gtred

These arrived the other day from AR Auto Service in Portland, OR; a set of MSC single adjustables for an NB miata!

I was excited to get them in and try them out! Thanks to Eddie, they came pre-adjusted for a ball-park ride height and pre-set for baseline rebound/compression dampening. The shock bodies are shorter than OEM, so they have a wide range of usable shaft travel on a lowered car without the need to be riding on your bumpstops.

I took the car to Oregon Raceway Park, a busy track with lots of corners and elevation changes. I must say that they worked nicely right out of the box. Neutral steering. Great control in the downhill transitions of the "half pipe". The car seemed planted at the crest of the hills and allowed me to carry more speed than before into the unweighted turn entries. I was able to launch hard off of the curbing and still maintain composure. All and all, things went very well. While it rotated easily, I'm used to the car being a touch more tail-happy, so perhaps my choice of rear spring rate could have been increased a little. I haven't had a chance to check the shaft travel yet, so perhaps I could also still get the car a little lower. Luckily, these shocks are shorter than stock, so they are easy to remove/install with minimal tools/effort on the rear... which should let me be able to test a 450# rear spring trackside at the next event.

Thanks to all at AR Auto Service!! eddie@arautoservice.net

My set up last weekend was: Hoosier 245R on 9" 6ULs. Front: -3.5 camber, 4.5" @pinch weld, 4.5 caster, 850# spring. Rear: -3.0, 4 3/4" @ pinch weld, 400# spring.

bahurd

iTrader: (8)

I have a new respect for Xida pricing...

turbofan

iTrader: (1)

Did someone post the price and I missed it?

bahurd

iTrader: (8)

Easy Google search. $2400 - 2900

turbofan

iTrader: (1)

I mean, I'm familiar with the pricing, but was just wondering why that would be the very first thing you say in response to his review.

bahurd

iTrader: (8)

Because, after looking at the pricing it was the first thing that came to mind.

Xida seem to be the performance benchmark on this site so pricing vs Xida would be relevant. No?

I don't see anything where I bashed the OP review.

stormin'norman

iTrader: (2)

Nice. A fair number of the 1 ways rolling around OR now. Sounds like day 1 was enjoyable.

DSC_0325 by stormin'norman3, on Flickr

gtred

I had my first race weekend of the season. I am truely excited about the possibilities with these shocks. You see I've always just used a standard, non-adjustable shock that I had re-valved by the "experts"... thinking that I'd never have enough understanding to adjust my own dampening. Sure, I've read about and understand the theory, but I just figured that I never be able to become competent in practice.

Well, Eddie set me up with a baseline. This worked pretty well to start, then I was able to find several National drivers who also used these shocks, so lots of support/ help to fine tune for specific corners.

I was amazed to find that what I used to think of as "the limit of the corner", could now be tweaked by merely a click of the shock. It was so cool to see that I could actually control the rear bite when powering out of a corner by clicking back on the front rebound setting and getting the weight to transfer a little quicker.

What was astonishing to me was that it worked so well! ... and that even I could feel this happen... and get on the throttle way sooner. Lap times are coming down!