Kansei's Garage Queen

[kansei]

Alignment was after coilovers and before the pierce bracing. The steering sloppiness was apparent on my first drive after the alignment, just not something they would really have been able to notice in the like 1 mile city loop they did after aligning.. Took me a while to really hone in on what the car was doing enough that i can call them about it next week.

 

[shouldbeasy]

Here's to hoping it's a quick and easy fix.

Nice pictures and great looking car.

 

[M-Sport fan]

Alignment was after coilovers and before the pierce bracing. The steering sloppiness was apparent on my first drive after the alignment, just not something they would really have been able to notice in the like 1 mile city loop they did after aligning.. Took me a while to really hone in on what the car was doing enough that i can call them about it next week.

Did the shop give you a before/after printout on the alignment?

 

[kansei]

Did the shop give you a before/after printout on the alignment?

they did, though the "before" isn't all that useful since it is from after they installed the camber bolts up front.

And the "after" certainly isn't still true, since I can change the toe *and* the steering wheel center point on the fly with a couple quick jerks of the wheel. silly car haha. It's certainly an awful feeling, a little heartbreaking on a car so new, but I'm not mad or anything, I haven't even told the shop yet, waiting until after the holiday weekend.

 

[milkman42]

I had similar steering issues after coilovers install. Check/retighten the sway bar endlinks then go for another alignment... Mine got back to normal after an alignment or 2.

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[milkman42]

Here's a poor quality video (phone was bugging out and some of the audio got jacked up) revving to redline and bouncing off the 2500rpm launch control limit https://cloudup.com/ciIPBByHLu7

Is this hurricane ridge? Regardless, jealous of the roads out there. Went to Olympic NP last year for vaca but had a Jeep rental

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[kansei]

Is this hurricane ridge? Regardless, jealous of the roads out there. Went to Olympic NP last year for vaca but had a Jeep rental

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Indeed it is. Only my second time up to Hurricane Ridge. The first time was at night and I honestly didn't even realize there were views. Was a bit white knuckle with a lot of recent rockslides and stuff, and at night. I'm glad I couldn't see the drop-offs then haha. Love that road during the day, don't even have to rive that spiritedly since the views are so amazing. I wish it wasn't such a pain to get to the peninsula from Seattle not like I'm gonna head out there every weekend.

 

[kansei]

some recent shots, don't look too closely it's super dirty from lots of dirt roads

decided I will be raising the suspension, probably to the highest the ST Bilsteins will go (which I think is still an inch lower than stock?). I love the way it looks at this height, but the bump steer is still bad even after getting the alignment re-done. Have to defer to function over form for this. Plus, less chassis scraping would be cool.

 

[kansei]

so this is the highest the bilsteins can safely go, for future reference

 

[Nightcrew13]

so this is the highest the bilsteins can safely go, for future reference

Anychance for a pic of the strut bodies at full raised position? I'm gonna go the P14 route and would like to see where you're at?

 

[M-Sport fan]

That's not all that encouraging for me as concerns the B14's highest settings. (I was hoping for at least .50" to .75" HIGHER than what you are showing.)

But then I'm guessing that NONE of the currently available coil over setups for these cars offer any more 'range' than that anyway, since they figure so many just want to SLAM their rides down onto the tires for the stancer type look.

 

[kansei]

Anychance for a pic of the strut bodies at full raised position? I'm gonna go the P14 route and would like to see where you're at?

don't have any great photos since I don't have a decent place to work on the car, but I found this.

That's not all that encouraging for me as concerns the B14's highest settings. (I was hoping for at least .50" to .75" HIGHER than what you are showing.)

But then I'm guessing that NONE of the currently available coil over setups for these cars offer any more 'range' than that anyway, since they figure so many just want to SLAM their rides down onto the tires for the stancer type look.

yeah I'm not sure what to think. I measured wheel hub to fender at 330mm, only 10mm lower than what Eibach and a couple other manufacturers say the "stock" height is (340mm), so in theory the car should look pretty close to stock. Initially I guessed and set them so that the spring perches were right at about the middle of the adjustment range. It looked pretty but the car drove like crap, and unfortunately that was at about 400 miles so I really have no idea what the car should feel like but honestly it's such a disappointment in corners that I'm thinking about getting rid of the thing for an ND Miata or something. Before I do anything crazy though, I gotta find some good Portland shop that can take a look at the suspension/steering and do another alignment (since I just raised the suspension quite a bit).

for reference, here is a photo of the car on stock suspension with the same wheels and tires it has now:

vs now

it does seem close

 

[M-Sport fan]

Your car sat lower than mine does now with the same exact wheel/tire height setup even on the factory suspension.

