I have an ‘04 AP2, and my trigger fingers just ordered some off the shelf ohlins.

I used to own an NC Miata, and I remember i had pretty bad rear bottoming out issues on my 7k/4k Ohlins, so I bumped up the rear springs to 5k, and that definitely helped.

I prefer my car a bit more tailhappy, but I’m realizing the OTS ohlins have a slightly stiffer front ratio than OEM ‘04 springs.

Should I put on 10k/10k springs instead of the OTS 10k/8k? anyone who runs it have any insight on how it feels? Will I run into rear bottoming out issues on the 8k as well?

Also adding that I absolutely adore the stock suspension, and am wondering if the Ohlins are even going to be worth the upgrade. I know a lot of people love em here, so maybe I’m wrong?

thanks!

 

Ohlins are great. I run 12K/10K at the moment. I prefer 10K/8K for street. Track I like the 10K/12K.

 

Stock '04 rates are around 4.7k and 4.9k.

Ohlins are nearly double that, so no, not gonna bottom out.

 

I recently replaced a set of 10K / 10K Buddy Club RS coilovers with 10K / 8K Ohlins.

Very happy and zero bottoming out. I haven't done a track day in a while. If I were still doing them regularly I'd go 10K all around or perhaps 12K / 10K but at 95% street use IMO the 10K / 8K spec is perfect. Definitely feels more supple than the BC kit.

 

10K/10K is working great for me. My ’06 is 100% street. I enjoyed the stock suspension too, but on rough roads the rear would bottom out easily. It made the car feel fragile.

I installed the 10K/8K Ohlins setup and ran it for a couple weeks. My early impression was that the 10K/8K felt heavy and reluctant to turn. There’s a suspension calculator spreadsheet kicking around here somewhere that was immensely helpful to me. I did the math and decided that upping the rears to 10K would give a more playful balance. And it does… it feels much lighter and more responsive to inputs. The rear will kick out if I ask it too, but it’s far from problematic. This is on an AP2 with OEM staggered wheels. I’d consider different rates if I had square wheels. Also, I opted for the heavy CR front and ’01 rear swaybars. All those things factor in.

As far as bottoming out, the Ohlins have never bottomed out on me. The rear dampers have a very short travel, so the key is getting enough preload on the rear… I ended up at 14mm. Also, I recommend the Sakebomb lower cups to give you extra room for adjustment.

 

Thanks! What tires are you running?

Also how much stiffer is the CR front bar vs your 06 front bar?

i’m also surprised to hear your stock suspension bottomed out! I’ve never experienced this, and I’ve taken some crazy dips on the highway fast haha. Maybe compared to my NC, it’s just better

 

10/10 here with cr front bar,think i have 16mm rear preload

 

Oh, here’s the suspension calculator created by CarAnalogy.
https://www.s2ki.com/forums/s2000-br...lator-1203243/

It contains factory spring rates and sway bar (ARB) rates for all years as well as popular aftermarket options. It’s interesting to see how the early cars were heavily rear biased, and then gradually evened out, but remained slightly rear-biased. The CR is the odd duck as the only model that’s front biased.

For tires, I’m on Michelin Pilot Sport 4S in factory sizes. I really love them for street driving. Very low rolling resistance and very quiet, yet grippy enough to inspire confidence. As a point of comparison, my sister's bone stock ’07 came on RE71’s… which had incredible grip, but made odd noises. When we first got the car, we kept trying to find the source of this crazy noise that sounded like it was coming from the side view mirrors… like a piece of paper stuck in there flapping wildly in the wind. We ultimately determined it was the RE-71’s un-velcroing themselves from the road.

 

OTS Ohlins have rear travel issues. You need to get the upgraded shortened rear cups/forks from Sake Bomb Garage.

It's too bad you already got them. I would have suggested (and still do suggest) the MCS 1WNR over the Ohlins.

 

From memory, even the SBG kit doesn't solve it entirely because it doesn't actually resolve the short stroke length of the shock body. AFAIK, the Motons through ASM are the only true long-stroke coilover that alleviate the droop and travel issue.

But if you're not chasing tenths, it's basically irrelevant. Like, some dude won't need Motons or Öhlins with SBG cups/forks for a fun time on the canyons. I had zero issues with my Öhlins besides occasional bottoming out on really bad roads and I ran the 10k/8k. Hell, most won't necessarily need them on track, either. They'll have plenty of fun and the Öhlins will do great work. It's when people start chasing faster lap times that the shortcomings become apparent. Same thing with the rear differential zero load or the rear rotor solid disc issue. Like, it's not a problem until it's a problem. And if that were the case here, we wouldn't really be discussing Öhlins at all, it would be another discussion about which coilover to get to resolve that issue.

I think a lot of people oversell what is really needed for each use case. Hell, most people don't even know how to set high-speed rebound using the knobs. These suggestions are unnecessary for like 95% of people.