Originally Posted by Spoolin8

Generally speaking if i just got a set of lowering springs how quickly could i except my stock struts to go out and is this something i can do in my garage if i had a spring compressor?

Thanks

Originally Posted by shaunv74

If you're going to get coilovers don't bother wasting your time and money on springs. It's throwing away money and doing work twice.

Originally Posted by shaunv74

You need to get the car aligned when you swap springs as it changes the suspension geometry.

Also it may be too high if you tighten your suspension bolts with the car still off the ground. The car should be on the ground before you tighten your control arm bolts.

Third they will settle a bit in a week or so.

Originally Posted by shaunv74

Also measure the distance from the ground to the top of the fender well with a tape measure. Not the gap to the wheels. The rear on these cars always seems to squat lower in the back but it's an illusion.

Originally Posted by DPE

This is copied from another post in my forum; just trying to keep all relevant suspension info in this sticky thread....

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Here is a post from our very own Craig (TheArchitect), describing his thoughts on the Tein Basics after living with them for a couple months. Took this from another post and edited the content a bit for relevance:

Well, I'll add my $.02 to the mix. I haven't autocrossed with the Basics, but I have had it at the track a couple of times with Basics on and drive daily on them.

In daily driving, I traverse plenty of pothole-ridden midwestern roads, so I appreciate that the Basics aren't super firm. The stock suspension is decent, but definitely soft. The Basics do cure that. I have driven the car on some road trips and it remains plenty comfortable. That the engineers at Mazda have given the car such a good GT/sportscar blend is a testament to their chassis tuning prowess, but there were obviously compromises made. The Basics get rid of those compromises, mostly without making any compromises of their own in harshness. I'm pretty impressed by that. That said, I can see them maybe not being the perfect companion for autox since agility and responsiveness are highly valuable in that setting, and I can see that some would prefer more damping (namely, rebound in the rear, at least in my observations) even in the Basics.

The car with the OEM suspension has a tendency to get a bit of a wiggly butt on track when really pushed deep into a corner under trail braking, and it also has a bit more roll than I personally care for on track. Nothing horrendous, but it could be better. Under hard braking deep into a corner, it seems to me (keeping in mind that I'm not a suspension engineer) that the rear suspension unloads to such a great degree due to lack of rebound control in the rear and softness in the front that you can actually get a fair amount of change in alignment that creates some instability in the rear of the car at the absolute limits (think positive camber and maybe even a positive toe change). The amount of suspension softness actually is good up to about 8-9/10 in my opinion, because it aids in grip to a point and gives a little bit of margin for error before giving up grip and spinning. For most drivers, this is probably a good safety net. At about 10/10 (and especially at 11+/10!), things get considerably dicier on track. In several driving events on the stock suspension, I found that the car gets a bit spooky when really pushed to the limit. We're talking driving really deep into a turn, and frankly overdriving the car, but that was a bit of the point, to try to find the car's weaknesses.

So, on track with the OEM suspension, one can definitely overdrive the car into an oversteering state, albeit a state that is recoverable - in my experience, anyway. After getting the Basics on, I found that the positive traits of the car remained in daily driving, but it really came alive on track. In fact, the car became a lot more entertaining on track. The chassis feels more balanced and more alive. The untoward dive and roll has been tempered a lot. There is still some roll, but it's lessened. Might still want sway bars, but that's a lot about preference.

I have found the car to be supremely balanced with the Basics on track, more so than stock, and I have found that I can balance the car exactly how I want it with the throttle now, whereas throttle induced yaw corrections were less precise on the stock suspension. The car is much more planted in the rear in hard braking and trail braking, which is much appreciated at the limit, without gaining understeer. The car is a whole lot of fun stock on track, but with the Basics it really has gone to a new level when driven hard. It has shown no tendency to give up on me like it did as stock when driven really hard, remains balanced, has sharper reflexes, and yet still allows enough body motion to keep someone like me, with no F1 contract as of yet (I suspect with good reason, but I'm still open to offers...), on the road course and out of the weeds.

So, the Basics might not be perfect for everyone, but I have been very pleased with them. We'll have more to report as time goes on and other developments take place with other product pairings, but so far I can't find much to fault in the Basics for a car that is daily driven and occasionally tracked. If you do autocross also, I could see going with something adjustable being a huge benefit, since the settings for autocross vs. road course would probably need to differ a bit. But, so far so good with the Basics for me.

Originally Posted by bulletproof21

^well if you read the very first post in this thread you would see that the Eibachs do not lower the car anywhere close to 2". They are 1.2" front and .8" rear. There is a set that lowers both front and rear about 2" but I believe it the sprint springs.

Originally Posted by DPE

At the moment, there are only a few options for shocks, though there are tons of options for springs. The spring choices are listed above, and there are other brands available that we haven't had time to look at. For shocks, though, the list goes like this:

Koni - Sport shocks, rebound adjustable (rear shocks must be removed for adjustment), seem to be compatible with just about any spring.

Tokico - DSP Kit, compression and rebound adjust simultaneously, can be adjusted on the car at all four corners, and should also work well with most springs. Probably a bit softer than the Konis as the softest settings. We have not tried them yet, but will in the Spring.

Mazdaspeed - Non-adjustable, probably best used with MS springs and swaybars to have the kit Mazda intended.

Tein Basic Coilovers - Hey, I said I didn't WANT coilovers! Perhaps not, but for a matched shock and spring kit that you can simply leave at the Tein-recommended ride-height, this kit works quite well. And the price is well within range of buying any of the above shocks with a set of springs.

Over the next couple weeks we'll post some of our impressions on a few of the suspension bits we've tried, and any other info we think might fit this post.

Originally Posted by Eight

yes, tanabe's are good, thet're well known

Originally Posted by Eight

ya, tanabe's are i guess underrated here.
Heres a link on some of the springs out there.

https://www.rx8club.com/showthread.p...0198&highlight

Originally Posted by mattrotary34

yea the tanabes are awesome... im running them right now and have been for a little over a year.. best spring IMO