TrochoidMagic

^^wake up jerry!!!

whats that car got over yours? its older, more mileage, and i doubt the way he takes care of his car is any better than yours.

granted, there are some mods and its YELLOW! oooohhhh.

by no means is tenzo R wheels AND Ksports fancy stuff... hardly worth dumping your black 8 and forking out an extra 14k for.

not to knock on the seller, but if you didn't have an 8 already thats all i'm saying.

you can spend under 2k and have the same thing.... hopefully those humongous 19" wheels aren't your thing.

skip on that deal jerry, what were you thinking?

LionZoo

I think Gerry just wants the yellow, he couldn't care less about the mods. Yellow has always been THE color he wanted. Personally, that car has way more miles than yours and is older so it's not that great of a deal; the price can come down more in my opinion. Tell him to return it to stock if you want to buy it. It might be worth a look, but your car is most likely in better condition. I feel it might be worth investigating, but I'm not sure if it'll work. It's worth a shot.

R3n3sis36

LOL TRACK CAR!!!!! LOL

Detrich

bump

LionZoo

Are you positive you can get out at 10?

Detrich

nope. it could run longer than that if tihngs don't go as planned...

TrochoidMagic

^^don't think i can make a canyon run this time... been feelin a lil down lately. and just before you think you can take a break, another baby shower pops up...

but enough with me. how did everything work out with the tools for you and hao?

TrochoidMagic

haven't had much chance to scout the forums lately, but saw we got 2 newbs.

they told me to welcome you guys... so hi sherry and allen. enjoy our forum

ryan: can't wait til you get those suckers in... both the d-specs and the pipe! it'll be awesome! and until you get some progress sways, i'll be jealous as ****.

LionZoo

If you're feeling down, a drive is the perfect pick me up. We managed to get the piece off and finally finished stuff enough to be ridden around 11.

I wouldn't run the Progress bars with the Tokicos. The Progress are stiff as hell, but the Tokicos are valved for close to stock spring stiffness so I feel the Progress bars will overwhelm the damping of the Tokicos if they're used together. The Progress really needs a lot more damping than what we have stock to be effective; it's really best to pair it with a coilover. With how stiff the Progress is, travel becomes a mute point as you'll lift a wheel from the coupled forces before you run out of travel so it's perfect for a short travel stiff coilover.

TrochoidMagic

^^ you sure about what you're saying???

liyan, you mentioned coilovers, coilovers, coilovers...
IT GETS OLD! its expensive too!

wheel lifting, stiffness, .... just HOW do you take away spring stiffness??? you can't, can you?
and how are the tokico's not valved? it does come with an adjustment ****, you know?
the progress bars are adjustable too. so if you do lift a wheel, you would make adjustments, along with the ADJUSTABLE shocks...

a mute point also is getting coilovers, and not having the car corner balanced. but do everyone go to that extreme, or even care?

springs, adjustable shocks, adjustable sways... whats so different from a coilovers???
only stiffer spring rates and height adjustability... and on the top notch ones,shock body travel adjustability

i can care less for it on a dual purpose car.

again, too rich for my blood.
but if it was thrown at my face.... i'll take it.

TrochoidMagic

just to clarify, so i don't sound like an *** trying to attack your opinion...

1) thats the point of the bar, a trade-off of stiff spring rates to torsional. its just moving pounds per inch from one point to another, and it works upon seeing different wheel movement, which is what i want for my car transporting me and my fam.
2) the bound and rebound are not constant. i'm interested in the tokico D-SPECs, which ryan will soon be running, and to clarify if something is missing, that these are adjustable just like the bilstein you're running???.... or whatever brand X coilovers.
3) what??? i just don't get this part of the question.
your statement here just contradicts on what you commented on earlier! did you mess up here?
i don't get what you mean by MORE... i'm assuming stiffer???
thats what the 20%increased spring rates from the RB is for, and increasable "torsional" stiffness from the bar comes from, 3-4 levels of adjustments.
i don't assume you mean more, as in from the struts itself?.... because D-specs are a adjustable damper type struts. so the progress bars are able to get "more" damping from the D-specs to be effective.
4) OK, YOU WIN.
the bars are stiff as **** on the stiffest setting, i've heard. ( read into "i've just got the biggest stiffy" thread) so then i''ll have to decrease it to a softer setting if i do lift.

