I’ll be the first one to admit that Mazda did their homework before they designed the suspension platform on the RX8. For daily driving the dampening rates are pretty good. Fortunately for us, we typically stretch the term daily driving to it’s thinnest, and by now we knew two things; 1) the car had to be lowered, no question there, and 2) The damping needed to be adjustable.
JIC has been in the industry long enough to build some of the sickest JDM cars in Japan, fully loaded with there own suspension designs and parts. Their flagship model coilover, the FLT-A2, is a high tech work of art. Machined aluminum always makes me hard, especially with15 way adjustable monotube damper, adjustable ride height, and anodized in gold. Talk about strait pimp! Want more specs? Go here www.jic-magic.com.
When the stock set up is compared to the JICs the initial difference was in the weight. We guessed about a 5-6 Lb difference with the new set up making the old one look fat and out of shape. Look again a little closer and you begin to see how the build and quality workmanship begin to stand out. The fronts come with upper pillow ball mounts while the rears do not. We did the fronts first. Installation was pretty simple requiring only common tools. Three nuts hold the top of the strut in place and are easy to get to from under the hood. First thing is to take off the factory strut bar before removing the suspension. Once the three nuts are removed, remove the lower bolt and nut at the bottom of the strut. Now the whole unit should be disconnected. You’ll need to remove the two bolts that connect the horseshoe shaped suspension link from the body. Once those are out, let the link drop down and now you have more room to wiggle the body of the strut out clear of the fender. Before installing the JIC we checked to make sure the spring seat collars were snug and tightened them down a bit more to load the springs. From here installation is the same thing but in reverse. Use caution!! Do not over tighten the three nuts on the top. Don’t go getting all-macho and end up twisting off one of the studs, you’ll hate yourself. Once it’s all bolted in we used the supplied spanner wrenches and threaded the shaft housing into the body of the unit which lowers the ride height of the car.
The rears required a few more steps though it went smoothly with the aid of an extra set of hands. The plastic coverings inside the trunk were pulled away to reveal the top of the stock unit and how it is mounted into the underside of the body. Loosen the two nuts at the base of the mount but do not remove them. You’ll need them there to keep the shock from falling out on you when you underneath the car. One look at the multi link set up and you begin to understand how much racetrack R&D comes into play with this car. From the rear of the car the two large lateral links connecting in the center and reaching out and down to the bottom of each wheel need to disconnect at the body. The bolt has two large washers with gauging marks in them. You can see that the larger center mark is lined up with mark on the mount. Remember that when you reconnect these later. With the link still connected at the wheel swing it out of the way and locate the ends of the sway bar. A little time saver secret is to disconnect the tiny sway bar at both ends and swivel it down out of the way. Now you’ve got some, and I do mean some, working room. Remove the large bolt holding the stock shock to the wheel spindle. Next remove the smaller bolt screwed in to the under side of the top of the mount. (Now here’s the reason you only loosened the nuts from inside the trunk) With the bolt now removed at the bottom of the stock unit slid it off of the seating shaft and it will fall loose. Have your buddy now remove the nuts from the studs inside the trunk and the unit will slide out of its hole and down through the linkage. Reuse the black mount and assemble it to the JIC unit, make sure that the springs are seated securely and install it the same way it came out. Once the new unit is all bolted in reattach the end links to the sway bar and then the lateral links to the underbody. Make sure to line up the marks on the washer and mount before you tighten the bolt down. This is easier to do with someone pulling up on the suspension.
The wheels went back on and we lowered the car back down to earth. Once the weight of the vehicle loads the coilovers observe the gap between the wheel well and the tire. I’ve never seen anyone get the right ride height in one shot and this was no exception. More than likely you’ll need to remove the wheels and adjust the suspension further. Make sure to get equal drop on each side front and back or you’ll be driving ghetto style and the handling will suffer. They say, third time is a charm and finally got the look we wanted leaving an even 1 inch gap at all four corners. I eagerly jumped in, fired it up and rolled out in to the parking lot, and headed out into the dark streets. Fully expecting the ride to be noticeably stiffer, I was surprised to find that it felt just a tad more firm than stock. As I pointed her into a few turns at speed, I could definitely feel the firmness coming into play keeping the car in its new squat stance, all the while ginning from ear to ear. Now we just have to do some thing about that tiny, tiny sway bar in the rear. Hmmm…..to be continued.
