I'm getting my 7 back together and re doing my 25yr old suspension.
I have decided on RE-SPEED coil overs.
What are the advantages of the race over the street?
Longer travel I assume?
more rigidity?

Road is easier to install what am I missing?

thanks

 

The main difference between the two styles is installation. The street kit is bolt in. The race kit involves welding.

The street kit does give up a bit of available adjustment length. So we recommend a 7" spring with a max of 250# rate. A longer spring or higher rate will not allow the car to settle at a low enough ride height.

-billy

 

There you go, straight from the expert. I went with the race version so I could get the added drop for racing, along with a higher spring rate (275). Getting the strut welded was pretty simple, I just taped the parts into position and a guy zapped them for me for the price of a twelve pack.

 

I want to get this far down the road. Billy if I could, I would just order your entire catalog. Over time though I plan to have all the work done that your blue widebody had, only with my engine setup and a stock body.

 

Great thanks. I have a welder buddy so I'm going to go with the race kit. Hope to be ordering at the end of the month. Cant wait!

 

i have the respeed race kit. on stocky 13's this is as low as you can go without cutting the brake line holder off, if you were wondering.

 

Do you have any other angles?

Also, your turbo is on the wrong side?

 

Look closer. He doesn't have a rotary in there.

 

i have mine lowered a little bit on tall tires. the race kit is definitely a great improvement over stock

 

I cut my brake line holders right off. Haven't missed them so far.

Here's a thread with recent photos. The car is at my daily driving height. Sometimes I'll go lower for races. https://www.rx7club.com/1st-gen-general-discussion-207/bit-photo-shoot-826223/

 

This is a picture at rim height, so standing it looks like it tucks alot more tire.

 

good product!

 

I'm on a little bit of a budget. will it hurt to run these with out the camber plates and new front sway bar. I plan on adding these later though. for now my shopping list is

Tokico Iluminas back
Tokiko HP blue front
Rear coil over
front race coil over
all urathane bushings
moog idlerarm
hawk pads
15x7 rewinds with 40 offset and with 205/50/15 tires.
ring gear from an SE (to compensate for the larger diameter tires) with GSL LSD.

By the end of the year I hope to upgrade to the rack and pinion conversion.

thanks

 

Coming from stock suspension?

Not at all.

 

The only time you should absolutely need camber plates is if your tires are rubbing a lot on corners. Then you would add some camber so as the suspension compresses the tire would tuck inside the fender edge. But even in that case you could roll your fenders before adding camber. But also if your running your car so hard as to be rubbing, you should probably have the plates anyway just so you can really dial in the suspension.

 

You'll be fine without the camber plates and swaybar. The swaybar (especially the Respeed) will make the biggest difference in overall handling, but without good springs and shocks it would be wasted anyway. I saved the swaybar for last and didn't regret it.

The camber plates are simply to adjust for the angle of the tire in very hard cornering. As you add camber, when you hit a hard turn the tire patch will remain planted rather than having the tire try to "roll over" on the rim. Its simply a way to keep more rubber on the pavement when you need it.

 

Good to know about the camber. I was afraid that as I lowered the car the camber would increase and that I might need the plates to offset the effect. I knew about the cornering aspect. just didn't want to look like a bad "ricer slam" with to much camber.
Pretty much what I thought about the sway bar. good to have reinforcement on my plan.

thanks.

 

well i'm running -2.8 degrees camber. And I don't think it looks ricer at all. i've only gotten compliments on the stance.

edit:not quite sure why mazda wanted 0 - 1 degrees camber for stock.

 

One more question.
Is there any cutting involved in using the race coil overs? how are the lower perches located?

Sorry didn't mean to offend any one with my comment about "ricer slam". there are just an abundance of lowered cars around here with WAY to much camber. not just a few degrees.

thanks

 

about the camber, i completely understand. there's a guy here with about -5 degrees camber on the back of his cressida. and his exhaust is big enough that shaq could fist it.

Getting back to Seriousness

you have to grind off the original spring perch, and weld the new one on. make sure its as straight as possible. i think i made a mistake when we welded mine on. i really wish i lived closer to billy, that way he could slap me silly with all his knowledge

 

79-80 housings are a bit more of a pain to do.
81-85 housings can be done a few ways. We turn them on a lathe to cut the weld off. Then the lower perch just slides off the housing. You can also just keep cutting at them with cut off wheel and then carefully grind the welds down.

With McPherson strut cars you will not see that much negative camber change from lowering. It is upper and lower control arm systems that majorly change camber when lowered.


-billy

 

billy, what kind of a lathe do you use? lol. i don't think i could put it in one of ours. most of our lathes are pretty small. oh well, it worked. thanks for the great product

 

The one use for this is just a 10" swing manual lathe.

You clamp onto the top of the tube with the jaws and use the steady rest to secure the end near the knuckle. A bit scary but I have been doing this for a long time, haven't thrown one across the room.........yet


-billy

 

dam, that makes perfect sense. now if I ever have to do one again i'll do it that way. i'm more comfortable with a lathe than a grinder i guess we have 20 lathes that could all do it i just wasn't thinking as a machinist.

slightly off topic, on the driver's side it seems as tho the spring moves when i'm driving around in a parking lot. and it causes the car to pull to some other direction. i put it on an alignment rack and got it all aligned and couldn't really see any problems. it just kind of bothers me.

the car performs 1000 times better on the road.

to spotted frog, the respeed coilover kit changed my life. i went from a car that had "pretty good" handling but would most surely kill me if i made a mistake to a car that is much more forgiving.

 

mine were done by ground control (in 1997) and i dunno why they even bothered with a collar, the spring perch was sitting on the poopy from the crap welds...