Can there be that much variance in the height of the factory springs to cause that phenomenon? (There was in the fourth gen GM f body factory spring heights.)

The other thing which I guess could effect this a little is maybe my car is slightly lighter (no back seat, any covers in the hatch, all rear seat brackets/seat belts removed, but jack and spare still in the well), but THAT much?

 

[kansei]

Your car sat lower than mine does now with the same exact wheel/tire height setup even on the factory suspension.

Can there be that much variance in the height of the factory springs to cause that phenomenon? (There was in the fourth gen GM f body factory spring heights.)

The other thing which I guess could effect this a little is maybe my car is slightly lighter (no back seat, any covers in the hatch, all rear seat brackets/seat belts removed, but jack and spare still in the well), but THAT much?

in both of those new pics there is some random junk in the trunk, like full day hiking pack, couple gallon jugs of water, first aid kit, torque wrench and a roadside assistance kit, stock spare tire, all the stock interior, some random cleaning supplies, etc. easily 80+ lbs of stuff though.

I never wrote down what the stock hub to fender measurement was, so I'm just going off the data I've found.

Stock (according to eibach):
340mm front
340mm rear

eibach pro-kit:
320mm front
323mm rear

mountune:
312mm front
320mm rear

Seems silly that there's so much room to slam the car on all the coilover setups but you have to basically max their height to not have garbage suspension geometry. It's as if the 'tested on the ring' stickers bilstein slapped all over the product are meaningless . Had I waited and not done this at 400 miles I probably would have just gone with mountune springs and some aftermarket shocks that don't suck. I hate fiddly things, and especially hate paying for alignments over and over trying to make the car drive well.

 

[kansei]

Some photos from the last couple days

got one of those custom-fit sunshades in gold. Not that I needed it yesterday, but they're quite nice to have for long hiking/backpacking trips. Did notice it traps the dash cam hope it handles the heat.

the only time the iPhone camera captures the orange paint well is when parked next to a soul red Mazda:

after a hike, went for a drive down 101 and back to Portland through Tillamook state forest on OR 6 which was nice. All kind of high speed roads (speed limit 55 unless you're going through a town) so not a great test of the handling, but the best I could find on such short notice that included some hiking.

 

[M-Sport fan]

Every time I hear Tillamook, the Todd Snider song instantly pops into my head.

 

[WeTheNorth]

What ever happened to the resonator?


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[ShredForSatan]

how's that exhaust setup? any highway droning? are you still on stock downpipe?

maybe i'll see you around sometime as were both in WA

 

[kansei]

What ever happened to the resonator?


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Forget where I left this thread off, but I only had the resonator delete in for a brief period, it was way too loud for me. A great noise, just too much of it

how's that exhaust setup? any highway droning? are you still on stock downpipe?

maybe i'll see you around sometime as were both in WA

Stock downpipe yeah, and it’s hard to tell.. like the car is unpleasant for long highway trips but that’s probably half the roar of the tires on our crappy old concrete roads and half the exhaust being on the louder side. It’s certainly no GT car.

Since it’s been forever since I updated this thread, here’s what has been up lately:
- got an updated tune from stratified a couple days ago. The AP estimates it makes 297 torques now . Now it’s running a v4 tune with the progressive crackles. Progressive lets you drive it gently in town without too much silly noise out the tailpipe, but when you stomp on it and use higher RPMs it’ll let some loud pops out. I think I’ll run the no-crackle version more often than not, maybe flash the crackle tune for special occasions.
- I’ve been dreaming of some more mods, like maybe sending the euro headlamps out to get proper LED projectors retrofitted, doing sound system work, etc. Something to make it nicer or more comfy for longer road trips.

A pic from today:

 

[jeff]

Great thread, just read through it. I love your pics and discussion and mod choices.

I never found a full review of the traction etc. bars once you got the steering thing fixed, maybe I missed it. Curious as to your impressions. I've used all of those bars as well except the midframe, except I did them one at a time so I could experience the change of each. 6 point was killer awesome, rear torsion was pretty great too, all the others made no difference at least for daily aggressive driving.

I would have removed that res delete as well, it sounds great but like you said too much of a good thing.

Great car thanks again, love your build.