To Lower, or Not To Lower
 

I've been considering lowering my P5 but my friend said that it'll ruin the already awsome suspension and handling. his reasoning is that mazda engineers designed the car using the current ride height, stiffness, and all that good stuff. the physics used to design our suspension will be wasted, basically, and make our ride less sporty. what do you all think??

You could lower it with MP3 struts and springs.

Tell your friend he's full of crap. I put the H&R springs on my p5 and the handling only improved. Yeah the ride got a little stiffer, but I like to "feel" the road anyway. And with the MP3 setup you will spend a lotta chedda, and you will hardly get a notcieable drop. I mean like fractions of an inch of a drop (I don't know the specific height off the top of my head, but its not much). Go with the lowering springs.

if i get eibach springs installed (1.4"F and 1.2"R lowering) should i get new struts too? will it be too hard on the stockers?
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Ford aod transmission specifications

No, my stock struts have done just fine, and have been paired with my H&R's for over 7 months now. Shoot I even lowered it more with a little "ghetto" modification, and it now sits about 2 inches lower with the stock struts. I only plan on upgrading when, and if my stocks blow out.

when your shocks die does your car

a) bottom out (wheels hitting wheelwell or bottom of car scrap ground)
b) has no resistance so its like ridding on jello and your bouncing everywhere
c) ???
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Digital scales

Your friend is wrong on this one. You have to remember that Mazda designs cars to appeal to a large range of people. The components that they choose to put into the cars offer a balance between good ride quality and performance.

yeah i thought my friend was full of crap, too :) he put up a convincing agruement that got me thinkin, tho. i was lookin at the eibach setup and now i think i'll buy them. thanks!

b). It bounces like a mofo. Its actually pretty funny, a friend of mine had this old POS civic that he took the struts discharged all the gas from them. It was hillarious when he pumped the brakes while driving it looked like he had hydros or something.

See the springs in your car offer the resistance to keep the car at a certain height, and compress to allow the car to absorb the bumps in the road. Its the struts job to make it smooth and all on the rebound so the spring doesn't just sit there and bounce all over the fricken place when its compressed, and released. I know someon can get way more technical about what the struts do, but, it gets no simplier than the explination I just gave.

the handling will NOT go to crap....

it depends on your wallet....

you CAN put the springs on your stock struts and they will be fine for a while.....they will last you about a year, depending on how much you drive your car......

OR you could spend another $500 on the struts that came on the MP3 and they will get more like normal life out of them....

PLUS...if you really wanted to you could also get the front and rear sway bars that came on the MP3 and add them to your P-5 as well....that will be about a nother $350 .... these are approximate prices just for the parts.

YES your ride will be come a little stiffer....that goes with the territory....it just depends on what YOU want.

What exactly did you do to lower the car even more? I am curious.

Well I did what many people like to call the "ghetto dump". I just couldn't take the way my car sat anymore, and now that I finshed my subs in the trunk I knew how the car was gonna sit. The car always sat a little high in the front with just the H&R's installed. And I got a smokin deal on the package of my wheels, springs, and tires, so I went with the H&R's instead of coilovers. Plus I've not so great things about the coilovers for our cars so far. ANd I could not justify spending anymore money when I could go down to Ace hardware, and pickup every auto tuner's must have tool. THE ALMIGHTY GRINDER!!!!
I took 3/4's of a coil out of both the front and back, and now it sits perfect (in my eyes), its right on the tires, and the ride quality has not been sacrificed. the back doesn't rub either thanks to some handy fender work. I mean the ride is stiff, but it was stiff when I put the lowering springs on it. And when I say stiff, I don't mean bouncy. I am well aware of the differnece. I have been in cars with the stock springs cut down to just a couple of coils, so I know what the "ghetto bounce" is all about.

So anyway, that's what I did, I hacked my H&R's.

I understand your pain. I was unhappy with my Eibachs. The front was perfect (~1.8" due to the heavier auto tranny), but the back sat too high ( only ~1.5" down) so I thought about cutting the springs, but I did not want to do all that labor by myself and be unhappy with a bouncy car un putup with my wife complaining so I bought rear GC coilovers and installed them in the rear only so I was happy with the front. With the GC coilovers I was able to lower the car another 1/2" and make it leveled. I hate the squated look! Anyways, thanks for your response and I see that there are several people besides me that are unhppy after inatalling aftermarket springs even when they are from renowed companies like H&R and Eibachs. Maybe they are too make about Hondas, VW's and BMW's do not give a monkey's a** about Mazda Proteges?

I am pretty sure about getting the Eibachs for my P5..
but i dotn know if i want to spend 500$ on some MP3 shocks...
anybody know when some good aftermarket shocks are coming?
Tokico..Koni...etc,...

if your car's ass is too high just throw 4 12" subs in a sealed enclosure in the trunk.. tha should lower it :D
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MERCEDES-BENZ F700