First, thanks to rlaifatt for his friendly openness and HUGE amounts of help. Also, many thanks to Wael at Elda Engineering, where I bought the shocks, who provided truly exceptional service both before and after the sale. Wael and Bassem run their business the way it should be run: with honesty, integrity and respect.

If you're not familiar with JRZ, Wael can give you all the info you want; for now suffice to say they are among two or three brands of suspensions that represent a genuine improvement over the stock S2000 setup for road-racing applications. IOW, don't bother with these if you just want to lower your car.

So, to the install. Richard (rlaifatt) was the JRZ "trailblazer" for the S2000, and Elda's first customer for the triple-adjustables. With feedback from Richard, Elda was able to request tweaks to the design from JRZ; as you'll see, the setup is now perfectly suited to the car, and surprisingly easy to install. Richard volunteered his help and his garage , and working carefully and casually, we finished the install by ourselves in a day.

The first step: choose your spring rates! Elda will ship with Eibach springs (8" x 2.5") in whatever rates you prefer. Consult Wael and your track buddies for advice. Here's a pic of what you get... Note the knurled adjustment knobs at the top of the shocks -- those are added by Elda for easier adjustment (otherwise you'd need a special tool for rebound adjustment).

Also note the quick-disconnect fittings on the rear shocks (the ones on the left), which allow easy installation and uninstallation and allow for much smaller holes to be drilled in the trunk (as opposed to ones that would have to be big enough for the remote reservoir to get through).

Now, if you know how much you want the car lowered, measure the stock ride height (from fender to bottom of wheel rim) for reference before jacking up the car. I skipped this step and just went with Richard's settings, which lower the car a little under an inch.

OK, so the car's jacked up and the wheels are off. For the fronts, you'll want to disconnect one or both swaybar endlinks, and remove the brake line bracket bolt and the two 17mm upper A-arm bracket bolts, as shown below. We also found it helpful to remove the small ABS-sensor cable bracket:

(Note: if your rotors look like this, replace them! )

Next, remove the stock shock by removing the two top bolts on the strut-tower (in the engine bay) and the large lower A-arm bolt at the bottom. The suspension will swing free here (be ready to catch it; we used a paint can as a prop) and the shock should then just pull out:

The new shock should go in without much trouble; just be sure to align it so that the reservoir hose is on the inside. Elda supplies new nylock bolts for the strut tower but you'll reuse the lower A-arm bolt (with a new nylock nut).

To adjust the ride height, loosen the spring perch (5mm hex nut) and turn it carefully to achieve the desired distance from the bottom of the perch to the center of the lower A-arm bolt. You can see how we measured above. This is just to get the ride height in the ballpark you want; you should get a true corner-balancing once you're done (which shouldn't affect overall ride height much).

The remote reservoirs can be mounted wherever you like, though they should avoid getting hot. We unclipped part of the plastic undertray and routed the reservoirs up to the radiator shroud (the undertray then clips back in place without interference to the shock's hose). I'd clipped part of my shroud away in a CAI experiment a couple years ago so here you can see two ways to mount the front reservoirs (to the cross-beam or directly to the shroud). Note the use of zip-ties to help route the hoses:

For the rear shocks, the A-arms can stay; only the swaybar needs to be disconnected. Remove the stock shock, install the new shock, and adjust the ride height in the same manner as the fronts.

Note the "slack" (empty space) between the top of the spring and the top of the shock -- this is normal, and in fact most of it disappears once the swaybar is fully reconnected. It's simply because the suspension is fully expanded -- a situation you'll never encounter unless you get well and truly airborne (in which case, as they say, you've got bigger problems).

 

(continued...)

To mount the reservoirs in the trunk, you'll need to drill about a 3/4" hole for the hose and quick-disconnect fitting. No need to get a special drill bit -- this can be done with a 1/2" bit and some careful "reaming out" of the initial 1/2" hole. Since most drills won't fit into the trunk (in a proper orientation) we drilled a tiny pilot hole from the top in the location we wanted, then drilled from the bottom to make the actual hole. Wear safety goggles for this! When the hole

 

Yummy.

What spring rates are you running?

 

Did you get them dialed in pretty good at Laguna Seca? You seemed to be moving pretty well with them.

 

I am curious to know what spring rates you chose, also what are the stock rates?

 

The stock rates are 219 lb/in F, 291 lb/in R. If you're clever you can figure out my spring rates from the pics. (Hint: I approximately doubled that.) Don't worry about ride harshness -- the dampers are so good that even with crazy spring rates, you'll be able to find settings that will give a ride quality very comparable to stock.

Also remember that whatever rates you choose, you'll be able to tune the balance of the car with shock settings, swaybars, ride height, tire widths, etc. Therefore, spring selection should be made purely on the basis of achieving a ride and roll stiffness that will prevent suspension bottoming under the maximum g-loading you're expecting.

 

beautiful simply beautiful.....

 

John,

I envy your setup there. Looks amazing!!! Sorry I didnt get a chance to say hi at Laguna Seca 2 weekends ago! But I did see you on the track flying tho!


DaRKCrow

 

550's all around, huh?


Cheers.

 

Nice write-up, makes me wanna get a set. Yeah, looks like 550 lb/in all around. Do the springs cost extra?

I'm, however, surprised to see that these are the same exact springs (not the spring rates) that I got from Ground Control.