Moderately Bad Behavior - click for a larger view.
A really smart guy named Dan who posts on ClubRoadster came up with this really cool upper shock mount (known in the biz as a tophat) that lets you slam the hell out of a Miata while retaining full suspension travel. I’ve lusted after them for months. I finally bought and installed a set. As you can see above, it went well. Read on for the full install.
Shock with TEIN tophat- click for a larger view.
Here’s a shock before removal and modification with the dp6061 tophats. Notice the threaded portion and how far up the spring collars sit. This gave me about 12.5″ ride height. It was not really very low.
Pre-DP6061 hotness- click for a larger view.
The rear shock next to the dp6061 tophat. I’ve already got the TEIN pillowball tophats, but they don’t allow for much
extra shock travel. The new ones? Two INCHES of extra travel. That’s a lot.
We've made contact - click for a larger view.
I put the shocks together without springs to see how much suspension travel I’d get. The upper a-arm hit the frame before the bumpstop made contact. Doh! I fixed this by swapping the TEIN bumpstop for a trimmed stock NB bumpstop.
TEIN in my hand, trimmed NB installed - click for a larger view.
Viola. A trimmed NB bumpstop. There’s still a possibility for frame contact, but the bumpstop needs a good squish before that happens. If it becomes an issue, I’ll just trim the frame.
The tophat hiding the bumpstop - click for a larger view.
Shock reassembled - click for a larger view.
Notice how far down the spring collar has to go now. Yikes!
The big washer on top is a TEIN Collar - click for a larger view.
I had to use a TEIN collar to make up some space above the tophat. Fortunately, I had some rattling around my garage.
Pay attention now, class - click for a larger view.
THIS is the best suspension swap tip I can give! Leave the little insulating collar where you can see it! In my excitement, I left it off of both sides and only remembered to put it back on when I looked down and saw it on the lower a-arm. Fortunately, it didn’t require much work to remove the shock and install the insulator at that point.
Low Ri Der - click for a larger view.
That’s a low rear. We call that fender tuck. That’s right around 10.5″ ride height. I raised it 3/4 of an inch after shooting this.
Lowered front - click for a larger view.
The front just got lowered without any other changes. I’ll swap the TEIN pillowballs to the front soon enough. I just want to make sure the dp6061 tophats work out before doing extra work. Like turning on the computer before closing up the case.
Slurp. Burp. Ahhhhhh - click for a larger view.
This is my new ground clearance. The old ground clearance, which I brilliantly did NOT photograph, was right around the top of the can.
A million thanks to dp6061 for making this slammage possible.
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Hi Adam,
Discovered your car blog few weeks ago, purchasing my MX5-NA and collecting some data.
I’m considering selling the D2 coil over set up I have on it to get decent Teins.
Dan seems to have a very simple website, are you able to give me more information on his products, such as the price ?
I’ll register on CR.net later on to try to get in touch with him or a GB if any.
Thanks,
Jerome
Sorry. I have no info from dp6061. The best way to contact them is through the email address he currently has on the site.
There are other tophats that do the same thing. Flyin Miata sells some. So does a company called ISC. I went with the DP6061s because they were available at the time and gave a little bit more travel than the other options.