I ordered my Espelir springs today and am planning on letting a local shop install them for me. I just wanted to know what most people who have dropped there car have done about the following:

1) How much did you trim the bumpstops? I hear from 1 inch to 3 inches, I am planning on letting them trim them no more than 1 inch. Is that good?

2) I know a lot people have had problems with the car settling wrong. What can I do to avoid this? I read on one thread that you should make sure to tighten everything equally and tightly and too wait 30 min before fully tightening and setting the car on the ground.

Some people PLEASE help me out with these questions before I have them installed. Thanks

 

Mindtrip,

1) I've had Eibach Pros installed and the shop didn't trim the bumpstops; wasn't required according to them.

2) I didn't have any problems with the car settling; everything was settled nicely and evenly. I don't know about this "waiting for 30 min before fully tightening." They did however, set the car on the ground before making their final adjustments (tighten).

Hope this helps.

 

According to the tabulated spring rate chart sticky in this section, the Espelir springs are a little stiffer than the Eibachs. If the drop is the same, then you should see similar results as Sociopath if you do not trim the stops (which sounds like a good idea to me). If the Espelirs drop the car more than the Eibachs, then trimming might be a good idea, but I can't imagine trimming more than an inch.

And yes, make sure the car is on the ground before tightening suspension bolts.

George

 

I remember reading on the forum that the Espelir Springs has an extra 0.5" drop when settled. I can't remember where I read the thread, I'll try to find it. But an extra 0.5" shouldn't make that big of a difference if the springs are stiffer. I think Eibachs has the softest spring rate.

 

1) I never trimmed my bumpstops...
2) I had settling issues, and then I loosened all my bolts and let my car sit and tightened them and that fixed everything. So make sure they set the car down on the floor first.

 

If you drive you car hard I think trimming the bump stop is a good idea. It really helps to have the extra suspension travel on rough roads. The instructions that come with the RB springs show how much stop to trim.

 

I was told to cut half of the bumpstop off.

 

Anyone agree with that?

 

Like what TheDosDog said, it really depends on how hard you drive. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think most of us are not professional enough and will NOT be pushing the 8 to it's limits that often. It won't hurt to trim the bump stop that's for sure.

 

Who told you half? I'd trust Racing Beat's take on this, at least applied to their setup, anyway. But 1/2 seems like allot.

This has been a never-ending debate in the Miata world. If you lower the car a whole bunch, but don't trim the bump-stops, the effective spring rate goes sky-high, since you are engaging the bump-stops all the time, and the ride goes to crap. Trim them too much (some say at all) and the bump-stops change from causing a nice progressive increase in spring rate as the car leans into a corner, to causing an abrubt change, and that can lead to all sorts of bad behavior when cornering hard - particularly when you hit a bump mid-corner.

The RX-8 has more suspension travel, me thinks, so it will likely tolerate bump-stop trimming better than a Miata. But trimming half the length seems pretty extreme. I found that trimming 1/3 worked OK in my Miata, but then I didn't lower it that much. Does anybody know how long the RX-8 bump stops are from the factory? Can somebody post a pic? The key is to leave some of the progressive nature in the bump rubber. Turn it into a stiff little chunk and it can do bad things to you, like snap oversteer, even in an emergency lane change manuever.

BTW, bigger sway bars will help keep you off the bump stops. If you lower the car with only a mild increase in spring rate, bars might be a good idea to keep body roll down and hence mitigate the bumpstop issue.