I Have a NC 2007 Sport.
i’m considering one of two mods… secondhand RX8 arb’s (tidied and painted with hammerite) with new drop links and new bushes. Around £140
or for around the same price lower it by 3cm with eibach springs.
I personally think doing the ARB‘s is more worthwhile, and don’t bother with the springs until I can get a decent set of shocks/springs to replace the bilsteins it currently has (which have done 100,000 Miles). What are other people’s thoughts?
Cheers
Steph
watching this with interest (see my post above - or below??)
I had to swap out my Eibach springs at 100k miles due to a broken rear spring. A new set of Eibachs was £120 delivered from flea bay. I didn’t even consider replacing arbs as the car works very well on track (Snetterton and Cadwell) with very little roll and impeccable on-road manners, which for me was the best compromise.
The only additional tweak I plan to do is raise the steering rack 6mm or so with shims to improve the bump steer and alter the toe-in to make the steering less pointy.
Ok, my willpower lasted one day…
Ordered eibach’s, new bushes and drop links, picking up rx8 bars tomorrow. yes, I know I said one or the other.
I’m off next Thursday and Friday, so have a 4 day weekend to fit it all. The theory is this weekend clean and hammerite the arb’s, then next Thursday take the old arb’s off and keep them out of the way, remove the suspension and then wire brush and clean the bilsteins that must be rusty. refit with the new springs, and then redo the arb’s.
Must not put the front springs on the back, which I might have done in my last car.
i must remember.
VA is for the frond (Vorne = Front, in German)
HA is for the rear (Hinten = Back, in German)
Steph
I was gonna say do both…
Mine is lowered and on an MX5 track day a couple of years ago I was advised to fit RX8 yellow dot ARB’s, but never got round to it.
My old 5 which was a 1.8 got written off. so this is a replacement it was only £2.4k but has high milage so these bits are still coming to just under what I got back from the insurance for my old car.
So have the arb’s had to use an angle grinder to get the old drop links off them. Painted them with hammerite yellow. Will give them another coat or two then they will be ready to go on Thursday when I start the work. Have the new drop links.
Springs should arrive Monday.
Question re the suspension, when you lower it, everything I have read says wait until it’s on the ground to tighten it? But how? Once it’s on the ground there will not be any room I would have thought. Do I need to buy a set of ramps and put the end I’m tightening up on the ramps. But, doesn’t that put extra pressure on the suspension or is that ok? Or is there a way to do it without buying ramps.
Thanks
Steph
One way is to is to replace all the wheels and lower the car to the ground with the wishbone bolts only hand tight. Remove the wheel on the corner your working on and place a jack under the outer end of the wishbone. Raise the jack until it barely starts to raise the corner of the car and tighten the bolts. You are effectively tightening the bolts at the wishbone position corresponding to normal cornerweight as if it was sat on all 4 wheels. Have a look at this american site for tips and tricks.
Alternative method is to use a jack to lift the hub assembly with wheel off. I picked up on one of the low ball joints. Raise it to correct ride height (best measure and reference centre of hub to wheel arch before starting) then Jack the hub to approx normal ride position, then tighten. Should avoid any twisting of the bush.
once you have done it check tyre pressures and then get the whole lot four wheel aligned, drive, and smile
Keep us informed Steph of how it all goes!
Have you got any TD’s booked yet for this year?
Bru
You can get to the arb nuts no worries with the car on the ground. Plenty of access to the rears and just turn the wheel out of the way for the fronts. Dead easy
Cheers guys. Plan is to stick it up on 4 axel stands take the wheels / old arbs off, Do the fronts, as the suspension there is a lot easier to get out, clean up the old bilsteins and give them a cost of yellow hammerite on any rusty sections, I’ve got spring compressors, so hopefully Friday I’ll have the front all back on loose and do the same with the rears and if I’m lucky can tighten it up Saturday. Probably Sunday, from what I remember getting the rear suspension out is a bitch but I’ll see.
Once it’s all done know I need to get it aligned somewhere.
At some point my new roll over bar might arrive,will probably leave that to try fitting another time, might have a go depends how difficult the suspension is going to be.
I’ll try to take a few pics as I go along.
^^ Nope. I must do. Never been on one but want to East Midlands leics, so a few around. Any recommendations for a place to go for a newbie.
You will need to copy and paste into the address bar.
https://www.mazdaontrack.co.uk/blyton-park-track-day---saturday-28th-march-2020--full-opl-666-p.asp
As Nick has suggested Blyton would be a good 1st time track, plenty of good run off if you were to get it wrong! lol
Bru
Last annoying question, until I start, I hope! Bump stops, only lowering 3cm do I need to do anything about chopping the bottom of the bump stops off or not worry about them?
There is a lot of discussion on the US forums about this. Logically if you reduce ride height 30mm then you lose that amount of suspension travel from your original set up. People have stated that cutting the oem stops means a harder and less progressive feel when the suspension bottoms out.
They seem to favour leaving the original stops unmolested or replacing with purpose made items from vendors like Fat Cat Motorsports.
You will need to check the originals are in good condition when you change the springs as they will have a harder life from now on with shorter springs fitted.
Good luck with the project.
That makes sense. I’ve got a spare set of secondhand original ones, so will see which look best and put them in.
Yipeeeee. The rears I managed to undo at the top which I couldn’t do last time. So don’t have to remove the turrets so much easier. Having soup then just putting the rear back together, needed the angle grinder on one of the two drop links, didn’t mess around just got on with it. Was planning two days for rears and two days for fronts, will start on fronts today.