hufflepuff

I recently picked up a 2007 6MT as a daily driver and autocrosser and am not really aiming for a killer build for any specific class, although it seems that STX and SCCA TT Sport 5 would be okay fits for a very lightly modified daily driver. Rockauto had the bilstein B6 HD dampers in stock for around $114 each, so i picked up a set of four and installed them with the stock sport springs and taller honda civic bumpstops and some bumpstop packers. I figured since there's not many reviews on them here, especially in a competition setting, i'd do a brief write-up.

Aesthetics: First off, despite being "high pressure gas charged", these DID NOT raise the car, AT ALL. They actually lowered the car slightly compared to my original 75k mile dampers. My thinking is perhaps they changed the spring perch locations? The car, even probably resting on tall squishy bumpstops, is sitting at about 14.25" front and 14.5" rear. It now has a nice rake and looks real nice.

Street ride quality: more busy and choppy over small imperfections. not great trying to sip tea or coffee. however, when the road gets bad (big bumps or railroad crossing or speed bumps), these work very, very well. I feel like there's a lot of low speed compression and rebound, and they open up at higher piston speeds. bilstein are kinda known for this behavior and tuning. i would've liked a smoother daily driver ride, but i like that it handles big bumps really nicely. to be honest... my white car's ohlins with 8k/5k springs might even ride a little nicer than these over the smaller bumps and similar over big bumps (yes, the ohlins are pretty magical).

Performance:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folde...WR0NFJRWWo2dXM
1st in STX class and 2nd in PAX (missed top PAX by ~0.1sec) out of 121 people in the first WDCR SCCA Autocross of the year.
This is with RE71Rs with 2018 date codes, a low compression engine, redrilled stock swaybars, a string alignment in my garage, and that's it... not exactly "prepped" for STX. I would say it's a competent setup at a local level. These dampers are off-the-shelf and obviously worked quite well given the results.

Bottom line: Yes, konis are great. maybe i would've been faster on konis. but these actually ride pretty well, are affordable, and high quality and likely very reliable. i am very satisfied with these bilsteins.

i'm also (re)learning that the RX8 is truly and fantastic platform that doesn't need much to be both fast and fun. As always... focus on the driver.

Long live the RX-8!

John V

iTrader: (1)

Holy cow helmet cams are awful

hufflepuff

I misplaced my suction cup mount that i use for dash cam or over windshield view. I need to find it for the next event.

I don't know if helmet angle is as useful as a post event learning tool, but i do think it makes it look more exciting! ;-)

apex1

Appreciate this review. The rear shocks and springs on my 8 need replacing. I usually like to get a new (to me) car on the track stock so I can tune from there. In this case I need new components and prefer not to swap twice. So I am trying to target what I am going to want the first time. I would usually look around 7-10k spring rates on a double wishbone car. However I am thinking I am going to let the rx8 suspension travel a bit more and see what it can do.

Was thinking of using pss which is more of a street setup. I was concerned it was just going to be too soft for a 200tw tire. However your review on the bilstein hds is encouraging. The stiffest setup is not always the fastest, especially on a competent chassis. A little back to basics never hurts, especially since I have been off track for almost 2 years!

thanks again for your review.

TeamRX8

iTrader: (25)

there’s nothing wrong with springs in the 400f/300r lb/in range for a street use car that isn’t excessive lowered. It will be a lot of fun without beating you down. That rate range was discussed well in the earlier STX threads in this forum section.

edit: https://www.rx8club.com/rx-8-racing-...thread-173186/

apex1

I am not looking for too much drop, on most street car setups the roll center suffers too much. From what I can tell on the 8 the pitch/dive seems well managed by the wheelbase. I may have to tune the body roll / balance with sway bars. Bottom line is I should be able to go pretty far with the pss setup for what I want to do.

if not I can always go with dfv or kw. Wouldn’t be the first time I went through several damper setups on the same car.

Thanks!

TeamRX8

iTrader: (25)

avoid the KW, other than true race shocks the Ohlins would be best, then Bilstein PSS imo …

hufflepuff

i agree with Team. The Ohlins on my white car with off-the-shelf spring rates are competent and ride very nicely. and then you can choose your ride height and corner balance.

apex1

I don’t know enough about the chassis and what I want out of it to go for ohlins. They worked great on my s2k with some spring changes. The ability to blow off the damping hitting the curbs hard was amazing. While they were awesome, they were not x2 better than my koni / gc setup with the right springs yet they cost x2. The low response twin tube actually works like a ripple reducer and has a bit of blow off naturally.

I dont see see the koni being an option on the rx8. However I am looking forward to trying the high response bilstein with digressive valving. In my experience bilstein gets the valving 95% off the shelf.

TeamRX8

iTrader: (25)

a bunch of us ran them in the Stock class way back in the day and they’d work ok converted as such, but nobody really offers them as an off the shelf solution and therein is the rub for most people

CbyDesign

Has anyone tried the Koni Str.t shocks? I've heard good things on other cars before. I'm wondering what it would do with a modest drop from RB springs or something like that.

apex1

One thing that impressed me with the yellows was the range of adjustable rebound damping that is available. Pick your spring rates and adjust accordingly. The slow response and relatively low compression damping can be managed with stiffer springs and rebound adjusted accordingly. They are a great starting point for someone that wants to trial and error damping tuning.

My guess is the STR's would be tuned in the middle of the yellow range. I am sure they could work well with the right spring rates. However relative to yellows, that is where they fall short. I would personally just go for the yellows and know they have a greater range of tuning.

Hopefully someone has more direct experience with the Str on this platform and can assist you with spring rates / feedback, etc...