Finished up the install of my Ground Control coilovers with tokico illumina 5-way adjustables in front and rear today. Went with 6" front springs and 8" rears with spring rates of 350 front and 275 rear. Set my tokicos to 4/5 in front and 5/5 in rear (1 being softest and 5 being stiffest).

Install was fairly easy though I ran into a couple problems so I spent basically Friday night and a couple hours tonight doing it (with plenty of dicking around time). It was dark so I couldn't get any great pics, but the ones I have here will give a general idea. The fronts are slammed all the way down and still not low enough (expected from other ground control threads I read) so I ordered the Mazdatrix 3/4" lowering strut mounts to drop them a little more. I need the front to lower about 1/2" or maybe a tiny more to get it to even out with the rear. The rear I went with having the top of the wheel well being just above the top of the tire, once the front is evened out with it it'll look even better, but right now the front is (like I said) about 1/2" higher. It's not too noticeable but I'll be changing that as soon as the strut mounts come in.

Side view of the whole car


Front Stance/Clearance


Rear Stance/Clearance


And as expected, the rear camber



So yah, I have a *bit* of camber in the rear as expected and I'll need to take care of that soon so I don't start any premature wear on the tires.

Ride is pretty nice. It is much smoother now and there is no body roll from my short testing session on some nearby streets. I went from running eibach prokits with KYB GR-2 fronts and KYB Gas Adjust rears (came on the car when I bought it) to this and I am much happier.

This is the beginning of my suspension project. Next will be the strut mounts, fixing camber, front/rear corksport strut tower bars, Mazdaspeed lower arm stiffener, RB toe eliminator bushings, full polyurethane bushings replacement, and cleaning up or fixing anything I find while doing this, oh and before anyone says I'm missing aftermarket sway bars, already have em on (suspension techniques). Hopefully it should be a really tight setup after all that, got everything ready and waiting in boxes here to go on, should be a fun next couple of weeks

Comments? Questions?

 

looks nice.. but if your spending all this money on suspension, why didnt you just go with a full coilover unit like silkroad or JIC? but you seem satisfied, which is nice to hear considering im installing mine this week. go hit up some turns!

oh and.. give me those boxes!!!

 

Very nice!

Where did you bought them?

K2RD had a nice setup, but they are long gone

 

i really like your setup man. i am doing the same thing, but im going with RB springs

 

How are these any different than other coilovers though? I mean they're missing built in pillow ball mounts or built in front camber adjusters, but they are essentially the same. The way the ground controls work is just the adjustable spring portion of the coilover setup, then you add whatever shocks you want.

 

I ordered the ground control coilovers straight from ground control for $411 after shipping, the tokicos were $425 after shipping off ebay (much cheaper than other online retailers!), and then the rest of the stuff from various suppliers or sites.

K2RD's setup WERE ground control coilovers. They got the ground control coilovers from ground control and mounted them on whatever shocks you wanted and added pillow ball mounts or front camber adjusters or whatever else you indicated you wanted by what kit you got.

 

looks good but can you get some pics form the side from farther away?

 

Sure thing, here ya go. Front looks a little weird because the wheel is slightly turned outward.

 

so do they make a lot of rattling noise.

 

Only driven it once since I got them on and that was home from putting them on at my friends house. Didn't notice any rattling, why have you heard they rattle or something? Nothing yet from mine.

 

I have them on my car but I have yet to drive it,
I have been told that they are nosy.

 

Oh, interesting. Never heard that myself but I doubt it'll bother me as my exhaust is obnoxiously loud so any rattling that might go on the exhaust will drown out haha.

 

I also have the camber plates, and I used the KYB AGX struts.
mine is very low up front to low in fact

 

My fronts have the shortest springs they stock (6") and it's slammed the whole way down. Thing is, though, that I've done over 230 pounds in weight reduction, so my car sits a bit higher now. I've ordered the Mazdatrix 3/4" lowering strut tops to drop it 3/4" more to even it out with the back. Back is 13 threads down from the top, which is about 2/3 of the way down and it's more than low enough.

 

Strange because I have also lightened my car a lot and it will go even lower.
I wonder if the camber plates help to lower it some

 

Yah that is strange. Oh well, another guy in a thread I read on here ended up with the same problem in front as me and had to use the lowering strut tops.

 

kinda a side question what kinda wheels are those?

 

ddub, keep in mind you need to give the coils a while to settle in, then the car will drop a bit more

 

Primax 684's 16x7

And yes I know, but it has been over a day now and a bit of driving, so I'm assuming they are settled plenty. Like I said, there were other people that ran these same sized springs as me that couldn't get the fronts low enough either, and they had to use the 3/4" lowering strut tops. Also, these springs are very stiff so I doubt they drop very much when settling.

 

Wouldnt you bottom out your suspension with the car that low?

 

Not when it's nice and stiff. Running spring rates of 350 front and 275 rear with the tokicos set to 4/5 in front and 5/5 rear where 5 is the stiffest setting.

 

Interesting. How rough would you say the ride got in comparison to your previous setup? Would you personally consider the car 'less streetable' now with such an agressive drop?

 

So far I enjoy the ride better than the eibachs/kyb's actually. I wouldn't say it's less streetable at all, for me it feels way smoother. Yes it's stiffer, but it's nothing extreme or unstreetable.

I was actually expecting it to be worse than it is (stiffer) and am pleasantly surprised. Maybe it's just me and it doesn't bother me as much, maybe it's not, I dunno, but 350 front and 275 rear spring rates with the stiffest settings on the shocks isn't bad at all.

 

Gotta slow down a lot for speedbumps I'll bet

I might consider this on my daily driver ('vert) at some point then Thanks

 

Haven't been over any real bumps yet so we'll see.

No problem.