MX5Ireland

Hi all

lining up a few 'winter' projects, one of which is to replace shocks & springs all round. What recommendations. I don't want to play with heights & see from other threads that various combinations have been used from KYB & Eibach to the dogs b&(*&cks and beyond.
Had the car out at the weekend now that the sun has re-appeared. I do believe its been locked up so long that its developed a squint.

My experiance and that of davids is that the eibachs are shit. Fergus on the other hand has them and loves them. There are differnt types of eibachs though so beware what you are getting.
I had the eibachs on with kyb 8 way adjutables but think that the shocks are knackered so maybe not just the springs.
I know have used Bilstein shocks (as fitted to special edition 5's) and coupled with flyin miata's springs (the second version as they sit a little higher)
For me that set up is a winner every time. Ride hieght is fine and no grounding out on the irish roads even with my fat arse sat in the car.
Anyone on the galway run a few years back with me will tell you i ended up being called sparky when i had the eibachs fitted and the setup ruined my enjoyment of the car.
David had a spin in my car and is now getting rid of the eibachs in favour of the fm springs but unsure on the shocks he will be using.

I'll vouch for Ash's description of events at a previous Galway run, but I can't comment on the size of his arse

John

Midlifecrisis wrote:Hi all

lining up a few 'winter' projects, one of which is to replace shocks & springs all round. .

Midlife.
If the shocks and springs are still ok and not broken leave well enough alone as it can lead to more problems.
Replacing the bushes and bump stops can make a major difference to the handling and ride of the car getting rid of all those rattles and shakes.
This is my opinion having done this myself and seeing all the problems ASH has had after changing his set up.
By the way MAZDA spent millions developing this cars handling and ride quality so go for a standard setup or go with bilsteins as fitted to special editions or leave well enough alone.

Dave

Shocks are past there best after 50,000 kms !

Well put Dave. I wish i had never started on the suspension (forced into it by busting a shock along with my lower wishbone etc)
I must say i am now happy with the bilsteins and the fm springs as they give a good ride height.
If you have the money the performance 5 pure drive system is supposed to be the dogs. Designed especially for mx5's by a guy who is really into his 5's.
Check out http://www.performance5.com/news_puredrive.asp
If you want info on them or have a look on nutz for some reviews.

Hi Midlife.I have read and researched everything i possibly can on a MX5s suspension over the last few years and yes everything mx5 specialists say is true such as going to low ruins ride quality and not having an mx5 properly aligned causes all sorts of handling and ride problems but with every modification there is compromises.
I am presently using brand new kyb AGX shocks which you can adjust from hard to soft to suit road and driving styles they are great this is matched to Eibach springs which lower the car and stiffen it a little now the car corners as flat as a pancake but its to low and to soft,i have also rebushed the whole car.
If i were you i would replace the suspension as its a fairly straightforward job and the car feels great after everything settles in as we replaced suspension on my Fathers car with new stock parts and he is well happy.
Sorry for going on but i would hate another person to make a costly mistake.

Hi, having put new springs (stock), shocks (KYB AGXs) and bushes (polybush) on my 1991 1.6, I can't give you a comparison with other setups. However I will say that I'm happy with the stock springs & the AGXs, but overall I don't like the ride of the Polybushes on bumpy Irish roads. For really fast driving they are good, but for normal road driving they're too firm for my likings. To each his own, but if I had my time again I'd leave the bushes or replace them with new stock bushes.

thanks to all for the input/advice. Think now I might go with doing the bushes all-round & see what that does. I also have to replace the drive-shaft (to rid me of that periodic ker-thunk). Now all I have to do is get over the notion that the underside of the car is akin to looking into a hedge.

is the ker-chunk happening when you put it in reverse?

No - the ker-thunk/mad-vibration only gets going in earnest in fwd, and usually after about 10-15 mins running. It usually goes away after about 5-10 mins. My pub mechanics reckon its drive-shaft, whereby it slips & so creates the bang-bang for a while until it once again locks into a cog. That even made sense to me (after a few pints). First noticed back in august, when I initially thought it was a puncture.

Mx5 parts .co.uk have these now

http://www.mx5parts.co.uk/product_info. ... ts_id/1471

having tried to trade my car in and getting stupid offers, I have decided to keep it ... (98 bronze 1.8is €5500 ono) .... unless anyone is interested...

Decided to provided the MX5 abit of TLC.. in the form of upreated suspension and maybe new bushes... No ware really practical to carry out the work myself, anyone know of a decent mechanic willing to undertake suspension and bush replacement?... and how much am i looking at if i suply parts????.

Sorry to joint this debate quite late.

You can make some pretty basic assumptions about suspension springs and dampers, after that it is fine tuning.

Your standard car is designed as a compromise for handling and a nice ride. It is set up with good ground clearance and supple damping to absorb bumps and pot holes.
So if you hit a pot hole in your car, just picking made up numbers out of the air, the spring and damper has 10 units of length to absorb that bump before the bump stops.
If then you lower the car there is now less suspension travel to absorb that bump, so for the same pot hole you now have only 7 units to absorb that bump. The spring needs to be stiffer or the suspension will reach the bump stops much more readily.

SO for a lower car, springs need to be stiffer to absorb the same amount of energy in a shorter stroke. However, what is also very important is that the damper needs to be up rated to deal with the extra loads over a shorted damper stroke. This is particularly noticed on rebound when the stiffer (stronger) spring needs to be controlled by the damper.

So lowering the car on standard rate springs will result in running out of suspension travel easily.

Lowering the car on stiffer springs need better dampers to compensate for the work that the damper has to do in a shorted stroke.

The same is true with heavier wheels. A heavy wheel needs more damping to control the mass once moving, so again, going from 14" to 16" generally need better dampers.

Choice of dampers is down to preference. Damping is required to control both bumps and undulations. Bilstine as fitted by Mazda as standard tend to be jiggly because they don't absorb the small movements well. I believe Japanese roads are quite smooth.
Koni, KYB and Pure Drive are much better in this respect.

Also, it is possible to replace all dampers and bushes without actually breaking the ball joint on the front wish bones.
You have to remove the upper front wish bone bolt to allow the whole wish bone to drop outwards.
Then if you use 12mm studding (10mm on the rear) you can jack the bushes out.

Excellent info! Nice one!

Yeah, nice images / tips NickD.

My tuppence worth: I changed from my sh@gged stock springs/shocks/bushed on mine about 5 years ago to KYG AGX shocks, MX5Parts stock springs & polybushes. I quite like the KYBs & the springs are fine but tbh on Irish roads I find the polybushes a bit harsh for everyday driving, esp. with the missus. If I had my time again I'd leave the bushes or replace them with stock.

Also, MX5Parts f*cked up my order, sent the wrong bushes which I only found out with the car in bits, then sent the wrong parts as replacement, etc. Took a fortnight before I received the right parts. I see they've deleted my review from their site, doubtless for (cough) space reasons.