From the beginning of our shock building, our desire in using Bilstein shocks or struts was to give a one-time-install, lifetime shock. We knew Bilstein had the best name across the aftermarket industry for durability and design flexibility. Since 2006 we’ve been customizing shocks for many applications and from the start we believe our methods were innovative and effective, delivering excitement behind the wheel!

At the start, we had to use an external valves to charge the shock with nitrogen. Generally we’ve had excellent longevity although we recognized that the nitrogen charge at the bottom of the Bilstein shock might leak over time, internal o-rings may harden and leak, etc.

Fortunately, these concerns can now be eliminated thanks to our new shock fill machine:

What does this mean for me?

• If your FCM custom suspension still meets your needs we are thrilled and hope you tell your friends about us. We definitely appreciate your referrals as word of mouth continues to be our most powerful information and sales tool.

• If your needs have changed or you’d like to experience even more comfort, precision and refinement, we’d love to reconnect with you! A good number of customers have already contacted us this year and received upgrade. We’d like to make this a formal incentive as part of the fall/winter season when many of you may switch to alternate vehicles so your Miata can take a much needed rest.

• We ultimately want to see every Schrader-valve-equipped setup switched to the non-Schrader / new assembly method to give maximum reliability. Also, for older setups we found the amount of high speed compression damping was something excessive to create the best comfort on rougher surfaces or small highway ‘chop.’ We’ve been able to get less of this ‘jumping’ behavior with our valving from early 2012 to now and also have spent more time looking at the suspension’s behavior at 1, 2, 3, 5, 10 and up to 20 inch/sec and beyond. Our fanaticism for creating beautifully optimized suspension has continued to pay off and we’d like our original subscribers to benefit from our newest discoveries.