Well it didn't take all that long to preload all four corners with the instructions you gave me. Thanks. I would say it's obvious that this extra step makes a huge difference from maybe about a 1/2" drop to an obvious 1-1/2" drop (mostly front as it should be.) I'll let my installers know that it worked and humble them a bit. Hey, we learn something knew everyday.
Now off to the alignment shop after a few days of letting them settle.
Thanks again!

AFTER THE PRELOAD

 

^ Good stuff. I have installed half a dozen different suspensions on RX8's and I too have seen the effects of not preloading correctly.

 

Great news! We're really glad to hear it worked. The car looks great now!

 

Time for my alignment today.

So, Anybody got suggestions for alignment specs? Or know the factory specs?
I couldn't find a thread on it. Probably missed it I'm sure.

 

I personally like -1.8 front camber and -1.5 rear camber. Then whatever castor you can get equally on both sides after that. That will make the car slightly more willing to oversteer. Your alignment shop may have some recommendations on toe in/out. Whatever they recommend keep it small as the toe will chew up your tires faster.

 

Most shops will just get you into a range that the machine lists as specs for the car. If you get a good shop that deal with guys who track, etc. they will try and get you right on the money. But being in the range for recommended specs is ok.

 

Yeah they're Pettit menpick my spec and I'm going with 1.0 front and 1.5 rear. A little less aggressive in the front but I want those tires to last a bit.
How about caster and toe?

 

Less camber in the front will cause the car to understeer. That has been my experience. At minimum keep them the same. We don't have a high torque V8 or anything so you don't really want more camber in the rear.

 

Back on Topic, but Scott, my Teins seem to be doing this more and more. I know exactly what you are talking about, about the rear sagging. Mine is pretty bad and now im starting to bottom out more and more often. These Tein's probably have 50K max on them...

 

You know what dude, I actually sent my S Techs to Tein on my dime and they tested them and said they were fine. They actually shipped them back to me today with a confirmation that they tested fine. I'm not saying yours are not sagging but my problem was the shocks even though they were not leaking and did not appear blown.

 

Well im glad this thread is here, my S-Techs are binding on the top 4 coils just like 9ks pics.
Im gonna go ahead and say thats its probably the shocks.

I bottom out quite a bit and also I have a rattle that seems to be coming from the rear of the car only when im on rough roads like my gravel driveway. I read somewhere that this is another sign of blown shocks. They dont appear at all to be blown though which is weird.

Looks like im going to be upgrading to konis if I can find a deal on them plus it will be nice to get a little more drop.

 

Regarding the top few coils in the spring binding, I have different spring (Tanabe GF210) on my car, the first thing I noticed after installing the rear springs and putting the car on the ground was the top few coils are basically binding, I believe this is normal and hence the reason for those black rubber sleeves, the front springs also have the first two coils binding, again this binding happens where the rubber sleeves are. So I think this is by design and may be the same for Tein S-tech.

I was deciding between S-Tech and the Tanabe, but I went for the Tanabe due to the rear drops more and heard a lot of people saying they wished the rear drops more for the S-Tech.

I won't be using the Tanabe (or may be any progressive springs) for track etc, when compared to the OEM springs, the progressiveness feels like I'm driving my car on the lawn, despite it has slightly less body roll, less stroke and firmer, it does some how filter out feedback from the tyres to the steering wheel.

 

I am sure that they are not designed that way, when i previously had them on they were never touching and the car would never bottom out, but within the last week I bottom out on very small bumps and can tell something isnt right.

 

There is something fundamentally wrong with the design of the 8s rear suspension to have all these failures. They need to do lowering springs old school stiff. Stiff springs mean the shocks are happy and won't fail, and that means putting up with a teeth chattering ride. It's the only way to do it.


And you shouldnt have to turn shocks stiffer to try and compensate for overly soft springs either. With stiff enough springs you should be able to leave the shocks on full soft when new.


All this talk about rotary engine failures and its actually the blasted rear suspension thats the real problem and yet I never read a thing about it until I already bought the car!

 

My new setup is working fine (New S techs and KYB's). I just did a 300 mile trip with a full trunk and my 16 year old son and 11 year old daughter and she sat low but never rubbed on the new wheels. But I am not happy with how the rear sits (too high for my taste) so i too am going with the Tanabes. Coilovers are on my list but I bought a turbo kit so the coilovers will have to wait since my suspension is all new anyway.

That said, the Tein/KYB combo performed great at this years Texas8.

 

I've been following 9krpmrx8's rear suspension work, and almost got him to put on my S-techs, but decided against it when he started having the bottoming out with extra weight in the car.

There might have been a running change to my 07 GT with sport suspension because it was close to the minimum height specs (14.2 front/13.7rear) stock.

So, I just realigned the suspension, and put the least neg camber that I could get (from -2.1 to -1.65), and it is working like a charm.

If you've put on rear springs and or shocks, make sure that the rears are straightened up so the flexing doesn't bind on the shock movement.

 

Grungepup was saying that the part numbers did change in 07' so maybe something is different because sillywhitegirl (07' GT) has my old Teins that were tested good by Tein and her car sits perfectly. And come to think of it before tbk had his coilovers he was also way lower than me on Tanabes and he has an 07'. Hoss-05's car is an 05' and his was not very low either even though the progress springs drop is close to the Tein drop.