but on one note, not all coilovers brand offer a ride height adjustability with a travel adjustability...so "lifting a wheel" is still possible with these set-up, but comes with the headache of really stiff spring rates that just can't be taken away with most high performance coilovers for competition use.

so, you do get why i'm tired of coilovers and going for this approach right?
well....
-my back hurts
-i'm old
-its more expensive that way, and most likely i won't fork out extra $$$ to corner balance the car to optimize a coilover set-up
-and its pointless to, as weight shaving on a car will just upset an already corner balanced car
-last but not least... realize that i do have a family now. i don't need to be reminded of a performance suspension wherever i drive to.

thats not to say you won't enjoy your set-up. but this one is mine, and i'll compromise where i want to.

Detrich

why are u feeling down richard?

TrochoidMagic

that is a very valid point. i can't really argue how you plan this out for your set-up.

but you see how your set-up works for you, and how mine works for mine?

here's how:

you- run close to stock O.D. tire diameter, which can be complimented with some more lowering, a la short coilovers

me- run a shorter tire to accomplish additional lowering

my point?

i don't like the "slammed" look.
its not just the look, but the axles twists and puts down power more easily if it was straight, rather than angled, which can be disturbed with "excessive" lowering.

too many people do things in excess without looking at the overall things affected.
but maybe if you look at it when it all gets put together, then you can judge for yourself then.

but meanwhile, driving around looking stock doesn't give you much idea on what my aim is...

LionZoo

For tomorrow's drive...

The meeting place is:

11348 Sunburst St
Sylmar, CA 91342

Please be there by 1:45 pm and have enough fuel for 100 miles. Overall the route will be longer, but will have a refueling stop. Please know how to get home from the 5 freeway.

TrochoidMagic

money...job...life...
the usual.

Detrich

Cool. Who all is going? And, is there going to be a caravan heading over there?

LionZoo

The caravan over there will head out from AU at 1. I don't expect a lot of RX-8 guys, but I think some of the Evo people are going and we'll have a sizeable contingent of LateralG members.

LionZoo

I don't like arguing with people when they're cranky, but let me just try to clarify some of my points.

First of all, I'm not exactly flush with cash, just like most people in this group. I'd prefer to save as much money as possible and so I generally don't suggest expensive mods to people, unless it's just as a joke.

I'm not getting coilovers because they're adjustable. As it is, I probably won't do much in terms of corner balancing and with how my dampers are built, the damping is actually non-adjustable. I set the damping and that's it; I can't change the damping unless I open up the damper and actually play with the shimstack.

Travel is very important to me; my Bilsteins have a lot of travel and are a much longer bodied damper than the D-Specs. Regardless, I'm not in it for the lowering. In fact, I'm going to be running close to OEM height since I don't like having a scrapping car nor do I like the slammed look.

What you'll also find is that I'm valuing ride comfort quite a bit; this is why my spring rate selection is rather conservative and also why I'm running such a weird front to rear ratio. My decision to run my own setup is because after analysis, I felt that nobody offered the damping and spring rates that I wanted to run. Nonetheless, what my set is has nothing to do with this discussion.

My problem with the Progress is such; with such a huge bar, you're not going to get enough damping to get good control. In roll, the bar is going to be adding so much more spring (think of sway bars as a spring that only comes into play during roll) to the setup that you're not going to get enough damping. Of course you can turn up the **** on the Tokicos and get more low speed damping to get more control during cornering, but then your high speed damping will be correspondingly higher and your ride will be overdamped and therefore not really that pleasant. So the decision then becomes either underdamped during cornering or overdamped during bump. Not ideal for either condition.

