I just installed Koni sport shocks, Racingbeat springs, Dunlup Direzza Z1 Star Specs, and an alignment.


First impressions:

The Good:

Almost zero body roll
Car is very neutral now
Much easier to drive fast
Handles well in both tight corners and at speed
Car is easier to control in a slide
Confidence inspiring


The Bad:

The car is quite stiffer, on the threshold of being too stiff for me.
Roads that aren't perfectly flat feel rough
Rough roads feel like offroading in a pickup truck
More NVH(noise, vibration, harshness) in general


Mods done to car:
Axial Flow short shifter, koni sport shocks, racingbeat springs, dunlup direzza Z1 star specs. Everything else is untouched.


Settings:
Koni sport shocks are REBOUND adjustable only. You will be able to tell this first hand when you adjust them. The shocks collapse at the same rate regardless of settings, but when set stiffer take forever to push back out. In fact I manually pulled mine out to install them. Settings for the front are set at 60%(3.25 full turns from full soft) and the rear are set at 40%(2.25 full turns from full soft). Suspension was tightened up while car was perfectly flat on the ground. Anti-sway bars were in resting position when tightened.

My alignment was set to -1.7 camber on the front with 5.0 degrees of castor. Rear was set to -1.5 camber. Toe was dialed out to 0.


Installation Notes on shocks/springs:
I used Robin Yangs installation guide: http://www.hi-impact.org/ryang/modify/modify.html

I have a few tips/hints if you use that guide.
1) O'Reilly's and Autozone rent out spring compressors, get the mac pherson strut style spring compressor. It's free when you bring it back.
2) Use a sharpie and mark everything. Especially the cam bolt and the boot.
3) For koni shocks YOU NEED A DRILL and DRILL BITS
4) In order to get the cam bolt back in and have the cam bolt adjustment ring fit in between the 2 dimples use a jack to jack up the SHOCK. Literally line the jack up with the bottom of the shock, you will notice that the cam bolt moves when you jack it up and down. Get it very close and just tighten the bolt down, should pop right in with no problem.
5) Make sure you have lots of light just in case you don't finish during the day, my first install took me 2 half days to complete the whole install. I later adjusted my rear Konis and it took about 3 hours
6) Don't even think about putting the anti-sway bar back on until the car is sitting on the ground. With the racingbeat springs I can barely fit under the car.


Last but not least, if the ride is too stiff you might want to go back to stock springs. Adjusting the shock to soft seems to have less impact on ride quality as you think, this is because they are rebound adjustable only.


Big Edit: Special thanks goes out to the people who have helped me out on this.
BHR for the Koni's and answering some of my questions.
Champion Motorsports for the crazy deal on tires(cheapest on the internet)
Swoope for answering questions about ride quality
Nick for being too broke to get his car set up for autocross
My friends for helping me out with the installation

 

Autocross Impressions:

First run for both my co-driver and me was uneventful at best. We felt very slow. Driving that normally would of had us sliding around every turn, instead felt like we were driving Ms. Daisy around the park.

Every run after that we pushed it more and more. The car felt great once we started to stay on the gas all the time and never hit the brakes. It was enough for my co-driver to pull a first place victory out of STB class. I caught up in the double entry class in the afternoon but timing was off yesterday so they didn't record my actual time or even get my name right after multiple tries.

In the afternoon we had a little bit of fun to see where the new limits are. At the limits the car is easy to recover if something goes wrong, and also gives you plenty of warning when you are at the limit. Its much easier to drive than it was before.

I'll update with pictures as soon as I get them emailed to me.

 

Cool review. How much of a drop did you get with the racing beat springs? I almost pulled the trigger on the D-specs because I liked the option of adjusting both front and rear without removing but I'm going to try and hold out for coilovers, plus I get the impression that the RB spring rates might be on the low side for my preference.

Seems the Koni's are a good aftemarket option for a mostly tracked car??

 

The rear drops more than the front. The front will barely scrape a standard curb.
As far as the drop, more than I liked, but I live in a city where buses have been known to be swallowed by potholes. While most of the roads are pretty good around here, I don't like hearing the bottom scrape, and it scraped stock.

For stiffness of the racingbeat springs, I can assure you that when paired with Koni's the ride is quite stiff. Stiff enough that I readjusted the rear. They are one of the stiffest springs with the most suspension travel. A 300lb person jumping in my trunk barely pushes the car down.


Handling is handling. While I track my car it is also my daily driver. More so my daily driver than a track car. Everyone has their tolerances, but I can assure you, if you drive your car hard this set up will bring a smile to your face. It makes the car very controllable.


Also I edited first post for special thanks and added in alignment specs.

Edit 2: It was suggested in this thread https://www.rx8club.com/series-i-wheels-tires-brakes-suspension-55/rear-aftermarket-springs-too-compressed-clunking-140015/ by EricMeyer(grand am koni challenge RX-8) that the RX-8 works better with the rears lower. Or at least that's how I understood it.

 

heavy,

wow. sucks to be you, but as we have talked about... when you get the rear shocks set back life will be good again.

the rest is work, and more work..

it sucks that you have to do the work to change the rears, but that likely will make you happy..

beers

 

The tires and alignment seem to have made the ride alot softer/smoother.

It is definitely on the borderline on what I want to deal with, but when driven hard it handles very well. Not only can I corner harder than before, but its alot easier. It makes me feel like I'm invincible in the turns. I can't wait for autocross next weekend!

 

and if you back it down in the rear to .25% you will be more invincible!!!
trust me!!!!!

beers

 

What kind of corners are you referring to though? The ones that concern me the most are the high speed esses (where you can't use the aggressive curbing) and 85 MPH sweeper-both at Buttonwillow.

 

have any pic of your stance?

 

Compared to stock turning during Slaloms are psychic. All of the high speed sweepers I've taken thus far have been much faster than I could stock, but the car feels like I could go MUCH faster still. But remember I got very good tires after I got the new suspension as well. I've made too many changes at once to isolate things. My last set of tires were OEM dunlups and were starting to cord badly.


I'm pretty active in the Houston Rotary club and I'm sure I can get a picture. I'll try to get a picture next to a stock RX-8, but I might have to wait this weekend to get it.

 

Updated autocross impressions. I'm busy at work so I'll proof read later.

 

I'm running the Konis at 50% firm front, 25% firm rear (from full soft- as recommended by DPE) and the ride is extremely tolerant - almost like stock. Dampers are paired with H-Tech springs.

 

Heavy,well Im glad you are getting her going sounds likes lots of work,I call it fun,but like swoope says in the end it will be worth it,let us know if in the future,we can help you out with what ever you may need.

Luis

 

I think you have the front to stiff.

Also, if you want a better ride use the D' specs in place of Koni's.
Ride quality tolerance is subjective but the D specs are better for the street,

It's hard to compromise.

 

Yeah it seems almost like the shocks are adjusting themselves. I went to stiffen them up while setting up for autocross and they were half a turn from full stiff. I know for sure I had them set 3.5 half turns from full stiff. I checked and double checked just to be sure.

Besides that though, they aren't too bad turned down. The rears I have to live with, but I think the fronts were the ones giving me the trouble before.

Also I think the sticky tires might still be able to rock the car to the bump stops. I heard a clunk once or twice while autocrossing but couldn't figure out what it was. I just know it was during a heavy turn with a dip in the road.