supension mx5 nc

[@ndrew]

I've got the Eibach Pro-Kit, got it installed at Centreline suspension.

I thought it looked complicated; also a wheel alignment is necessary!

[CheyneX5]

if your a bit of a handy man it maybe easy for you to do it, a spring compressor will be a big help too.

[PAU61L]

It can be done if you are handy, but it will be time consuming if you do not have the proper spring compressors.
If you have got a quote for $300 -$400, I would take it, see if wheel alignment is included. I got mine changed and it took them about 3 hours. It is a pain if you do it yourself and you haven't gone an air gun to compress and release original springs then compress and release eibach springs on each shock and remove and replace from body. Again it is possible but I would be allowing at least 6 hours if you are doing it by yourself and you have done similiar work before. Regards Paul.

[CheyneX5]

Good to hear jim, looking foward to seeing photo's.

[PAU61L]

Good job, now you need to do the sway bars. Get the adjustable ones, I put them on our NC on the softest setting and noticed the difference as I went through the first roundabout, and I have put it to the medium setting on the rears after driving at Marulan Driver Training Centre. It is not difficult, now that you've got the bug. The rear is easy, the front you have to jack up car, support on stands, remove wheels, remove original sway bar and replace with new bar. You have to weave it through, the space is limited, but it isn't difficult. Regards Paul.

[PAU61L]

Hello Jim, when you install the sway bars, grease the d bush or else you will squeak every time you go over speed hump or driveway. Are you getting adjustable, they are the better option. Regards Paul.

[PAU61L]

Get the adjustable. For a few extra dollars you have the ability to change them. I have mine set at soft on front and medium on rear. You might not be doing track days now, BUT you might in the future, and you'll be kicking yourself that you didn't get the adjustable. Also you may want to adjust it just for road use so it handles the way you want it to, not the way the non adjustable sway bars have been set. PLEASE buy the adjustable sway bars. Regards Paul.

[Charlie Brown]

Get the adjustable. For a few extra dollars you have the ability to change them. I have mine set at soft on front and medium on rear. You might not be doing track days now, BUT you might in the future, and you'll be kicking yourself that you didn't get the adjustable. Also you may want to adjust it just for road use so it handles the way you want it to, not the way the non adjustable sway bars have been set. PLEASE buy the adjustable sway bars. Regards Paul.

Paul's right.

It would be foolish to get the fixed bars for the sake of a few dollars even if you never put it onto the track.

Remember that you are changing what the Mazda engineers spent months designing to match with the spring rates and shock absorber characteristics used on the car.

By going with either the Whiteline or Eibach sways you increases the front torsion by 101% and the rear by 215% over the standard setup. Everything firms up, body roll is reduced but the trade off is that you will find the car now understeers more than it did previously with the standard bars. If you're happy with that, fine, but if you want the car to handle neutrally like it was originally designed to do then you need the adjustable bars and go with the setup Paul said above. That’s the same as I use on the road.

Last word: get the adjustables, set it to the above settings and enjoy the improved handling these bars give the NC.

[PAU61L]

Excellent

[Adrianvh]

I picked up a pair of RX8 front and rear sway bars for $50 from RX8club.com.au. They are huge compared to the factory, especially the rear.
Direct bolt in, all you will need are $25 worth of urethane chassis mount bushes.

[Charlie Brown]

I picked up a pair of RX8 front and rear sway bars for $50 from RX8club.com.au. They are huge compared to the factory, especially the rear.
Direct bolt in, all you will need are $25 worth of urethane chassis mount bushes.

Cheap, yes, but I hope they were out of an automatic RX-8

The auto RX-8 front bar is smaller than the one from the manual and more suited to the NC.

Bar diameter sizes are:
NC standard: Front 21.1mm, Rear 12.0mm
Whiteline: Front 24mm, Rear 16mm
Eibach/Mazdaspeed: Front 25mm, Rear 16mm

RX-8: Front 26.8mm for the manual or 25.4mm for the auto, Rear 15.9mm

Both RX-8 front bars will give you more understeer that the other bars, with the manual RX-8 bar the worst.

As per the comments to Jim MX5 above, if all you want to do is reduce body roll and aren't particularly worried about understeer, then a non adjustable bar might suit you but if you want to retain the handling characteristics of the NC, especially cornering at 8/10ths and up, then adjustable sways are a must.

The Whiteline bars have two positions for the front bar and three for the rear. I’m running the soft position on the front and the hardest position on the rear for the track and the middle position for the road. At the track I tried the full stiff position on the front once and found the understeer to excessive for good times.

The NC, like all MX-5s out of the factory is slightly biased towards understeer. It’s safer that way for Joe Average. What we try to do with aftermarket bars is to get as near to neutral as possible. That makes it easier to control the car with the throttle when you're on the limit.

On the softest setting front and rear the Whiteline bars are 71% / 215% stiffer than standard. I haven’t done the maths on the middle and firm holes for the rear.

The RX-8 auto front / rear bars are 112% / 208% and the manual 158% / 208%, so you can easily see how the NC becomes more biased to understeer as the bar size goes up.