Customer Reviews
My friend and I installed the Fox shocks in about 4 hours on my car (plus a couple of hours of prep and reading instructions). I also did the rear sway bar myself and paid Sake Bomb Garage in Fremont, CA to do the front sway bar and alignment.
The positives-
+ Instructions are very thorough and installation is not impossible for a first timer / novice mechanic like myself (just make sure you have all the right socket sizes and a good set of jack stands!).
+ The kit very complete - no additional hardware required.
+ The ride is more composed - it sits very steady on the highway (doesn't feel like the car is twitchy, like it used to be) and there's a nice amount of resistance when turning. I took it for an HDPE (caveat: as a novice) and body roll was effectively eliminated, as promised - although it still doesn't feel as smooth as the BMW M3 that inspired me to upgrade the suspension ;-).
+ The car sits very slightly lower - which evens out the height I gained when switching from 205 tyres to 215 tyres - and looks great.
The negatives-
- The default recommended settings (17 front / 22 back) were far too bouncy for me, which suggests that it was underdamped and I found myself getting thrown around over every imperfection. This is surprising because it was just me in the car and I'm a pretty average weight of around 165 lbs. Stiffening it up a bunch (recommended by the amazing FM support) helped a bunch: to 17 front / 16 back. Now it feels appropriately damped.
- I haven't yet found the best balance of handling / comfort - in fact, comfort seems lacking at all settings, so I ended up settling on the stiffer settings and dealing with the car's loss of comfort. This isn't an issue on well maintained roads and highways - unfortunately where we live, there are a lot of badly maintained roads (the East Bay / SF Bay Area in California). Ultimately, the trade off here makes me hesitate to recommend this to someone who commutes regularly in their Miata. I've heard the Ohlin's Long Stroke might be a better balance for the daily driver use case.
- This isn't specific to the FM kit and is relatively minor: access to the adjusters is a pain. You need to remove the trim from the rear and the front suspension strut bar makes it hard to adjust the front ones. (There is an aftermarket strut bar / brace that GWR sells that provides easier access to the front adjusters.)
It was a fun exercise, but were I to do it again, I might spend the extra money and try the Ohlins.
I've been waiting to write a review until i had some seat time in the car with the new suspension, to give my honest perspective. I had an issue with a faulty damper after 4-5,000 miles, but FM and FOX had it fixed for me free of charge. It also didn't take very long to receive it back from getting re-built at the FOX warranty center which was nice.
The suspension kit has been great otherwise. Its been installed for about 10 months and have loved it the whole time. The chassis roll has been greatly diminished compared to stock and inspires a lot more confidence when taking corners at speed. I have yet to make any adjustments to the sway bars or damper settings, but the out of the box setting FM recommend have been great! I might make some adjustments to the sway bar coming up soon, but we will see. The ride on the new suspension has been pretty comparable to the stock setup, although it might be a little more firm than stock. My dad has a stock 2019 club and he didn't really notice a difference to his car's ride as well, which was a relief considering i do a decent amount of driving and road trips with the car. Overall, couldn't be happier with this kit. Accomplished better cornering feel and "flatness" without ruining the ride quality for longer road trips. I'm excited to do a direct comparison next week when we have my car and my dad's car on a roadtrip through the blue ridge mountains. I'm sure he will be leaving there thinking about ordering a kit for himself.
Changes the Miata from a "sporty" car to a true sports car. Annoying body roll? Reduced. Porpoising of the stock Bilsteins? Gone. Ride comfort? As good as, if not better than stock. And yes, the car looks cooler lowered, as well. All around fantastic upgrade.
Purchased the sport springs version for my '16 Club. Customer service was excellent with delivery as promised. All the parts are top quality. The shocks are amazingly light! Installation was straightforward with the supplied instructions, although I did install the front sway using the "lower the subframe" method. After alignment to FM specs the car is transformed! Adjustments on the shocks allow me to add a bit of extra comfort for CA highway driving.