THSCC Forums

I was offered an Eibach Pro-Kit at a nice price, just wondering if anyone here has experience with these springs?

I plan to use them over the existing Koni Yellows I got installed already.

Thank you!
Alex

Having used the Pro-Kit on another car, it's a decent compromise spring for street driving and enthusiast driving. It's a jack of all trades spring.

If you're looking to be auto-x competitive, look elsewhere. They're generally too soft compared to adjustable perch coilover setups. Your CSP/STS2 competitors probably have a lot stiffer springs.

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Tom Freeman
'98 M3/4/5 | '93 Spec3 325i | '12 TSX sport wagon | '03 Tahoe
Team Silver Bullets '91 240SX

Progressive springs and lowering a Miata means that you'll hit an infinite spring rate pretty soon when you get on the bumpstops. The NB cars handle this a little better, but it will hurt handling at the limit and be somewhat unpredictable. Ground Control makes a kit at around $400 that is a good compromise -- the 375/250 springs are easily streetable if you don't slam the car (y0!). I'm probably heading north to 550/375s sometime this fall as I think that it won't make the ride any worse than poly bushings already make it.

But if you want the Eibach's, ajusa.com is right around the same price point, is a known dealer, and does free shipping.

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Has no responsibility whatsoever.

Thanks for responses guys! Looks like Eibachs are not quite what I am looking for then...

I was looking at the Ground Controls earlier, but I have heard that installation is non-trivial (potentially very complicated) with those, because they require removal of existing perches from the shocks. Basically, I understand this is not something that can be done in a driveway in one day.

Have anyone installed them before?

Alex, I've not done it with a Miata specifically, but I've done that job with numerous Honda products. If you've already got Konis in hand, this will be a straightforward job with no cutting up of stuff required - the GC sleeves will just slip iver the shock, and snug down onto the spring perch "clip" that your spring perches live on today.

Miata guys, any reason it should be different?

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Karl S.
2014 Baby, 2014 House, 2013 Ford Focus ST, 2013 BMW 328i, 1994 Mercedes E320
(Insert passive aggressive signature line here)

If you have a decent spring compressor, it most certainly is something that can be done in a driveway in a day. Unless there's something I'm missing...


--Donnie

Unless things changed dramatically from the NA to NB damper, it's just a snap ring on the shock. Don't always trust what you read on the internet; you should be able to do it in well under an hour a corner if you have air tools to help compress the stock springs.

Rethinking the job, it's three bolts/nuts per corner, the long bolt on the upper A-arm of the fronts that need to come off. You'll need to drill out the upper shock perch to fit the larger Koni shaft.

You might want to explore miata.net or other places and figure out what gets you to a good ride height (most people measure from the top of the fenderwell, others measure from the pinchwelds near the jacking points) and get an alignment from there. If you really want to burn money, you can get a cornerweight, but if the rears and fronts are about the same height, you'll be fine. At this stage in the game, very few of us benefit from spending hours getting perfect 50/50 crossweights -- it's not what is keeping us from being as fast as we should be.

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Has no responsibility whatsoever.

I have these on my NA, I called Eibach to get the exact spring rates etc for the NA. At least on the NA they are Linear springs. They seem to work really well with the Bilsteins.

Swapping the springs on the Miata are pretty easy as well, I did the miata.net procedure and removed the upper A-Arm bolt up front. After the figuring out the first one the second one took about 15 minutes.

As stated above they area a good steet/autox compromise.

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91 Miata STT #28
05 Subaru Impreza RS - The Wife's

If the Konis are currently installed with the stock springs, the perches should already be drilled.

As everybody already said, it is a fairly easy job. You can actually get by without using a spring compressor if you're feeling brave. I've used a ratchet tie down wrapped around the springs and then carefully removed the top retaining nut without any drama. It helps if you have a bucket of some sort to put the top of the shock into (laying on its side preferably) in case the nut springs free so you don't lose anything. The stock spring really aren't under that much tension but you definitely should be careful and if something does go wrong, I got this tip from Wes Eargle.

It will consume the better part of a day if you haven't done it before but it is definitely doable.

Jim

Whew! That actually is beginning to sound more like something I would venture :)

If you need a hand lemme know, I just did mine a couple weeks ago and its still fresh on the mind. I have an electric impact as well which makes things much easier

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91 Miata STT #28
05 Subaru Impreza RS - The Wife's

Do you mean the Ground Controls or the Eibachs? :)

Be careful when you offer help -- I might actually accept!

A friend of mine has offered to help with the springs, but I am not sure if he'll draw the line at GCs which he said were a PITA to install. So I might be coming back for help. :)

But seriously, I want to learn, so my hope is I will be able to do all the work myself, under adult supervision ;)

If Ground Controls were tough to install for him, I would secondguess his mechanical abilities. Will work for beer, yadda yadda.

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Has no responsibility whatsoever.

Either one, I have never installed coil overs but I'm sure I can figure it out.

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91 Miata STT #28
05 Subaru Impreza RS - The Wife's

If Ground Controls were tough to install for him, I would second-guess his mechanical abilities. Will work for beer, yadda yadda.[quote]

This is Suspension 101. Agree with Wes. Your friend's prob'ly not a wrencher .

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Brad