Goodwin Racing Spec Feal Suspension 441 Road Race Coilovers - NA/NB

In short, I love these coilovers! I'm interested in trying Ohlins, KW, or HKS, but I'd also still keep these and run these if they don't compare.

Prior set ups was OEM with Bilstein Shocks, to Tein MonoSports, then to Stance XR1, and now these. My car is mainly a monthly drift event or auto cross car, but daily driver most of its time. Other suspension bits, is poly bushings all around, Super Miata upper and lower ball joints, ZerekFab Knuckles, Drift Knuckles Tie Rod Spacers. Out of the box, it was horrible. I then learned that I messed up during the install. After removing the pre load on the bushings, without changing any coilover settings, and setting proper torque amounts; it was a drastic improvement!
From there, I played with the clickers. Each click does make a difference in feel which was really nice! I found 3-5 clicks from full soft was great. On some local roads, it was still too stiff for me. Out of the box, fronts are at 6mm spring preload, 3mm rear. 15 clicks from full stiff (right in the middle).
Fitment, these are already about an inch shorter than XR1's and the MonoSports. The shock is wider as well. I did run the NB2 Front UPCA at first, but it gets a littler easier to adjust the lock rings with the NB1 Front UPCA.

I decided to actually set these up after having several thousand miles on them.
- Set my base ride height.
- Pulled the spring out, set the bump travel for my wheel set up, 15x8 +28 RPF1's with a Ichiba Ver2 25mm spacer, mounted to 205/50R15 Valino tires.
- After bump travel was set, put the spring back on. Installed all for corners.
- Set spring preload to Zero. Measured the droop travel and had 2" of droop front and rear! Which surprised me.
- Adjusted the clickers to 5 front and rear.
- Left the ride height where it's at to not affect the bump travel, and I measured at 11.75" front and rear. zero Rake. I may play with Rake settings later. I have not measured pinch weld ride height, but from the years of playing with it, my estimate is 4.75" to maybe 5" on 205/50R15's.
- I then pulled them back out to double check how many "turns" on the bottom damper mount. Feal recommends 20mm at minimum to be in the mount. I was slightly more than that in the front, and exactly 20mm in the rear.
***This is a raised height from where it was at out of the box. When I was on 195/45R15, out of the box, I was at 3.75" pinch weld ride height. 205/50R15, got me closer to 4" pinch weld ride height. Which is max low for a track miata, but too low for a street miata, in my opinion.

I have had 2 drift events on it. One in the dry, one in the wet. Haven't autocrossed yet. In the wet, I was surprised how much grip I found just by resetting it all. I also didn't get an alignment yet. Daily driving feel, was way more comfortable at 4 clicks all around. It reminds me of stock brand new Evo IX stiff and comfort. After I get an alignment, I'm sure it will find even more grip out of my current set up. ***The reason I didn't get an alignment: I know my toe settings are probably off from ride height change. From the years running Max positive caster, maxed out negative camber front at 3.5º. Then rear is max positive at 1.5º. Ride height just raise or lower these numbers. Front toe, set it with plates. Rear toe, I've seen this toe out as I go up, and toe in as adjust lower.

-- Eric A. ( 2004 Miata ) January 2023

I've put about 3-4k miles and 6 track days on my Feal 441 Goodwin Race Spec setup. Overall I would rate them at 4/5 stars. Installation and setup went fairly smooth for my 94'. I set them up at a 4-4.5" pinch weld height with .5" rake.

Keep in mind I am a weekend track enthusiast, I don't race or have decades of experience.

Only issue I had was due to an aftermarket rear passenger side axle I was using. The outside boot was oversized compared to the OEM unit and rubbed/made contact with the lower locking ring on the coilover. I ended up sourcing an OEM unit to replace, with the smaller size boot and there was no clearance issues.

A drawback with all two-piece style coilovers are the lack of rear travel. When set up properly, the rear travel is still not great. But these cars lack in rear travel and even the high end one-piece setups won't get you a ton more, but it's worth noting especially if you're coming from a closer to stock ride height. With that said, these coilovers offer great value in terms of ride quality and performance, especially on track. With a proper setup and alignment, my car was much more responsive and predicable at speeds. I'm still toying with dampening settings but am usually running ~20-28 clicks out of 30 on the track, with varying between front and rear changes... The dampening settings work great and you can notice right away especially in 10 click increments.

On the street I run about 3-5 clicks from full soft and they aren't bad. Not the greatest over rough bits and do bounce a bit more than I'd like in some areas when set this soft, but again, I got these to improve track performance. They still ride better than many other Miata street setups I've driven in the past.

Overall happy with the purchase, for under $1500 shipped they are hard to beat and will definitely be an upgrade for many applications. I was coming from an old and tired Spec-style Bilstein setup and for me these made a world of difference.

-- M B. August 2021

Update, more than a year after purchase.

Still love these things. Ride quality on the street at low settings still fine, I usually float between 0 - 5 clicks from soft.

From my 15x8 6ULs on 205 RT615Ks at purchase, now to 15x8 Countergrams on 205 RE71Rs, cranked it up at auto-x yesterday, 25/23 fr/rr out of 30, just solid.

Finish was 3 step stair gates, just flying through them, stable predictable turn in, excellent transition, just solid. Surface was concrete airport pad, not terrible, but not glass, either.

Now that I don't daily the Miata anymore, these things are a great value at auto-x and the occasional mountain run.

It's easy to love them at purchase, it's a new toy. 15 or 16 months in, though, you know what you've got.

Cheers

Bob

-- Robert B., Tucson ( 2000 Miata ) January 2021

I noticed at a recent auto-x that with grippier tires my Koni NA set up (yes, on an NB) at 448/336 was a little weak, I was getting bottoming in the front in higher loading corners (the NAs being shorter travel a little higher up...). Short story long, my plan to go with Koni Race didn't pan out in time for an event I wanted to run, so I called Goodwin to see if they had a set of these in stock and could they ship it that day - yes and yes, so thanks to the guys at Goodwin for that!

Bottom line, pretty happy with these things. the 12/8k set up on lower damping settings is just fine for the street, no issues. Well, if you don't like a firm ride, there might be, but I have no problems with a firm ride, so I consider these pretty comfortable on the street. "30 clicks" of adjustment, and out of the box they set it at 15 (this was the nice street ride, btw - you could go softer and it might ride even better, but I didn't).

Got them on the car one day, auto-x them the next. Took me a few runs to dial in. Once I did, the car finally reacted to inputs the way I thought it would - for years I've had expectations that the chassis would behave this way, and finally the output finally matches what my brain always thought the car would do. The car was very controlled and predictable around the cones.

Because I monkeyed around with settings from the factory and didn't pay attention to the number of clicks, not sure exactly where I'm in terms of auto-x settings, but it's somewhere around 18-20 from soft in the front, and 15-16 in the rear. That's where the car felt best at auto-x.

Pretty darn good, imo, really good value for the money.

-- Bob B., Tucson ( 2000 Miata ) October 2019