I've attached a few photos of me at an event. As you can see my car is rolling like crazy. Part of this is that it's an EXTEMELY tight course as I was hanging out with the miata club. I was almost lifting the one real wheel. Good thing I have a clutch type diff back there.

My suspensions is as follows F/R sway bars set to full stiff front an half a notch from full stiff rear. OEM springs with bilstien B6 shocks. Adjustable stuff all around tk give me - 2.0 camber 0.0 toe front and - 1.8 camber 0.08 toe rear. I have stiffer bushings all around and subframe and diff bushings.

Well, my car rolls wayyyyy too much I think. I think I need coilovers. I wouldn't like to reduce roll but not knock my teeth out on the street.

Any recommendations?
I have looked into the bilstien pss10 kit as that's about 15% stiffer springs with a progressive rear. Also the Ohlins seem awesome but they are almost 90% stiffer than stock. Have heard good and bad things about the bc racing but haven't found any listed spring rates in pounds.




Out of my element here and need some guidance. Thanks in advance.

 

Fortune Auto - you won't regret it.

 

Just based on pics and description, two things stand out to me:

- Too much rear roll stiffness based on how you're lifting the inside rear wheel. Try notching going down one notch (or even full "soft" if you're currently on #3, end of bar adjustment/full stiff.)

- Your stock springs are way out of the realm or restraint based on the diving attitude. I do NOT know what the hot tip is for AX springs (nor coilovers) but I would hazard that even a decent set of performance springs (preferably linear) would do you a world of good.

Now, going to mention alignment - even though that will NOT do anything for body roll. How's your turn in? I ask because it seems your alignment settings are pretty tame for AX. With your adjustability, at least push the front camber out to the edge of range ~ -1.0deg And add some caster. If I remember correctly, that's about 8deg. Also couldn't hurt to add rear camber out to the edge of range as well, ~ -2.0deg. This will likely help your turn in and rotation. I would look the numbers up just to be on the safe side as I'm not an autocrosser (and road race settings are far more extreme); Those types of adjustments will shorten tire life but still being in OE range, your tires won't hate you too much.

The point is, depending on your tire setup, there's a fair amount of baseline and experimentation. But the autocrossers here should be able to provide more precise guidance. Have fun!

 

That looks excessive even for stock? Here is a video of my car running completely stock at this point (springs and sway bars) with Bilstien shocks to give you something to compare your car to. Double check your sway bar links all around to see if they are all still attached, sometimes they do come loose. I have seen some other Z's run and none are showing that level of lean. The track may be far tighter as you said though. We basically are in 2nd gear running hard all the way around. Not too knowledgeable on suspension setup's, but this will give you some visual comparison at any rate.

I have since put in a Hotchkins front sway bar (tightest position) and Nismo springs. I am running the standard OEM sway bar on the rear. Some like to remove the sway bar altogether on the rear, so definitely try the softest in the rear.

 

I see you have a similar amount as roll as me. It just looks less pronounced in a video rather than isolated. You are not lifting the rear wheel quite as bad as I am. I will have to loosen up the rear sway bar.

 

I will try going down a notch on the rear and see if I can't keep that real wheel planted. Someone is selling a coilover kit I like for $600 (used) so I think I'll probably just pick that up. It's bilstien so I imagine can't go wrong and it's adjustable

 

OH yeah and also, I'm in first gear in my run. That probably makes the car move around a hell of a lot more. I tried the course in second gear but I was three seconds slower than in first gear.

 

That might account for the higher amount of lean as your turns are far tighter on your course as you described. I am in second gear all the way around and pretty much at a pretty high rpm doing it. Could never do it in first gear at all.

 

This was a Miata Club event so the course was crazy tight. I had to essentially trail brake to get the car through some of the narrow openings of the cones. This was also my first AutoX event. Is it just me or is it super hard to tell from the cones where to go? I got lost on the first run lol. Maybe they didn't set them up right. Next time I'll try the SCCA Chicago course. Most guys were running around the 58 second range. I hit 60.4 on my final run. They also showed up with 200 TW tires and coilovers.

I bought a used bilstien PSS10 kit off a guy on Facebook for $600. The extra spring should help with the roll and the struts can be adjusted to slow down the roll. I'll let you know how that feels and if I get a video I'll send it your way.