I recently read an article about KW's electronic shocks that can be tuned from a phone. They had 3 settings-street, sport and sport plus. With the touch of the screen the settings could be changed and the general gist is that as you get into sport the ride gets firmer and as you get into sport plus the ride is just plain abusive on the street. A shock set up soft for a backroad targa might not turn the fastest times on a fairly smooth roadcourse. I think there will always be a compromise of some sort unless you are dealing with ultra high end magnetic shocks like were available on some of the Vettes.

I would hate to see the pricetag on something like that. Hey danny, how about you sell those used FCM's to me for cheap or make a donation once you get them dyno'ed.:)

Hey Danny, I got some extra Billies if you need them for a revalve-maybe we could do a swap.

Update:
After my last spring rate change to 550F/300R with longer springs to prevent coil bind I finally got to the point that I realized I can't take the ride quality any more. I ordered some 180lb/in springs for the rear and swapped to 300F/180R this past weekend.

The new rates are just over half of what I was running and roughly double the factory spring rates. The motions I described before that were contributing to my back pain are not nearly as bad and seem tolerable for now. I will have to try it for a week or two to see what the real impact is. It still feels like the shocks are under damped. It feels like the shocks compress in a controlled manor, but during rebound there is little to no dampening and then it goes through another compression motion before the motion is stopped. This is the same thing I was experiencing before, it just isn’t as bad since the springs rebound a little softer now. Feel free to correct me if my thinking is completely wrong, I am totally confused after all the issues I have had.

I contacted Bernie to see if he could at least tell me that “yes, the final re-valve I got is too soft and is not doing the intended job”, or isn’t good for anything. He replied quicker than ever before, but declined to provide any assistance.

I emailed FCM a while back to see if they could help or at least provide the option to have these fairly new shocks re-valved. Shaik never replied, but I was expecting that since I wouldn’t want to deal with a competitors balls-up like that either.

So here is my original question, just as a sanity check:
For the guys that have the SD re-valves, how do you feel about the ride quality on the street?

sounds like you are describing konis.

That’s the funny thing. The Koni sports on my dad’s 99 don’t behave that way. Even the full soft KYB AGX’s on my wife’s 97 don’t even feel as bouncy.
Is there anyone in the Columbia – Lexington SC area with a proper monotube suspension that wouldn’t mind meeting up for a test drive so I can see what it is supposed to feel like and get a second opinion on mine.

The strange thing is that I am not too disappointed with the handling. It still grips like crazy even with old, hard and cold tires. Much better than any other setup I have tried.

I got in on the first/only GB for SD Bilsteins a couple of years ago and have been very happy with the results. I received my shocks about 6 weeks after ordering them and they have served me very well. I put about 5-6k miles a year driving mostly March-October with a few track days and autox's per year thrown in. I'm running 500F,300R with fender lip heights at 12.75/13.5. Daily driving is fine on good roads and better than the R-package bilsteins with 450/250. Ride is firm not harsh however frost heaves and potholes suck. I would love to try a set of Xida's to chase the holy grail but I'm a tight a$$ and probably won't go there. If you drive on rough roads on a regular basis, I don't think a performance autox/roadrace package will ever be tolerable in our cars unless you spend big $$$$ and even then, I'm doubtful.

Autocross<Road Course<Rally<Aggressive Street<Sporty<Comfi

This is how I rank them. So, anything set for quality Autocross or track work will only work well on the street if the speeds are kept at similar numbers.

That being said, I would not hesitate to have another set done by SD. If I can get enough scratch I will have him do a nice sporty setup just so I can hear how they suck at Autocross and how someone with a Camry beat us.

I would like to buy an extra set of Billies, but they would have to be the NB HD (?!?! I think?). That is because my set up is NB Billies and NB top hats on an NA.

I am also shopping for some Sparkfun stuff, to compare with Race Technology DL1 data I have been collecting. This year I am also using a Vericom 4000 for DAQ, to compare with the DL1. However this is secondary, to a work project where I will be playing with an active suspension system (yoohoo! yeay!).

My Miata is mainly for Autocross, yet the suspension is tuned for track work. A person that won a National Autocross event recently in his STX RX-8 was kind enough to wheel my NA around a local course and posted times within 2% of his! He commented that the ride was quite busy and that he loved it. Considering that he put down times 10% faster than me, all I can say is that I need to continue to work on my skills more than on my car. So the SD stuff works. The said RX-8 is on custom Penske dampers. So, if on a tight technical course, my STS NA can be within 2% of a national prep STX, after only 3 runs, we have something good here. Comfort be damned!

Remember that I am doing data analysis to determine the relation between tire grip (static, slip, dynamic) and damper settings.

Lastly, if SD hangs in, maybe we can really do a decent set of adjustable Billies that respond like a Penske. With the economy the way it is, I can imagine that sales are not too hot for any of our favorite suppliers.

I have 2 sets of SD billies on 550/350 and they work great on track. The sharp breaks in the road are a bit harsh but liveable, in fact, in some ways the SD's ride better than the Billies on my TA, those are also a bit harsh over broken pavement.

Jason,
I got a similar accelerometer and gyro combo and have been messing around with Arduino stuff a little. Where did you mount the accelerometers? Are you looking at chassis accelerations or unsprung suspension movements?

Both. I've mounted it on the rollbar, and on the lower A-arm.

How did you mount them to the A-arms? Did you have them permanently installed or just hooked up for testing? I would love to see pictures. Do you have an open thread on this?
I wasn't sure if these accelerometers would be able to measure over the range of accelerations seen on the suspension components or at high enough frequency to provide usable data.
What did you use for post processing?

Just for testing. I used tie wraps and duct tape.
I used Mathcad for examining the data. One of the things I used the A-arm data for was as "road surface" inputs to my quarter-car suspension simulations.

After running for two years with the much lower spring rates of 300/180 I switched back to the 550/300 springs. The softer springs really did not help much and I finally concluded I must be running into the bumpstops all the time. The body rolls much more with the lower spring rates. I made some ICS DIY hats with 1" front and 1.5" rear drop. I had to add a 1/8" spacer with the 36mm FCM front bumpstops and 1/8" spacer with the rear bumpstops that are now NB fronts (~56mm progressive).

The setup works 100x better now. Even with double the spring rates!!! The ride quality is significantly improved even on the roughest roads. The handling is so much more predictive and confidence inspiring. I can't wait to take it on my drive to work to have a true apples to apples comparison. Body roll is significantly reduced which makes steering response very crisp.

I am excited that I might actually be happy with my setup after 4 years!!!

The lesson here kids is to just pay for someone like FCM to sell you a complete setup with matched, springs, shocks, hats and other hardware. Dont try to save $100 here and there for a setup that you have to figure out yourself.

I love this forum and get great advice most of the time. It is becoming very difficult to weed through all the noob bashing and armchair expert opinions to collect good information. Just look at the recent "Better Bilstein Ebay Coilover" thread!

Or you know, buy Xidas and get a better product and not wait months for revalved bilsteins. Glad you got your problems worked out though!

Ya, XIDAs would have been 100 times smarter. I think I have more invested in this setup than what XIDA's were at the time!!!!!!!

Oh well, you live and you learn.