best suspension setup

[Greg_D]

Hi All, i am looking to upgrade the suspension on my car (M2.5 turbo)and was wondering what kits everyone else has on their car, feel free to use the poll, if you could also put a couple of words down in support/derision of your own setup to let me cut through all the guff to people's actual experiences, the car would be used for the odd trackday but mostly road driving and my drive is fairly rough and over a mile long so something too low is out of the question, i should be able to get away with the usual 35mm drop.

Your experiences are keenly awaited

Greg

[MX-5 Lazza]

For mostly road use you are really looking at Puredrive, GAZ or AGX (with FM springs).
The AGX/FM benefits from uprated ARBs (FM suit them very well). I believe GAZ also benefits from stronger ARBs but FMs would probably be too strong). PD is designed to be used without uprated ARBs.

I used to have the AGX/FM/FM setup with the old "too low" springs and recently changed to PureDrive, primarily to get a better ride-height but also a better ride on the road which is pretty much what I have got.
I didn't really have a problem with the AGX/FM/FM setup, it's a very well balanced and well matched setup that performs very well on road or on track. I just wanted to be able to get over speed bumps (not a problem with later FM springs) and to be able to choose my own ride-height and get corner-weighting next time I get it aligned which means I needed coil-overs.

I can't comment on the GAZ setup from personal experience but from what I've heard it works well on the road but not as good as PD on track.

[Herman Toothrot]

Car came with Bilstein yellows & Mazda Springs, then I changed to KYB AGX & Eibach Springs, then I changed to Protech P5 Puredrives. They are the best.

[zac510]

I have heard that the AVO are quite highly rated though they might have a bit more of a racing slant.

[kevham]

There won't be many folk who have tried various setups so most (me included) will just be commenting on what they've got.

I compete my car in sprints and hillclimbs but I drive the car to all events so I was looking for a setup which gave me the best of both worlds. I needed to be able to set the ride height and adjust the corner-weighting so I opted for an adjustable coilover setup. My budget was limited to about £500 so that narrowed it down to a couple of contenders (GAZ and P5 Puredrive).

Having had some dealings with P5, and on the recommendation of Lazza who had road tested the setup, I went with P5.

IMHO,it is a vey good budget kit that works very well on the road giving a ride which is comparable with a stock setup. However, it is not a high end track-oriented setup. It doesn't work particularly well with very stiff ARBs (been there, changed back) and it is on the soft side for a pure track setup, meaning there is a touch more roll, pitch and dive than I'd like. Having said that, the advantages of this are that rear wheels stay planted and breakaway is progressive. The handling inspires confidence, is very easy to slide and control and it is adjustable enough that you can play with it .

Quality is ok. Shocks (Pro-tech) are not the best on the market but seem well suited to the application. Adjusters are a wee bit tight. P5 can get a double adjustable version (independent bump and rebound) but costs push it into the high-end bracket. If I was in the market for high end suspension, I'd be looking very closely at the FM AFCO package (see http://www.flyinmiata.com/index.php?deptid=4537&am...)

All in all, I think the P5 package is a great budget upgrade on the stock setup and well worth the sub-£500 price tag.