Our New 2012 PRHT SS Project....

[Va MX5]

Folks, Progress Spring install was completed this morning. Total time from putting the car on the lift until final clean up was 3 hrs 55 minutes. Tools needed were: coil spring compressors, torque wrench and ordinary hand tools. Anybody can do this! It is best to put the tires on and then set the car down on blocks (cinder blocks) to set the torque on the front upper control arm bolts and the bottom of each shock mount as the last step. Ride height after a short drive was 14.25 on all four corners. Steering wheel position remained unchanged. I do expect the car to sag a little more, after the springs take a natural set.

As part of this process, the tires were upgraded to Michelin Pilot Sport PS2's in 235/40/17 size. Yes, there are overkill with regard to speed rating, but I have had excellent results with these Meats on other cars in the past. A pleasant upside is a significant perceived reduction of cabin noise inside the car at all speeds. I did not check it with a db meter, and this may be just a change in frequency thing, but it is much more pleasant to drive!

The bottom line is straight line ride is more supple, hard cornering has a smooth transition onto the bumpstops (very linear) and the car has a remarkable ability to carry higher speeds, with improved stability, thru any corner as compared to before this install. Even without yet doing an alignment this mod is a winner, and I have never even met Brian Goodwin, so these are not just Fan Club comments. Job well done Brian, and for me - time to have a cold beer! Kind regards to all.

[honestobob]

Hey VA-MX-5, How about some photos of this wheel/tire combo on your car?

[Va MX5]

honestobob, Go to the "Wheel and Product Picture Gallery" and see Brian's March 6th post to see the mounted W/T combo. Hope you like them, I am happy with the result. Kind regards.

[Brian]

Got a nail in a tire of our Project 2012 and that was the occasion to finally get the new wheels and tires loaded up. Funny, somebody wrote me a week or two ago about Tirerack telling customers they MUST buy new sensors from Tirerack for RPF1. I checked that with friends at Enkei and they said they never heard such a thing and we found today that the factory sensors bolted up to the RP-F1 perfectly.

Now that they are on the car we love the look on the Copper Red. The Copper Red is almost a candy finish with lots of black in it and the black in the SBC finish picks up wonderfully on the paint color.

[Brian]

Another shot..

[Chuck H]

Looks REALLY good! I think I may have to move wheels and tires up higher on my priority list.

Those are the 17x7.5 wheels, right? That's a great camera you have, too, by the way. I was curious whether you put 205s or 215s on the car, and I was able to re-size the last picture enough to read the sidewall size marking!

[Brian]

Thanks, glad you like them. Yes, that's the 17x7.5 48mm Enkei RPF1 with 215/45/17. Keeping with the purposes of this project we kept the sizing very conservative, just mildly more aggressive than stock, but we do have same finish in 17x8 and 17x9 too for those who want it even more aggressive.

P.S. Camera is Sony RX100, dubbed by some reviews as 'the best pocket camera ever.' Got it for my birthday back in July and it has consistently impressed me so much that I more than covered the cost by selling my big SLR cameras and have no regrets....it's like the Miata of cameras.

[honestobob]

Lookin good! For street purposes what is the tallest wheel tire combo that will fit without fender modification, assuming the same Progress/Bilstein HD suspension set up? Is it 225/45/17 on and 8 inch wheel with 45mm offset?

[Brian]

That 225/45/17 on and 8 inch wheel with 45mm is about the tallest we have tried, works well.

[Va MX5]

Folks,
I finally ran out of cold beer and went back to working on the car! Ran the car 200 +/- road miles before taking it in for alignment. Ride height remained spot on at 14.25 on all four corners. One of the Go-To-Shops for track car set-up in the Virginia/Maryland area is Convenience Car Care in Manassas, VA. These guys are like Brian, in that they have allot of experience with getting/keeping Mazda cars( and others) out onto race tracks. They are not a parts/ accessories vendor, more of a set up/tuning/fabrication race shop. We got the car on the alignment rack and started with 0-toe & -1.2 camber with + 5.0 caster. The car was a dog with this setting. Next step was to increase caster to +6.0. This resulted in a slight loss in low speed agility, slightly more pronounced bump steer, but improved road feel and more predictable/ progressive steering response on higher speed turn-ins (50+ mph turns). I still didn't like how the car felt, so it went back on the rack. Final settings for my Dual-Purpose DD/Track day car are attached.
They results are a dramatic improvement from what I thought was already good following the Progress spring & sways install. The car has a VERY planted on the road feel, bump steer decreased from the earlier settings and higher speed turning got even better. This is all about trade offs, but I like it and I would still characterize the ride as supple. The down side is, as you can carry more controlled speed in the corners, you can clearly see how better/stiffer/real coilovers would make an even BIGGER improvement in these cars for dedicated track use. I can only imagine how good Brian's race cars are at what they do. Sorry, I know this is not what this thread is about, but I am very pleased with the recommendations and results developed by this SS project.
Kind regards to all.

P.s. Brian & Andi the new wheels look GREAT on your SS car!