well, if anybody could give me their opinion, what is the best suspension to go with, should i stick with racingbeat springs and go with the koni's, or should i go with full coilovers, with either the tein flexes or jic magics. any opinion would be greatly appreciated

 

You should first state what your goals are.
Firm or soft (oem) ride
Lowered look or stock height
Do any track time on a road course?
Corners as if on rails / a little improvement is ok.
Depending on what you want will determine the answer.
What is your budget & D.I.Y skills

 

Expo is right.

Depends on what kind of driving you do. If it's more daily driving and just driving lightly, then get springs and shocks. If you're wanting to possibly going to the track couple times a year and really want to get into it, i would suggest coilovers. Besides, coilovers are made for both daily driving and track use so why not take advantage of that?

If you have any technical questions about JIC suspension, please let me know (yukio@jic-magic.com) . I'll help you out. Good luck.

 

the best would be a complete 1 off job, done just for you to match your exact needs, this is what pro race teams use, Really any manufacture of quality suspension componets could do this for you.

As far as what on the shelf, I really like Koni for shocks as well as GAB, and I like the coil over kits from ground control. JIC makes a nice complete coil over set, and can customise it to fit your needs.

 

^^^ What they said. Gotta figure that out first.

For my 2 cents, I will say that with RB springs, adding Konis would improve the car dramatically. Our Tein H-tech/Koni equipped car is phenomenal on the road and track, and a rather large step up from the OEM suspension. H-techs are about 15% stiffer than OEM springs, and your RBs are about 20% stiffer, so with Konis you'd come out quite similar to what we've got on one of our cars. There's still a bit much body roll, but a pair of Whiteline swaybars will cure that very soon .

Coilovers obviously give you more options with ride-height adjustability, it's just a matter of how much you're going to mess with it. If you are only going to the track a few times a year and otherwise use your car for day-to-day driving, I think you'll be quite happy (as will your wallet) with the Koni/RB combo, and perhaps some swaybars to top it off. If, however, you really want to 'get into it' as the JIC man said and are going to the track every month and like to experiment with and adjust your suspension setup, definitely go for coilovers. I can speak to Tein Flex being quite good for that sort of thing, and I'm sure the JIC pieces are excellent as well. The HKS are also getting good reviews, from the few posts I've seen on them.

Best of luck in your decision!

 

^ Thanks for the kind words.

I forgot to mention that our JIC Magic coilover kits are completely customizable. Meaning that if you want different spring rates (we have two settings of spring rates for the "8". One "hard" and "soft") we can accomodate by getting you the proper set up and spring rate. Most of the time, you really don't have to play around much with the settings unless you really want to have a specific setting.

 

They are all coil-over suspensions including the stock suspension, the difference is adjustability...

They are all decent, how much do you want to spend?

I went with the complete Mazdaspeed and think it is a great setup for both street and track...

 

Just to clarify, speedmaniac is correct that all RX-8 suspensions including OEM are technically 'coilovers'. However, when people refer to coilovers on these forums, it nearly always is in reference to aftermarket suspensions featuring a set of springs and matching shocks with threaded bodies that allow for height adjustment/corner-weighting. All 'coilovers' in this sense have an adjustable lower spring seat via a threaded area on the shock body, while some of the more advanced ones such as Tein's Flex and JIC's FLT-A2 also have an adjustable lower mount that allows you to keep the preload on the spring the same (keep the lower spring seat in the same spot) while still adjusting ride height at the lower mount. So basically, two places to adjust, and more options on how you want the suspension set up.

Wanted to mention that for any newbie's reading the thread. . .

 

wow, thanks alot guys for the information, cuz i'm still kinda new to the suspension world, i'm still trying to figure out the money situation too, cuz coilovers seem really expensive...and i'm not sure the extra couple hundred dollars is worth it you know

 

but in general, i don't want my ride too be too stift, but i would like my ride stiffer than stock, but i'm also thinking about taking it to the track too

 

it sounds like the RB/Koni package is what you need, I have the Mazdaspeed setup, which works well fo the same thing. The Koni's will give you some adjustability settings I don't have.

 

Tein basics are good if you're trying to keep it at a budget at the same time get some good quality coilovers. Or just wait usually some people would sell their used coilovers at a pretty decent price.

I have ms swar bars, jic coilovers, and ssr competitions with 245 wrapped all around, and it handles way more neutral than stock. Just when you thought the handling can't be better .

 

I've noticed that pretty much all the spring kits available for our car lower the car much less in the rear than in the front... How does that change the characteristics of the car? I trust the companies that manufacture these springs but I would like to better understand why they don't lower the car the same amount both front and back. Thanks for any helpful info