18psi

iTrader: (76)

Sounds like if people like you swing off his nuts any harder, you'll rip them off.

But no, I'm not butthurt even a little bit. I've gone through enough suspension setups by now that if these are as good as he says they are I'll be switching again and have no problem doing it. Takes like an hour to swap

(PS: he says the vmaxx is better than the FM1 and these will be competing with the vmaxx. In my personal experience I've found the FM1 to be significantly more comfy. See where I'm going with this? )

Scrappy Jack

iTrader: (2)

What if you don't know what you are talking about?

Seriously. What if you don't know the difference between compression and rebound or high vs low speed of each? Or, maybe you know it intuitively but have no ability to articulate it?

What if you have no idea what that **** is doing on your dampers? You might think it "stiffens up the suspension" but it could be decreasing rebound and increasing compression, or increasing both, or decreasing both, or...


I would be shocked if there was a good reason for you to sell your FM1/Illumina kit to buy the Tecnas. The Tecnas might be better, but if you can't tell or you don't think there is a deficiency in your current setup, it won't be a worthwhile upgrade.

Someone else on an older setup or someone who actually tracks or autocrosses their car infrequently (but enough to want some performance focus) might be a different story.

wannafbody

iTrader: (1)

Have these been tested at hellaflush ride heights? Someone has to ask-LOL

18psi

iTrader: (76)

And your point is?
I will freely admit that Emilio probably forgot more about suspension than I'll ever know. I am ok with that and more importantly: don't even care.

My one and only point here is ride comfort as experienced by a daily driving peasant. Not a RACE CAR driver. Not some crazy suspension guru. I installed the former, drove it for a good while, then I installed the latter, and did the same. Every day, to work, around town, etc.

So you can pull your mouth off his ***** for a second and understand that:
1) I'm not dissing his coilovers
2) I'll gladly switch if they're really that much more comfortable
but
3) I don't think they'll be more comfortable, or at least enough to say that the tokicos are garbage.

And again, for the millionth time, I'm talking only about ride comfort/quality and not performance.

Efini~FC3S

iTrader: (4)

So the reasons the Illuminas are a terrible choice for a comfort set-up is because they suck on track, and they suck at taking on-ramps fast?

And that's why they shouldn't be compared to your Tecnas, which were designed solely for the purpose excellent ride comfort?



I think what 18psi's point is that ride comfort is subjective, and the only person's opinion that matters is the customer who is paying their hard earned money. In 18psi's experience the Illuminas work really well for him, and he finds them to have very good ride comfort. Emilio says he doesn't know what he wants, he doesn't know better. Even though 18 has had multiple miatas with multiple suspension set-ups, all with the specific goal of best ride quality, he's not qualified to decide what feels best for his car?



I hope these coilovers come out as good as promised, and at the planned price point, and in a reasonable amount of time.

Until then, the comfort seekers will have to continue riding around on their shitty tokicos and vmaxxs...

emilio700

iTrader: (3)

As you can always be trusted to do, chiming in to take my comments out of context or misinterpreting their meaning.

The Tokico Illuminas don't absorb normal road irregularities as well as the OEM shocks or OT Bilsteins in my experience. The adjustment is worthless as it merely makes them ride worse without meaningful improvement in handling. So yes, they suck, unabashedly. That some people like them or prefer them over other options in that price range notwithstanding.

I claim no magic for the tecnas. I simply offer that they will ride really well. Some drivers will agree they ride better than everything else in the price point, some will not.

Personally I like 18psi's attitude. He says, "I don't agree with you but I'm willing to be proven wrong if you can back it up". That's exactly what I would say. Am I missing something?

Seefo

iTrader: (5)

I agree here. I think the product in the OP looks great and promising. But too much brown nosing.

jacob300zx

Wow for MT.net you guys sure are some haters. For anyone that has ever talked to Emilio on the phone you've probably gathered that not only is he fairly intelligent but more so when it comes to Miata's. To doubt his claims after everything he has accomplished is fairly narrow minded. If he says he will have the nicest riding OTS street coilover sub 1k I would believe him. Your acting like he just launched ECool. How hard is it to believe that he is testing a coilover, sending back and forth to Plano, track testing for durability, street testing for NVH/low/high speed damp, etc? I've never once seen him try to "sell" anything, always hard facts...always. If he sells it, 99% of the time its the best product for the dollar on the market.

Thank you Emilio for throwing some time and money to develop these Tecna's. Oh, and the CNC heads, cams, Xida coilover line, SuperMiata clutch, long braided clutch line, 6UL wheel line, lug nuts, valve stems, end links, SM motor mounts, wings, lips, build info, dyno's, NA engine development, and the "Flat Out" T-shirts. What a dick...

Scrappy Jack

iTrader: (2)

Sorry; re-reading my post it came off more harshly than intended because I was in a rush and because there is no inflection in text. I appreciate your skepticism. It was meant to be read without any sort of negative emotional context. See below.

That was a big part of my point in my previous post. Think of it like this:

"Suspension" is like booze. You have some people that are experts at (A) understanding nuances and (B) articulating those nuances. Think of wine, or whiskey, or craft beers and descriptions of the "nose" or "aroma" or "hints of X, Y, and Z."

That's like someone who understands and can identify the difference in various metrics of suspension like compression vs rebound and high vs low speed and how that interacts with the handling or ride.

