whaler340

Hi everyone,

so I bought my cannibalized rx8 about 2 years ago as a not running, halfway put together mess of a car. This car is intended to be a dedicated drift car. it has a Nissan rb25 engine and trans that was mechanically mounted in "ready to go"...lies. got it all wired and plumbed up, and got her started. Then I replaced the entire suspension setup, Wisefab front, all P2M links in the rear, Feal 441 coilovers, got it all together and headed out to a drift day. It was HORRIBLE, I had problems with almost every component of the car, to be expected with a mess like this thing assembled in a rushed timeline. So on the trailer and back to the shop. Well life, and other projects got in the way, and the car has been collecting dust until yesterday.
The rear suspension is where I started, It is defiantly apparent that everything was assembled at the last minute, by several different people. Quite a few issues.
So the main problem is that the shock body is colliding with the top hat (will deal with getting them repaired/parts replaced next week). now I am just trying to get it sorted out so this wont happen again. my first thought was that all of the links are way out of adjustment pushing the knuckle out further than it should be, but no matter how much I adjust things, the shock body is still at more of an angle than the top hat, I can get it closer than it was, but far from straight. The ride height is a little lower than stock, nothing extreme. Mostly to do with the fact that Im out of adjustment to go lower on the coil over.
So my questions are,
Does anyone else out there have Feals on their car?
Did they fit nicely?
how low can you get your car with them?
supposedly these are identical to a NC miata, is this true?

can some of you guys help me out with some measurements?
track width, from the face of the rotors, or hubs
stock lengths of the rear links, from center of the ball joint to center of the bolt on the subframe.
Anything would help at this point. My next thought is to machine a spool to push the lower mounting position inwards to straighten it all out, but i have concerns with how much leverage this could put on the mounting point of the knuckle

Sorry for the novel, hope i did this right!! thanks for reading if you got this far, and thanks in advance for any input.

Loki

iTrader: (1)

Can you take pictures? It'll help understand what's happening.

Feals have really good reviews on RX8s and Miatas in general. I'm not sure who among the folks active here run them, but there were some past members that enjoyed them a lot.
They should be identical or nearly so to an NC Miata. The RX8 is basically a stretched NC Miata base.

Don't go too low, it starts to work against you below about 12.5" ride height (wheel center to fender)

whaler340

ride height at the time was at 13.25" from fender to center of axle shaft.
I had the camber set very close to 0, toe in about 1 degree
i have been messing with it more, and by adding quite a bit of negative camber, and shimming the lower mount out I can get it where the shock body is almost centered in the top hat.
this is not ideal for me for tire wear, but if it gets it working I can live with flipping tires until i can figure out how to get the camber out and keep the coilover happy

whaler340

ride height at the time was at 13.25" from fender to center of axle shaft.
I had the camber set very close to 0, toe in about 1 degree
i have been messing with it more, and by adding quite a bit of negative camber, and shimming the lower mount out I can get it where the shock body is almost centered in the top hat.
this is not ideal for me for tire wear, but if it gets it working I can live with flipping tires until i can figure out how to get the camber out and keep the coilover happy