Flyin' Miata Koni Stage 2 suspension package (NC chassis)
Flyin' Miata Koni Stage 2 suspension package (NC chassis)
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Description
About the springs:
FM springs are well known for providing a good balance of street ability and track performance. Their combination of ride height - giving the suspension room to work - and spring rate means your Miata will ride and handle better than you would expect from a set of performance springs.
There's more going on than you think, though. See that section with the tighter coils? Those are designed to act as a secondary spring, keeping the spring from going loose under full droop. While these rates might sound high compared to some other springs on the market, they are stiff enough to keep your car off the bumpstops. Softer springs will often give a worse ride because they allow you to blow through your suspension travel and end up on the stops. We've specified a powdercoat with a high zinc content for extra corrosion resistance, too.
How much will they lower your car? We can't tell you, because Mazda changed the ride height of Miatas over the years. However, if you measure from the center of the wheel to the fender lip, you can compare your car to the final result. It's not a huge drop but once you drive the car you'll appreciate how well it works.
Includes a complete set of our upgraded bump stops.
Specifications for the NC
Front springs: 300 lb/in
Rear springs: 196 lb/in
Front ride height: 13.5"
Rear ride height: 13"
About the shocks:
The Koni Sport shocks have adjustable rebound so you can crank them up when you're feeling frisky on the autocross course. They come with a lifetime warranty for the original purchaser (US/Canada only).
About the sway bars:
Sway bars are used to make your car corner flatter and react faster by keeping the body (and all the weight) under control. Ours are set up for neutral handling and are adjustable so you can tailor the handling of your Miata to your own driving style. Our swaybars are hot formed from 4140 CrMo spring steel. This means they're stronger than the cold-formed bars found elsewhere. We've designed them to keep the same handling balance as your stock sways, but they have two settings in the front and three in the rear for fine-tuning. Includes brackets and urethane bushings with waterproof grease. The NC are hollow front and rear, with sizes of 1" front and 0.75" rear. These sizes are typically not harsh enough to cause damage to the stock swaybar mounting points.
Instructions
Shipping
What does it fit?
Fits: 2006-2015, 2007-2015 PRHT
Emissions
Emissions do not apply.
Warranty
lifetime
SKU
Although the FM installation videos for the sway bars and Koni suspension package were excellent, I don't have the necessary tools outlined or a lift and spring compressor. So I arranged to have the suspension components plus the Center X Brace and Rear Lower Performance Bar installed by Scott Krueger, an SCCA racer, driving instructor and crew chief, and owner of Krueger Autosport. The great thing about Scott is that he was interested and enthusiastic about the installation. When the Miata was ready and I picked it up, it felt like I was driving a different NC - firm and controlled handling, and planted to the road without an adverse effect on ride quality - my desires and goals fulfilled! I want to thank the FM crew for accurately matching and assembling these components into a suspension package designed to facilitate the desired handling effects. I would enthusiastically recommend this package to other NC owners.
When I first got my NC it had some unknown brand of lowering springs installed that were absolutely terrible. It would blow through the bump travel and slam into the bump stops at the slightest hint of a bump, especially in the rear. After installing the FM kit, I mostly went with the recommended starting point for initial settings, except I set the front camber at- 1.5 instead of the recommended -1.0. My initial impression is they really nailed the spring rate, fairly firm but not too stiff for the street. The car seems very neutral and well balanced, with very little body roll. FM did their homework getting this right, one thing to remember about Koni yellows are they have very little compression damping, so with soft or OEM springs they will tend to be too soft on compression. These seem very well matched. I can't wait to test them on track.
I resonate with everyone else's review and add that this makes the NC (NC2 in my case) feel like what it should've felt like from the factory.
I installed the package with FM's recommended shock settings and sway bar settings and have 0 complaints regarding handling and ride quality.
One aspect of the shocks that left me stumped was how impossible it was to assemble the shock/spring assembly with fresh factory top hat bushings, as recommended by FM.
I had no choice but to buy them because the previous owner of my car installed coilovers that had their own top hats and top hat bushings, and threw away the factory ones.
This wasn't an issue with compressing the spring enough, as I was able to compress the spring far below where the lower bushing washer was located.
I somehow got the rear ones installed, but I could not squish down the top hat bushings for the front shocks enough to thread on a lock nut. I could not do it to save my life, and even took it to a mechanic who told me the bushings are too thick and told me to get a refund.
The *only* solution was to order polyurethane top hat bushings from another Miata specialty shop who evidently went though this issue before and had the foresight to design the bushings with the "squished" thickness that you get from riding on the factory bushings for a while.
I'm not sure if this is possible but if there is ever a revision 2 of the Koni sports for the NC, the shocks should come with 5-10 mm more thread length. If this isn't possible, it would help out novice mechanics like me a ton if this is noted on the product page of the top hat bushings, or if thinner top hat bushings could be sold by FM.
Along those lines, FM should also consider having the Koni shock washers (sets of 4 or 8) in stock, as not everyone will have bought an NC with the stock hardware intact. Thankfully, the previous owner's coilovers had shock washers of adequately similar dimensions.
Thanks, Jae! I'm glad you're enjoying your new suspension kit! You're right; it is difficult to compress new factory bushings enough to get the nut started on the Koni shocks. While it's not entirely impossible, it could certainly be better. We usually have luck using a sturdy 2x4 or 2x6 board with a hole cut in the middle so you can press down on the uppermost washer to compress the bushing but still have access to thread the nut on. Alternatively, another option is to use a fresh razor blade to cut a slice off the top or bottom of the bushing to allow it to squish down further. All of that being said, we're taking this feedback into consideration to see if we can come up with a better solution for this in the future. Thanks again!
I installed the FM2 kit a oouple weeks ago so this is my familarization period. The front is not at the height I expected coming in around 14" but the rear is sitting fine. The appearance is a little more squat than rake. I'm told by fellow NC owners that it'll settle another 0.5" to the advertised 13.5" after a while. I had Tein coil overs that performed well in the turns but the ride quality was poor.
The Koni's are atthe softest setting so I'm playing around with the levels of dampening. Handling wise at the default setting I have no issues, it's stable around the turns and the harsh bumps on the road do not unstablize the car on fast approaches. Wheel and tire fitment: 17x9's with 225/45 tires.
The ride quality is between OEM and coil overs, an ideal compromise for me since this is a Saturday morning car. I'm fortunate enough to live within 30 minutes of my local mountain roads in the Los Angeles area. I don't track...yet.
Thanks, James! We're glad to hear you're happy with the new suspension kit! We tried reaching out to James to talk about the ride height descrepancy, but we haven't heard back. Our springs don't require a settling period after installation if you follow the proper installation procedure, so there seems to be something else going on. James, please contact us when you get a chance!
Exactly what you’d expect from FlyinMiata, so much bestness. This kit is the sweet spot for NC suspension, gets rid of all the slop and weird body motions of the stock Bilsteins without being punishing. The ride is stiffer than the stock sport suspension, but in many situations I found the FM kit to provide a more pleasant ride just because it’s so much less sloppy. Prior to the install, I lacked confidence driving my stock NC2 on Mazda’s sport suspension and this kit completely changed that. Driving on undulating, high speed mountain roads, I never found myself second guessing my inputs, nor did I find myself wanting or let down by the suspension when really leaning on it. Ride height is not significantly lower than before so the car can still perform all the normal tasks of a daily driver and still leaves some room for underbody bracing without dragging the belly on everything, huge win for me. This suspension matches the car perfectly in regards to street driving and I would recommend it to anyone looking to make their ride more competent without losing daily drivability. Real world solution to the NCs stock suspension issues.