Shocks & Les Schwab?

Konis ARE better, and worth the extra money. With stock springs, just leave Konis on full soft--no need to fiddle constantly with the adjustment. Consider installing performance bumpstops from Flyin Miata or Fat Cat Motorsports while everything is apart. Sooner or later, you'll want to upgrade the swaybars as well, but that can wait if money's an issue.

Drilling out the top mounts is a trivial task, even more so if one has a drill press. But installing Miata shocks takes several hours, about four hours if you do it yourself in the driveway without power tools, half that for a pro who's done it before; that's assuming none of the bolts are seriously frozen. Shop installation typically runs $250-400, not including parts or an alignment.

See the shock replacement instructions in the miata.net Garage section.

Choose an alignment shop carefully. Make sure they will align precisely to custom specs, not just get the needle into the green. Ask other Miata owners for referrals.

I've developed some performance alignment specs that seem to work well for many NA/NB owners, without causing tire wear problems:

Woohoo! Thanks, Lanny. Reckon I might go with Konis after all, and an alignment, when I find a good shop.

As far as the other suspension upgrades, I do have one question. I've had a lot of fun at the three autocrosses I've done, and can see myself continuing with it. Now, at a certain point I will cease being a "novice" and will have to run in one of the other classes. From what I understand, the "stock" classes allow you to change the front swaybar, but not the rear (which seems like a weird place to draw the line). If you change the rear, you are obliged to run in one of the classes that allow extensive mods, and then the dilemma comes up whether you want to invest that much effort and expense to make your car "competitive," or simply ignore where your car happens to stack up and just race for the fun and personal challenge of it.

Do you think changing just the front swaybar at some point (so as to stay within the rules for stock class, as well as the corresponding street tire class) would be worth doing on an NB? Or would you say just do 'em both or don't do 'em.

Eric

Sorry, I forgot to mention, I don't think having the shocks installed by Earl would be a horrible thing. You can do it yourself if you're good with tools. Be careful with the spring compression!

Chris

Woohoo! Thanks, Lanny. Reckon I might go with Konis after all, and an alignment, when I find a good shop.

As far as the other suspension upgrades, I do have one question. I've had a lot of fun at the three autocrosses I've done, and can see myself continuing with it. Now, at a certain point I will cease being a "novice" and will have to run in one of the other classes. From what I understand, the "stock" classes allow you to change the front swaybar, but not the rear (which seems like a weird place to draw the line). If you change the rear, you are obliged to run in one of the classes that allow extensive mods, and then the dilemma comes up whether you want to invest that much effort and expense to make your car "competitive," or simply ignore where your car happens to stack up and just race for the fun and personal challenge of it.

Do you think changing just the front swaybar at some point (so as to stay within the rules for stock class, as well as the corresponding street tire class) would be worth doing on an NB? Or would you say just do 'em both or don't do 'em.

Eric

Yes, definitely. The car will understeer resolutely on the street, but work well for autocross. You could always swap in a larger rear bar for good street balance and remove it for autocross. Rear bars are easy to change, you don't even need to jack up the car.

Lanny, unless my 99 is 'a-typical' and I do not believe it to be, a large front bar will not cause large doses of understeer on the street. I know that it seems like it should but I think the car starts out so heavily leaned toward oversteer that the big front bar makes it pretty neutral. With the stock rear bar I rarely see understeer rear it's ugly head (and I like it that way). I do have the FM butterfly brace so, I guess there's a good chance that skews my current set up to some degree but if my memory serves me right I still believe the above comment to be true to my experience (pre butterfly ;-)

Chris

The brand of sway bar seems like it may be a significant factor here.

From what I can tell, the RB front sway bar is a monster, several times stiffer than stock, and requires extra hardware to protect the mount points on the chassis.

The FM bar looks to be smaller and less stiff than the RB, while still a significant upgrade over stock.

I am starting to lean toward the Flyin' Miata (whenever I end up doing this) because

- installation is less complicated than with the Racing Beat bar (whether for me or a mechanic I find)

- if I use just the front FM bar and stock rear (due to autocross class restrictions), the handling seems more likely to strike a decent balance (in other kinds of driving as well) than if I used just the monster RB bar with the stock rear.

Does this make sense?

Eric

Depends on the alignment. Also, possibly on your definition of oversteer. A neutral Miata should spin if the throttle is dropped suddenly in a hard corner. Most people don't like that, so they call it "oversteer" and crank some understeer into the car to feel more comfortable. Whatever.

A Miata that won't stay rotated under full throttle in fourth gear is understeering to the point its handling is compromised. No doubt that it's easier to drive, though.