So here I am, I pleb with a Miata on BC Racing coilovers. They don't ride great and I'm about done with the process of creating my own Bilstein setup (shown below). A bunch of purchases from 5X Racing and it's good to go. Only issue is the shock boots. I live in Michigan and most of our roads are complete trash with dirt everywhere. I'm having issues finding the correct shock boots to protect it so I'm wondering if it's actually worth it. I only drive the car during the warm months (May-October) and store it in the winter....think I could get away with running no shock boots/covers? I've looked around and it seems there's a good amount of people running with the bare shock rod. I put around 5000 miles on the car a year so was hoping to get some takes and opinions! Thanks guys!

 

Only a couple of guys here use them. The vast majority do not.

 

Seems so odd to me but yolo, I'll do a shock rebuild if they need it in a couple years! Hopefully the car will be on the new suspension next weekend!

 

With limited Summer usage, you should be fine.

 

No shock boots - car in Russia (summer use only). No problem so far.

 

Alright sounds solid, ordered my last little bits hopefully so the car should be running the new suspension soon! Thanks for the reassurance guys, really appreciate it!

 

It depends on seal system. In case of mx 5 bilies seal is covered by silver plate with let say additional seal which takes dust.
Dust cover is not necessary