I spent the afternoon working on my car with a friend of mine. We put the lowering springs on that I purchased from Auto RnD, for $100! The installation went great with some instructions from my mechanic friend and lots of help from the DIY forum. It took about four hours, we used jack and stands (no lift) and also an air impact wrench. I rented a strut spring compressor from autozone for free and it worked without any problems.

Here are some before and after pics.
The front before

The front after

The rear before

The rear after



I love the drop in the front, I wish the drop in the back was a little bit more, hopefully it will settle a little over the next couple days.

 

Real nice. How much of a drop is there suppose to be in the front and back?

 

They are suppsed to be 30mm, or around an 1 1/4".

 

hmm.. front drop looks good. did you just get it on? maybe the rear hasn't settled yet. it almost looks stock still.

 

interesting. i am gonna put on mine after i get shocks.
how does the car ride? punishing? smooth?
how does the car corner? predictable when close to limit? uneven jerkiness when lateral acceleartion is applied?

 

I havent had a chance to take it out yet. I felt like a pit crew this afternoon. I had to pick up my gf at the airport and I was running late. I tightened up all the bolts, dropped the car back on the ground and rolled out, hoping that I got everything. Tomorrow I will take it out on some roads and get on it a little bit.
Hopefully the car will settle down a little, I read another post on here that said after about 400miles of driving it was as low as it was gonna be.

 

I dont think the pics last night did justice, the shadows were a little deceptive. I took some close up shots to show the wheel gap now. They actually appear a little more even in theses pics.

By the way I hate Phoenix and all its damn grid pattern streets. I grew up in MA and there wasnt a straight road around. Any hints on some good twisties to try out the new suspension?

A close up of the front

A close up of the rear

 

nice, the rear looks better now. lol

 

give it time....i just had my alignment done yesterday and they are tucked on mine....i would say its closer to 2 inches when its said and done

 

Chrism did you stay with the stock alignment or did you make any adjustments?

 

went right back to oem settings....car is straight as an arrow

 

Same here set to OEM. Haven't been able to really put it through it's paces yet but definitely feels good!

 

with this 2" drop is there any camber issues? i was also looking into getting these springs but i wasn't sure if they would be too aggressive for the other stock suspension components. BTW, what shocks are you using? i'm thinking about just using the stock ones til the bite the dust.

 

This could be part of the reason the drop is less than expected, make sure to loosen all those bolts, and tighten them up with the car on the ground. Before I did that to my Racing Beat Springs (same setup?) the drop was much less than expected. Had to loosen everything back up put it back on the ground and tighten to spec. Turning the wheel to full lock allows you to get to each bolt with the car on the ground.

 

Same plan. I'm torn between the Tokico D-specs and the Koni's. Most of the reviews say the Koni's perform better but the Tokico's allow you to adjust the rear shocks on the car which is a big plus to me. It will be my first time monkeying with adjustable shocks so I'm sure I won't get the settings the way I want them right out of the box.

 

well, nevertheless it was the rear that was still high. there is no difference in tightening the rear in the air or on the ground. wonder how one would get into there to do it. some people have had problems with the front w/o tightening it on the ground. anyways, his car is fine now.

 

Yup, it was just a bad angle on the first shot. I made sure to tighten the front after a little drive around the block, learned that in the DIY forum. Also thanks to the DIY forum for the heads up on the ABS sensor.

I still havent really had a chance to play yet, but I took a 25mph on ramp at 65 today and the car tracked perfectly. When I used to do the same ramp at a slower speed 55, I felt that I needed to hold on for dear life almost like it was about to lose it. This time however it felt easy and predictable the whole way through

 

i have the KYB AGX shocks on my 240SX. do you know if they make shocks for our RX8's as well. i really like the adjustability on them. i have them set pretty stiff right now which is a rough ride but its nice on corners (but not as much as the 8).

 

Don't know. I have not seen them advertised. You could check with some of the guys like AutoRnD and DPE on the vendors forum and see what they've got.

 

Followup review for anyone who's interested:

This weekend we did the monthy RX8 club drive in our area and hit up some seriously twisty roads. It was my first opportunity to see how the Espelir springs changed the driving dynamics on my car from OEM.

To sum it up...Wow. It is such an improvement in hard corners and switchbacks. It turned the smooth slither of the 8 into the reflexes of a jackrabbit. The balance is all still there but it just hangs on harder and is so much more confident. There is almost no bouncing around heavy corners in rough patches and now you can pull hard enough to start blurring your vision. My wife was starting to get a little seasick we were moving so fast back and forth from corner to corner. The guys behind me in the group were setting off their traction control while my car was hanging on. I'd call that a measureable improvement in grip. And this is with the stock shocks. I can't wait until I can swap them out too!

I'm very happy with this product!

 

hey shaun, how much of a drop did you get all around? i'm torn between these and the tein s-techs.

 

There are some pictures further back in this thread of my actual ground clearance. It was about 1" in front (6" down to 5"). I didn't see much in the back at the time but I haven't measured it since the drive yesterday. It's supposed to be about 1" front and back.

 

hey dills the next meet your welcome to whip my car around and get a feel for the espelirs

 

thanks, yeah the pics look good but i am leaning towards the teins cuz i want more than an inch in the front, but price wise the tein's look about 70 to 80 more. good info though about the twisty roads though