- My model of MX-5 is: 1.6 Auto__
- I’m based near: Coleraine
- I’m looking for technical help or recommendations on: __the above issues , handles well on flat smooth roads, handles bumps well at lowish speeds but when pressing on back roads the damping is imo less than the std stuff would be…
Which MeisterR’s do you have, “road kit” is there such a thing?
I understood that’s what the name was…the spring rates are road orientated rather than track and theres no adjustment of the damping…I would have asked Skuzzle who i understand were heavily involved in the design of the meister stuff but reading on here i see they have retired from the business…i wouldn’t have gone for anything different as most of them are built for the Euro/German market and the spring rates are ''race ‘’ worse than track… and they are awful on our broken back roads… and even on the highways… this car has been totally rebuilt underneath and up top, zero rust, paint refinished,bushes, bolts, balljoints ,trackrod ends, rollbars,caster camber 4 wheel alignment all sorted by someone who does competition cars and myself who while i’m new to 5’s ain’t a pilgrim…will
I think it’s Sportives you have then. Height adjustable only.
Know where you’re coming from, although I now have an NC2 with Sportives my previous NC1 had the Zeta CRD’s which TBH I prefer for there damping adjustability. A simple explanation is the Sportives seem to thud occasionally over rougher roads or deeper dips in the road whereas the CRD’s didn’t.
Something I’ll have to consider for the future but for now they do a job and apart from the above are fine.
update … in contact with Meister themselves who have answered me several times asking where i have them set which was exactly how they came out of the box. seems they are early versions , maybe new, certainly to my experienced eye they were on a car that sat around in a clean environ not a trace of road dirt anywhere even inside a spring, then they started on about had i set them at the median ride heights. which is 310 f 320 rear mid hub to arch… now my car is much lighter than a std one reckon about 50 lbs less at front and maybe 15/20 at rear… this i told them and mine is 330 front and 335 rear, now they claim it maybe’’ topping out’’ which to me is the opposite of bottoming out and would only work in the real world if it had bottomed out and then uncontrollably hit the top because the shock valving or oil had gone completely… … they are hopefuly going to accept them back and check them out as i don’t like them at all on B roads…
so yesterday and today i had the machine up high on axle stands that allowed access to the meisters coil overs and got to work dropping them, and later this afternoon took a few back roads to experience how things had improved and they did… while i wouldn’t be totally happy with the rear end for spirited Ulster back roads the car definitely had more poise and control and at the rear what it actually did was remove any preload on the rear spring when i reset to what i was asked to do ride height wise you could just turn the spring with the perches locked, so to my mind if they had said clearly just wind all the preload off front and rear instead of talking about a median setting… its seriously hard to get any car expecially one thats not std weight side to side and is nearly 30yo to within a couple of mm side to side… but more satisfied that it was a reasonable purchase… EDIT
They said i could send the rears back for checking if need be at zero cost but haven’t yet got back when i asked if they could revalve and reoil should they find an issue. .instead of just supplying a new pair @300 less 20%…W
Yeah, I don’t think they do any work themselves on them in the UK. They get their stock from their contractors in the Far East.
I ordered a set of Zeta Pros from them years ago, and was surprised that the return address was an outfit selling TV aerials. The owners seem to have a few fairly diverse business interests. Good at marketing.
yeah, SKUZZLE were the people as far as i can discover who did the heavy lifting and testing and sorted the spring rates for the sportives, that said perhaps I’m just a tad hard to please, I mean Loeb some years back when testing on site for a week or more with Citroen pre an Int event in the south of Ireland wasn’t happy even after they summoned 2 more wagons from France full of shocks and springs etc and entered the event still not really dialled in as he put it so the amplitudes of Irish Tarmac can beat the best, who am I to complain, like him I carry corner speed obviously not as fast but enough to know when the susp is working as it should be on challenging terrain… and if i did have at some stage change the rears i think i would go Koni…
I had some Protecs rebuilt by IG Racing a few years back, and asked them what the Chinese shocks were like to work on. He tried a set, but nothing in his spares would fit. They carried parts for Protec/GAZ/AVO/Bilstein/Koni and could usually find from that lot something that could be used to fix a Japanese shock, but nothing on the Chinese shocks conformed to any recognised standard. He regarded them as essentially non-serviceable.
OK but are you certain that they were made inChina. they aren’t priced China wise…
Its a matter of public record, since they set up a US subsidiary. US Customs declarations; they get some shocks from Republic of China (Taiwan)
Taiwan Bor-chuann Enterprise Co
Better known as BC Racing
But it looks like they have also sourced from Ld Auto Parts
Which confirms that these shocks were specifically for the NA/NB MX5. Given these are more recent shipments only, I wonder if these are Sportives.
LD Auto Parts is a Hong Kong registered company, though Bill of Lading for shipments to the US are from the PRC, so I assume that’s where these are made. Not a lot known about them except a company pops up on Alibaba selling a horrendous looking body kit for a Tesla.
The poster boys for cheap Chinese coilovers these days is maXpeedingrods, currently around £240 for a set. This is a trading name, and they are really “Hong Kong Ruisu Trading Co.Limited”, probably a front for a variety of factories.
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personally I wouldn’t dis anything from Taiwan [as opposed to mainland China] as thats where most of todays hi tec bikes are built,its also where the Shimano company has factories, they, those top companies were and are the foremost investors in alloy and carbon technology in the cycle world , so theres a lot of skill therabouts…just my take on it…
No, just passing on the comment from IG Racing that Chinese (PRC/ROC) shocks cannot be rebuilt (easily).
My experience might be unusual. I fitted a set of Meister R Zeta Pros (probably made by BC Racing) in 2014 (@165k kms). By 2018, I was surprised how rusty the springs looked (178k kms). I sold that car in 2018. By 2021 (194k kms), 3 springs were on a MOT advisory, and one of the rears had fractured. Everything was at the straight out of the box Meister setting. Never been tracked. Apparently springs lasting 29k kms was normal.
Then I look at my other NA. I fitted the P5 Puredrives (Protecs and pigtail springs, NB topmounts) at the end of 2008 (190k kms). 2014; had both rear shocks overhauled after one blew a seal (250k kms) while in Cornwall. In 2021 (273k kms), still have the same shocks, same springs. Not done bad really.
P5 is gone, and never coming back, so going back to Phil Dixon for the next step is out of the question. Next for me will probably be Teins, and treat them as disposable shocks. I’m not sure I could get replacement springs easily made (P5 never said what rating they were), and everything is so old now.
The main reason I went for Meisters was the sportives spring rates… which are written on the springs and on their blurb as well, any other way cheaper stuff that comes in is either designed for glass flat roads and thus has high spring rates so that everyone can get down low & or has totally mad compression rebound rates… so track sorted almost, I tend to look at what Lotus did years back with light cars soft spring rate, good shocks and heavier anti roll cars, after all the MX5 was JAP dreamt Elan and so much more reliable…which Elans were not…W
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