MaXpeedingRods coilovers for NA/NB Miata

You have a pretty low opinion of stock parts :) OE engineers aren't idiots.

Cutting springs will get you underdamped springs and increased bumpstop time, but it's quite possible the end result would work better.

In reply to 06HHR :

Oh absolutely. Even a half educated guess is better than no guess at all. These don't appear to have had any development. When I had them on my miata it was the same experience. Sold promptly, for $150, to some wannabe hipster that gets his jollies from following the same Internet fads he seen on Instagram

Yikes. I have been following this and was hoping for a positive outcome but even before they were installed I knew this was not going to end well. I hope they work with you Keith and re engineer there product.  

I have no interest in working for free to improve these. My time is better spent serving my own customers!

So, by sending Keith these units and having them review them, they've uncovered the weak points in their current setup from a known expert in the industry.

Seems like a great expenditure of their cash to me.

Brett_Murphy said:

So, by sending Keith these units and having them review them, they've uncovered the weak points in their current setup from a known expert in the industry.

Seems like a great expenditure of their cash to me.

IF they improve the design...

Keith Tanner said:

I have no interest in working for free to improve these. My time is better spent serving my own customers!

Oh I agree.  Working with you as in they actually listen to and act on your comments / review.  I hope they take what you gave them in feedback and they actually make changes to make a better product.  

Would it actually cost them more $$$ to produce good working units versus what they are currently producing?  I know there is tooling and engineering and then there is the cost of the stock that they have already produced.  I am talking about the raw cost to produce the actual product.  Reason I am asking is that if the production cost to make a good unit versus what they have currently is about the same then it is obvious to me that they either have very poor engineering or no actual engineering and no actual testing of there products prior to them hitting the market.  This would make me very leery of purchasing anything from them. 

dean1484 said:

they either have very poor engineering or no actual engineering and no actual testing of there products prior to them hitting the market.

Any fly-by-night operation can email their logo and color preferences to one of countless factories in southeast asia where the cnc plans, etc. to make them have circulated for 20 years..

dean1484 said:

Keith Tanner said:

I have no interest in working for free to improve these. My time is better spent serving my own customers!

Oh I agree.  Working with you as in they actually listen to and act on your comments / review.  I hope they take what you gave them in feedback and they actually make changes to make a better product.  

Would it actually cost them more $$$ to produce good working units versus what they are currently producing?  I know there is tooling and engineering and then there is the cost of the stock that they have already produced.  I am talking about the raw cost to produce the actual product.  Reason I am asking is that if the production cost to make a good unit versus what they have currently is about the same then it is obvious to me that they either have very poor engineering or no actual engineering and no actual testing of there products prior to them hitting the market.  This would make me very leery of purchasing anything from them. 

I'd guess what they're doing is producing one or two generic damper inserts with generic valving and fitting them to unique upper mounts and bottom tube bodies to make them application specific. The damper itself is where most of the engineering and cost is, so making the expensive part common across the whole line is a huge cost savings but pretty much guarantees that the dampers aren't tuned right for any car. Making them "good" would require, at a minimum, making multiple different damper units with different internals, and then actually tuning them to the specific car. That's a lot of R&D money and some amount of additional production costs. Of course, the "right" way (and possibly the only way to make a half decent part in the case of the miata rear) is to do away with the "adjustable preload" system and make fully unique application specific parts which would take even more R&D money and make production way more expensive.

I strongly believe the only way to deal with the rear of an NA, NB or ND Miata is a single-piece shock unless you're willing to compromise the car. You can't abandon that travel. There are some high-end shock manufacturers that disagree with me. I turned down a chance to evaluate a well-regarded brand name coilover setup for the ND because their free spring length was less than the shaft travel of the stock suspension. Not the amount of travel in the spring, the total length. I couldn't take any of their engineering seriously after that.

You could make some design changes to the MaXpeedingRod setup and improve it immensely. It still would have the damping problems and the fact that they run a weird spring diameter, but some of the fundamental geometry problems could be sorted out. 

The replacement shock showed up yesterday. As noted, I have family visiting from Canada so it might be a while before I swap that in. I will put it in and drive the car for at least an hour to make sure I'm not missing something.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

It sounds like what NA/NB need is pushrods so you can can have all the room for shocks you want in the trunk

After a certain point, you get control arm to subframe contact and you also get pretty darn close to grounding out the diff. You can get there with well designed shocks so there's no need to go any more exotic.

I pulled the bad shock out to replace it. And the replacement is the wrong one. That's it, I'm done.  

Knurled. said:

In reply to Keith Tanner :

It sounds like what NA/NB need is pushrods so you can can have all the room for shocks you want in the trunk

Dammit Bobby. Now I have to think about how to do that. You suck. 

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Welllll.....at least we know they manufacture at least two different inserts.

DeadSkunk (Warren) said:

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Welllll.....at least we know they manufacture at least two different inserts.

Way to look at the positive!

Thanks for wasting your time on this, Keith!  It was entertaining and informative for the peanut gallery.

So, I'll wrap this up.

Tessie at Max was very apologetic about the incorrect shock being shipping - she's asked me for part number information off the shipping box so she can confirm that the US warehouse did ship the wrong part, as she did request the correct one - but unfortunately the box had already gone to the recycling depot before I discovered the problem.

I would like to reiterate that I was impressed with the machining quality on the parts. It was much better than other shocks I've seen in this price range. But it doesn't matter how good the machining is if the design isn't there.

I did try to open the bad shock insert to take a look at the internals, but I wasn't able to crack it open with the tools I had handy. I think a pin wrench with fairly big pins and a nice long handle is needed here. I may have an old bike bottom bracket tool that could work, now that I think about it.

The car is back on the previous suspension and the stability and ride quality are dramatically improved, even with spring rates that are 50% higher. Yes, they're 10x the price but they're more than 10x the suspension. The Max setup made the whole car feel cheap and worn and trashy, the current setup reminds you just why Miata handling is a benchmark.

 Interestingly, I did the math and realized that my current prototype spring setup is actually running a very similar F:R balance to the MaXpeedingRods. I am running a lot more front bar now that I can fit my oversize one again, of course. And I've seen on the Max website that they run very different spring ratios on different kits for the Miata, so I'm not sure how much engineering went into that selection.

The fate of this test suspension is undecided. I have offered them back to MaXpeedingRods if they want them.

From the dead- thank you. Honestly, they should have paid you to take the shocks and test them. I'm not sure you really got anything from this except more credibility and the enduring devotion of internet car dudes. Like me.  Thank you. I'll be skipping these for my project.

Reviving an old thread. I ordered their new SPI coilovers. Only coming across this thread after I ordered them :( I emailed for a refund but may be to late. Is their anyway of modding these to drop the rear height and stopping the bump stop hitting ? Maybe mod the maxx top hat or make up a new one with 1-2" extension?

Im glad i reread this thread. I had a set of these in my cart. 

Back to making the bilstein diy coilovers version 2!

Dusterbd13-michael said:

Back to making the bilstein diy coilovers version 2!

That's what I did for my Challenge Miata. Some Bilsteins from the NB sport package and Chinese springs and coilover sleeves. It worked pretty well. I also had the ride height close to stock height to maintain travel.

I have this thread bookmarked because there are so many people on the Miata reddit who are either cheapasses that want to lower their car and are looking at these, or they bought a car that already came with these on it, and I post this link. This thread has made the rounds on the internet.