I’ve got to wondering - what’s the “standard” ride height for a mk.2 MX5? The reason I ask is that I had cause to measure mine recently (to get some suitable geometry settings from Tony at W-I-M), and the measurements I got seem to put my car at the very lowest end of the range which seems to be quoted when you search online for geometry settings and the like. Which leads me to wonder whether mine is actually ‘normal’?
Measuring from the centre of the wheel hub vertically upwards to the edge of the wheel arch, I get 335mm on the front and 355mm on the rear. What do you get??
Hi Garath
The standard settings fom Mazda are
Spec is: -<o:p></o:p>
Rear 346mm - 395mm.<o:p></o:p>
Front 328mm - 377mm, <o:p></o:p>
The
difference rear-front should be between 10 and 30mm.<o:p></o:p>
Aim at 340/325/
Mine is 352/335
So there could be up to two inches of variation in height and the car would still be considerd ‘in spec’? That seems like a very generous tolerance …
It’s a bit like the tolerance for the suspension geometry settings. eg front toe in=3+/-3 mm !
The workshop manual gives figures for ride height in the range 328/337 to 368/377 max difference right to left 10 mm
Hi
My ride heights are 330/320 front/rear on my 1999 1.8 Mk2 Sport. Thinking the rear was too low I’ve just fitted (yesterday) brand new standard springs and dampers to the rear. Initial setting on lowering off the jack was 340mm rear, result I thought. Took it for a quick blast and measured again and ******* its back to 320 at the rear, so it looks like that is the standard ride height. At least its not crashing through to the bump stops quite as badly now, the old dampers were probably well shot.
Checked Mazda’s parts list and it shows the Sport as using the same rear springs dampers as the standard car. I cannot afford to buy more springs/dampers, so current thinking is to cut the spring seats off the old dampers and weld them onto the new dampers a bit higher up!
Alan
G’day Alan
The figures are a bit strange to say the least. The difference front to rear should be 10-20mm with the back the higher. Almost sounds like the springs are on the wrong ends of the car. Who fitted the previous set?
Hi Geoff
I am fairly sure the set I took off were the originals, they had certainly been there for a good while, the dampers were Mazda OEM items and had a manufacture date in 1998 (my car is a 1999 registered). Having said that the car had a 100k miles on it when purchased so by rights it should have had a damper change. The springs I took off had two purple identifying spots on them, as did the replacement springs. The other pair of springs in the set (for the front?) have two red identifying spots. I bought the springs as new old stock and could not decipher the part nos to identify them that way. Anybody know if red is front and purple rear? The dampers are again Mazda OEM and are the correct part no. for the vehicle.
The springs both have the same number of coils, 8. The purple spot ones have a free length of 340mm and wire size 10.5mm while the red spot ones are 305mm free length and 11.6mm wire. Its much too long (like 50 years) since I did any spring design theory to be able to work out whether the shorter but stronger “red” spring will have a greater fitted length than the longer but weaker purple one. Anybody more up to date on spring design than me? I could of course just fit the red springs and try, but I cannot face another workshop session just yet without some indication of whether there will be an improvement.
Any help and advise most gratefully received.
Regards
Alan
G’day Alan
Here’s some stuff I found a while ago
Spring Rates
| year | color code | wire dia | coil inner dia | free length | number of coils | spring rate | ||
| (inch) | (inch) | (inch) | (n) | (lbf/in) | ||||
| 1990 | front | red | 0.43 | 3.27 | 11.12 | 5.91 | 164.17 | * |
| rear | blue | 0.40 | 3.27 | 13.37 | 7.68 | 96.94 | * |
It can be seen from the table that the front springs are shorter than the rears.
long shocks on the front — Short springs on the front
Short shocks on the rear — Long springs on the rear
Hi Geoff
That was most useful information and confirms that I fitted the rear springs to the rear of the car, even though they do seem to provide too low a ride height.
Is there anybody out there with a Mk2 with a rear ride height of at least 340mm who would like to swap rear springs for some providing a 320mm ride height. Some folks like the low look, but our driveway is rough and I have to pick my route carefully to avoid grounding out.
Thanks again to Geoff for the info.
Alan