Then you have a vast majority of people that just say, "I like Jack and Coke." As a bourbon snob, I turn up my nose and wince. But, it doesn't matter - if the drinker of Jack and Coke enjoys it and thinks it is good: it's good to him.

Likewise, I might find very specific faults with the ride comfort of a particular spring/damper/bumpstop combination but if someone else thinks it rides great, than it doesn't matter what I think.


Hopefully that's a bit more clear. That's why I said I can't imagine a reason why Vlad would need to switch if he is happy with his current setup.

Efini~FC3S

iTrader: (4)

And, as you can be trusted to do, you'll continue to develop excellent products for the Miata platform, all while being an incredibly arrogent ***** about it?

Did I really take things out of context or misinterpret them?

Since you wrote those as a response to 18's post about the Illuminas, I interpreted this as directed towards 18psi. And I interpreted it as "You're an idiot for spending money on Illuminas, and you've never used anything other than entry level junk so you don't know any better."

But I took that out of context and interpretted incorrectly.


This x1000. The emilio/Sav peepee and ball licking on this sight is tiring at times...

Leafy

iTrader: (1)

I thought thats just how everyone from cali was.


What would miata turbo be without this? M.net with more overt homosexual tendencies?

Fireindc

iTrader: (13)

The Emillio/Sav ball licking is for a reason on this site, they go fast around the track and make a ton of unique products for the miata community. They deserve some praise, and certainly the support of the community. However, I DO agree it is getting out of hand with people blindly praising a product that is not released yet like it's the second coming.

Which brings me to my second point, the product is not released yet, let's all chill the **** out and get some unbiased reviews of the suspension after it releases. Turning this thread into a flame war will help NO ONE.

I do trust 949 racing right now, more so than begi/fm at this point. Let's see what they come up with next. If these things ride comfortably and turn decent lap times, I will buy them and so will 1000 other people.

mgeoffriau

iTrader: (7)

I've already explained why I'm excited about an unreleased product, and I'm not apologizing for it. It's exactly the product I've wanted, at a price point that's competitive, from a trusted vendor. Why wouldn't I be excited.

Sure, maybe Emilio's blowing smoke and it'll turn out that they suck. Then we'll have a new thing for people to bitch about.

Erat

iTrader: (5)

This.

And though i haven't been around long, i don't think 949 has been known to release a garbage product.

Some things are trial and error, 949 has a nice coilover already. They know what they're doing.

concealer404

iTrader: (3)

I'll lick a ball or two to give these a shot.

But there's no free rides, so i'll just have to end up deciding between these or the FM VMAXX XXXXTREME TRAKK BRO EDITION XXXXXXX.

hornetball

iTrader: (4)

Blah, blah, blah!

Back on point, I'm interested in these. Emilio, I wonder if you could quantify suitability for limited track use, i.e., track days. Since it's a steel-bodied dual tube, I would expect it to have heating issues on track (hence your statement "not a race shock"). Have you quantified the change in damping over a reasonable track session period? In particular (for me), 30 minute sessions in Texas in July? Reasonable performance here plus a nice street ride . . . sounds pretty good.

In case anyone's wondering, I really like my FCM Bilstein's but I recently bought a '95 to turn into a dedicated track car -- so, just looking at options.

Savington

iTrader: (31)

There's a pretty unhealthy infatuation with my ***** going on in this thread

wannafbody

iTrader: (1)

I had the FM spring/Illuminas combo and it's a great entry level daily driver combo but as Emilio said, when turning up the dial they ride pretty badly over bumps and they don't play well with high rate springs.

Landrew

iTrader: (2)

It's pretty tough to have spring and damping rates perform very well at each end of the spectrum for street/race. With the dichotomy of spring rates needed and not having a way to swap springs very easy between track/street there should be a pre-formed expectation of buyers that these will be in their element on the public roads. Expecting them to do both very well is showing a lack of suspension understanding. I still have so much to learn and having ridden dirt bikes I've been spoiled with so many user adjustable settings and so much suspension forgiveness. Having ridden many a motocross bike with 12" of suspension having it stiff enough to land a 75" jump and soft enough to make a rocky trail feel nice is always a compromise. While I have played with compression/rebound, high speed rebound it's never enough to make a stiff spring feel soft and vice versa. Now bikes do have the ability to play with oil weights and swap them at home easily which actually makes decent change it still won't make a 300lb spring turn into a 650lb spring. Not many car shocks offer oil weight tunability anyways.

Point being pick where (track/street) you want your car to ultimately handle the best and realize outside of that you are compromising. Lots of us are DD guys, myself especially so I plan to buy a relatively softer sprung street damped suspension be happy and these look like that is there intended domain.

I'm Miata street oriented and we get some bad roads being so far north so I will take a better street ride and give up ultimate roll control on the track and trust I'll be happy at the price/quality and personal 949 touch they are expected to come in at. If 949 say they are a great street oriented setup I'll trust their reputation and experience.

Oh and I'm cheap, how cheap, I won't even mention the brand of coilovers I'm on now. Let's just say they hold the car up in the air (lower than stock) and benchmarking them on regular public streets against my stocker NB2's and an 1990 AFCO car I'm more impressed than I thought I'd be. Either way I'm looking forward to the Techna's (if I can stay in budget this winter/spring)

turbofan

iTrader: (1)

Would read this thread again.

By the time I own another Miata, these will be fully tried and tested!