RCE Tarmac and B6
 

Just swapped out the OE suspension for this setup a few days ago. I was looking for less body roll and better handling for autoX after moving to wider stickier tires. I debated coilovers but decided that it would take a pretty expensive coilover setup to be better than this spring/shock combo. Plus, I didn't want something that may need rebuilding every year or two at this point in my life - it's a 17k DD in addition to everything else, so for now a set-it and forget it setup was what I wanted.

I had a few PM conversations with andy from RCE and we decided the b6 + Tarmac would be the ideal setup for what I was looking for. I had done lots of research, and that was my choice but it was nice to have it confirmed, as well as talk pro/con of my other potential choices.

Installation was pretty easy (aside from stubborn sway bar end links that had to be cut off the car, and I replaced them with the perrin aluminum/poly bushing ones up front). The springs didn't need the compressors to install to the b6 shocks and the OE top hats - just another set of hands and a slight pressing down by hand.

The car sits much nicer now, plenty of people would want lower, but it's exactly where I wanted it - just shy of an inch lower than stock.

Ride review:
what most people have said is pretty true. It's definitely more firm over small bumps at low speeds, but it's one firm bump and then nothing - no wallow, no 2-3 bounce after effects like the OEM. While the impact is a bit more jarring, overall it doesn't seem as harsh since the car regains composure instantly. This is the only area that is arguably 'worse' than stock, and I prefer it still.

At higher speeds, it soaks up everything nicely. You get a tap in the wheel when you go over expansion joints but the car just glides over - no bouncing.

Cornering feels fantastic, as predicted. Much flatter in corners, and the car doesn't seem to get upset with undulations/road camber/bumps/etc - it just holds and goes. I am AutoX-ing it this weekend, and can't wait to see how that goes. I also don't have a HPDE day planned, but will end up doing at least one this year. I'm not expecting go-kart flat, but the increase in tire has made the car lean over itself way too much, and it gets behind itself in slaloms, and i'm hoping/expecting that to be remedied quite a bit.

All in all, for 1100 bucks or so, It's SUCH an improvement from OEM. I don't have direct experience with the sub-1500 coilover market, but I can't imagine most of them would hold a candle to this setup for an everyday setup that sees plenty of autoX and some track use.

If you want to improve handling without ruining the ride of the car without spending a fortune, definitely take a look here.

Glad you like the suspension! I always like a good strut + spring combo that's simple, daily driveable, and FUN.

- Andrew

:thanks:

In my head I've contemplated a soft 90% casual setup that holds up to some autox/hpde on sticky street rubber (and maybe some CARB legal power), I was converging on a revalved B14 with a ~300# spring upfront and a slightly stiffer rear to match based on some testing. I knew about the Tarmacs but for some reason it didn't stick with me that this is pretty damn close to the spring rates I think I want, I've even been reading the old threads over the past few days but it didn't click until today.
:bonk:
What tires will you be autox-ing on? I'm a little worried that I'd want something stickier than the softer springs will be happy with (standard STX setup, 17x9, 245-40, RE71R/BFGRS, I'm unlikely to go stickier). I don't need ultimate performance, but that may push me back to a custom B14 setup if I decide I don't want to compensate with bump stops or sway bars.

:cheers:

All benchracing for me at this point, but it makes me excited to own this car for many more years.

Edit: also clearance with camber plates might be a bit problematic now that I think about it if you swing for -3.X ...

FYI, I dunno how heavily you value DD over autocross, but I consider my car PRIMARILY a DD above all else... but still autocross it hard enough to have won Chicago Region STX last year (and our first event this year.) I autocross on 17x9, 245-40 RE71Rs.

I'm currently running KW V3 coilovers. They are pretty soft (270-lb-or-so) and they are definitely not ideal for autocross, but they are also fine for spirited driving on less sticky tires (255 Michelin PSS), and - most importantly - super comfy as far as coilovers go for daily driver use in Chicago. The car leans a lot in autocross, but it something I just deal with as a trade-off for a car that's comfy the other 99.6% of the time I'm driving it.

Food for thought.

Nice! I wanted to do a similar set up (b8+swiftspecr) but I had concerns with with fittment on my wheel and tire size (17x9+35 w/ 255/40 tires). The spring and shock combo is very appealing for the price and performance.

That's pretty much exactly what I'm looking for and a pretty great comparison. There's some guys who can put down wicked fast times in cars with a shitton of body roll and drive home with big smiles on their faces.

I'm pretty serious into autox right now, and want to be good at it, so this won't be until I let go of that dream, when I develop the driving skill hopefully I can pull off what you've done and place well despite a non-optimized setup.

:cheers:

And, I presume some of that could be tuned out with more aggressive swaybars and bumpstops without severely taking away from street comfort, have you messed with that much?

Yeah, I'm a bit concerned about that, mostly from an alignment standpoint of getting enough camber up front, +35's should be capable of clearing the spring/strut, maybe an extra 5mm on top of that is necessary though.

The one upside to those long ARP studs if you don't care about looks.

In theory some fatter swaybars would quell some of the body roll. I might look into that down the line, but I try to avoid swaybars as much as possible since they couple the left and right side together, which isn't really "ideal" for other reasons, and makes you more likely to lift an inside tire under hard cornering, but I'm sure a slightly larger sway wouldn't hurt too much and would help the coilovers out a bit.

Yeah, I think if I ran that set up and tried to get -2 degrees of camber up front using camber bolts I would rub on the spring. I think the best option for me is waiting for the gtworx/bilstein coilovers.

I would probably want to be at least at -3 degrees that's where my car started working really well on OE coilovers, which in hindsight likely means I won't have any problems getting what I want, this combo plus camber plates would be cheaper than the GTWorx Bilsteins, but the stiffness, clearance, ability to go lower and corner balance on adjustable coilovers is worth the money.

I am on Federal 595 RS-RR 235/40/17 on 17x8 wheels.

With the OEM suspension the amount of body roll I was getting was obscene, as these tires are quite sticky for autoX. Last year they were marketed as 140tw on their website, this year they changed it to 200tw (probably for autoX people to be able to use them).

I haven't done a pepsi challenge with rivals/re71/etc - but I had noticeably more grip than my friend in a FRS wearing RS3's in similar fitment.

I'm wondering if I can close most of the 1.5s gap we had last SCCA Chicago autoX earlier this month with the new setup. I had serious issues in transition on both slaloms, where the car got behind the steering as well as a few other places that I didn't see issues with on your video you posted (on FB I think).

It's always fun to have somebody to chase!

Pics.

Hmmm. Here's a link to all of my events from last year that you can look at to see if it helps any (identical setup to this year minus a new catback exhaust). I typically pump the compression and rebound up really high. That seems to make the car relatively stiff in quick transitions (such as the slaloms). It's the longer sweepers where high compression doesn't do much because the car will still "settle" into the corner.

What's your new setup this year?

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...lR-jl7SQj1YatV