track springs/rates

[madjak]

I'm running 12.5 / 7.5 on a Mazdaspeed 22mm front sway and a stock rear sway. Balance is good with a seam height of around 100mm front / 110mm rear

I used to run 6 / 5 on Cusco Zero 2 shocks with the same sways and slightly higher ride height. Whilst the car moved around a lot more with the lower rate springs, overall lap times haven't dropped drastically with the new setup. I'd say I'm around 0.25 - 0.5 seconds quicker over a 70 second lap but it's hard to tell as I'm running on season old tyres.

TBH, I find suspension doesn't make the biggest difference as long as you can adjust your driving style to the car setup and both the ride height and camber are in the target range. Whether the car sits flat or moves around a bit more is driver taste and coming from a rally background you'll probably find the more rigid track stance is less to your driving style than a car that has a bit more movement.

My advice is to try and pick up some cheap decent adjustable coil overs so you can get your ride height down to the target range and drive as is until you know what you want. I really think an MX5 can be fast on any suspension setup as long as you have good tyres, ride height and balance. Spring rates, sway bars etc can all wait until you are chasing those last few tenths.

[pepejesus]

Interesting comparison in my old NA6, same track but different layouts.

The car is the same, a completely bone stock NA6 on 15x7 205/50/15 R888s.

First video is with the stock original suspension, second is with AFCO coilovers and 450/300 (~8kg/~5.5kg) springs.





I found the AFCOs with those spring rates and stock sways to be too loose for my liking, but a big part of that is driving style - I like to lean on the front to find the limit of grip and I found the back was often coming around just before the front, and that makes me lose a bit of confidence and become a bit tentative on turn-in. Bigger front sway would have made a huge difference imo.

There is a huge difference in body roll and the stock suspension is more biased towards understeer but the outright corner speed doesn't seem that different - probably due to the RAC circuit being so dusty and low grip, you don't get a huge benefit from the stiffer springs.