're stiff, the car still rides fairly well. I was reading that a common coilover mistake is softening the shocks and causing a choppy ride, where stiff shocks make a 'better ride'. Say how much do your SSRs and S02s weigh together?

PS So how does it all work for you on the track ? You should be killing the competition with those great mods... and they are what I would dream about doing myself... my experience w/another 8 that had just those coilovers and Stage2 mod ONLY was...eehhem...embarrasing at Watkins Glen! He just walked ..er..I mean ran...away from me:o .

Thanks.

 

You have a point there, but I don't fully agree with you. There are lighter wheels out there, but since the stock ones are pretty good, this mod is not a must. It's also a very expensive one...
I went with sway bars first, because they are cheap, that's true. But because choosing a coilover is a more sophisticated mod, I believe it's the one that everybody must pay more attention (when trying to upgrade the suspension). That's why I want to spend more time collecting info, and then make the right choice (for me).
What I mean is, the order is basically up to what someone needs more... not that there is a 'correct order'.
Right now I'm considering the tein flex coilover. Does anyone know the %stiffness over stock?

p.s. PUR NRG I remember you stating that staggered setups are not good. Why are you going for 265/35 tires?

 

I sort of like the big sway bar soft spring setup for the street where there are lots of rough roads and keeping a decent contact patch with a stiff suspension can be difficult.

 

Have you been on a track and participated in an autocross? If you had then you'd know why autocross is more demanding on the suspension. When was the last time you saw an FF car lift the inside rear wheel trail braking on the track?
Yes. Too bad we're not talking about acceleration.
No idea.
None of my track events have been timed. But I can say that in autocross I routinely place first for ST-SM. Unfortunately PAX modifiers mean ST-G Stock cars have quicker handicapped times. None of this means much though because the driver's skill is way more important than a car's abilities.
Just to clarify I'm not saying you have to upgrade wheels/tires first. I'm saying you choose which wheel/tire you want to run first, then choose shocks/springs, etc.
I never said I was getting a staggered setup. You can fit 265/35 tires on 18x8.5" rims on all four corners.
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Smoke-Out

 

I know the difference with putting wider tires on these cars but there is a point at which you start hindering performance. I can see changing tires with possibly a slightly wider width but not until you start adding more power. The first thing that you should change are the materials on the car and then if you start to overwelm those upgraded materials replace them with the better parts. Besides, this is for another thread about tires and rims, we are supposed to be talking about the MS vs. the RB suspensions. I don't think you can go wrong with either one. I have my own setup and I love it. Perfect for me!

 

Guess you didn't read the references, it's not at all about "wider tires on cars", it's about smaller diameter, lighter tires/wheels on cars giving more performance than larger ones, and/or heavier ones. The references show how larger diam wheels/tires change a cars acceleration/handling characteristics, not always to advantage. Myself, I'm talking about -1 or -2 sizing (that's 'minus') wheels/tires to increase performance/allow the suspension to perform in a superior fashion. Speedsource uses 17" wheels/tires, for example. I'm sure it wasn't by mistake either.

I think this topic is certainly part of this MS/RB suspension discussion. Unsprung weight and rotalional inertia of tires/wheels are intricately tied into tuning the suspension with the correct components. For example, as someone mentioned, stronger sways are not as happy being on cars with big/heavy unsprung weight. That is knowledge gained through his experience. I love that kind of knowledge. It's real world. So does it follow that less unsprung weight would be better still w/stiff sways? It is fact, that more or less unsprung weight will make the same suspension components respond to road and car inputs quite differently. Interesting stuff!

Botton line, 1/2 the job of the suspension is managing the unsprung weight, so the suspension needs to be tuned to that weight (the other 1/2 of the suspension's job is to manage the sprung weight, obviously). Strength of shock rebound, compression, spring and sway strength is exactly what this is about.

Of course it is good your'e happy w/your mods. It does sound like a winning combination, as i said . I just haven't spent my $$ yet and don't believe it can be so simple as the toss of a coin, and then everything is the same and OK. But maybe true! As I have winter to figure it out to my satisfaction, I'd rather talk about it awhile, let all the new ideas I hear jell a bit before I go for it myself. Good results take (some thinking and planning) time IMO. My goal is to tune the effects of all subsystem's components together to produce something better than the sum of the parts alone, if you will.

Maybe in the end it actually is just pick one or the other, or something else entirely, but as originally stated in the beginning, that is why this fun discussion.

 

yes I have.


are you referring to how you setup your RX-8 or the BMW of your avatar?

Thanks.

 

Spin9k, which do you consider more challenging for a car's suspension: a long sweeper followed by a short straight or a quick series of slaloms? This is a simplification of track vs. autocross of course, but it's the difference between static and dynamic handling. That's why I consider autocross more challenging to a car's suspension.

Both my BMW and my wife's RX-8 have 18x8.5 wheels. Oddly enough I can't fit 265/35 tires even in the rear of the BMW, whereas typryor can put 275s in front of the RX-8 w/o rubbing. So I figure I should be okay putting 265/35 tires all-around on the RX-8.
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LovelyWendie

 

A quick series of slaloms, of course. It's a tighter course, it's a way tighter course than a sweeper and a straight, for gosh sake. In the slalom, weight really gets thrown around alot! That's stress, no doubt about it. You don't generally do that for say, 20 minutes, was were I was coming from. On track, the intervals of auto-x like stress on the suspension are more spaced out for sure, when they happen at all. But what does happen... what can happen, while it may not be as tight, is surely as dramatic to the suspension components (e.g., bottoming, bouncing, pogoing, sideways sliding stresses). They just happen over 20 min, mostly in tight turns at speed.

Also, please keep in mind that certainly not all tracks offer as much challange too, so we are likely, in our minds eye, seeing different tracks. I'm thinking of (no dreaming really of ) driving Watkins Glen, NY, which is a very severe track, lots of major elevation change, off camber 90 & 180 degree turns taken while the suspension is bottoming out at pretty high speeds. Fun, yes, hard on the car, yes, and likely more than the relative walk in the park a flat track might offer.

So, I don't disagree with you, really, just asking you see what I experienced too. Cheers.

 

wow, 265 in the front
even the new M5 has 245, hope it will work out for you....

 

I'm guessing sways and by extension the RB package do nothing for dive or squat, but how do they affect things like trail braking or post-apex acceleration?

If the springs in the RB package help with dive and squat.. can any owners chime in with their impressions of how much this was improved?

Also, how is the MS package on long distance trips?

 

Zaku,

I have the RB suspension package. The stiffer springs definitely help me going into the corners. The car does not feel like it's diving quite as much when I hit the corners hard, and same with exiting a fast corner I now don't feel the car squating back onto the rear suspension as much. The springs definitely help not only side to side, but front to back transitions as well.