Then here's the kicker; a sway bar ties the two wheels together; they become less independent. The advertisement for bars is that using a big one will allow you to run softer springs and therefore get a better ride. That is true if all bumps affect both the left and right side the same, but over one wheel bumps what happens if that one wheel is going to go up and the other wheel, even though the road is level, is going to want to get lifted as well. This is going to cause the car to want to shimmy, which of course degrades ride quality. The bigger the bar gets, the worse this behavior becomes.

In my opinion, and this is just my opinion as suspension tuning is a bit of a black art, but there is an optimum ratio of sway rate to spring rate in terms of maintaining a decent ride while still getting good cornering behavior. And in my opinion the Progress coupled to lowering springs and D-Specs has way too much sway. Of course this is just my opinion, but I felt before you spent money, you should know it just because I feel more opinions will help you make a better decision. Not that I hate Progress bars or anything; if I really wanted to go against them I'd be pissing on people's decision to run them with stock or near stock dampers in the Progress thread, but then I don't really care that much about those people. I do care about you guys, which is why I'm giving you guys my 2 cents about running them.

TrochoidMagic

your approach has been mentioned time and time over already. if anything, it really seems like your "explanation" are more of an persuasion.

anyways, just because you claim your engineer status doesn't mean i'm not as big of a hot rodder as you are. at least i'm an auto tech at that.

ride comfort was mentioned. and thats not the only deciding factor on my approach as the car needs to be able to function as a dual purpose vehicle with easily accessable replacements, less wear item parts, reliable, easily adjustable, able to retain oem protective coverings, etc,etc.

the list goes on.

yes, suspension tuning is a bit of a black art. and its always up to the end user to be able to realize his mods and utilize it.

ultimately, where are you going with this suggestion? its not as if i need an explanation of how things work. do you need other qualifications to be satisfied with my answer?

why does your reply need to explain how your mods are ideal? nobody here asked, and thats what the competition threads are for.

don't call someone cranky just because they don't agree with you or can utilize your approach on suspension mods, because i know my aim and approach was clarified long ago.

what i don't get is your recommendation to pair it with a coilovers, then yourself have non-adjustable shocks? maybe you want to dial in for a certain type of condition. but i rather not limit myself... but i'm not really up for questioning you about your approach and what roads you'll see. just be content with your mods...

nothing is set in stone, as first hand experience is yet to be had.

and to get back on topic, i did mention if ryan would like the D-specs. and if he does get sways before i do too... lets see then what the comments are from first hand experience. because thats all it comes down to... how the driver feels about it.

Detrich

R-e-e-e-eeeeeeeeeeeee-e-e-r.......

LionZoo

I never claimed engineer status. If anything, from my time messing around with analyzing the economy, I know that a good hobbist can do a better job than a bad professional so I would never claim extra education as a mark of status.

I never claimed my mods are ideal. My mods work for me, but they're not for everyone as evidenced by the fact that it's such a weird path. If you're looking for a track setup, you'll find that my setup is too soft, and if you're looking for adjustability then obviously mine disappoints greatly. If anything, I'm tackling the dual purpose problem with a compromise on rate and valving rather than adjustability. Adjustability if used correctly is actually the more ideal solution. The reason for that is cost.

My suggestion for coilovers has nothing to do with coilovers themselves. Lowering springs tend to have rates near the stock 155/110 spread. By contrast, coilovers bump up the rate by a lot; to a minimum of 400/275 from what I've seen. They're valved with firmer damping to control the springs and so are better equipped to absorb the high rate of the Progress bars. If there was a lowering spring and aftermarket damper combo that has aftermarket coilover levels of rate and damping, then that would do just as well with the Progress. It's not about the adjustability, but rather the damping and the spring rate. I also mentioned short travel because you're simply not going to use as much travel in roll with the Progress.

rawrstar

so...who's going to the meet today =D?

Detrich

i suggest we all have a beer at the meet and liyan and richard can kiss and make up.. lol

boanjangnararmine

i'll be at the meet. there should be an ok turnout today.

rawrstar

Re5!