XYZ Racing Gravel Rally Coilovers — Ford LIATA 1994-1998

The Ford Liata is a Mazda 121 rebadge with a kerb weight under a tonne, a short wheelbase, and the kind of soft factory damping that turns any unsealed surface into a pogo session. That is the chassis these XYZ Racing Gravel Rally coilovers are built around – a featherweight 90s shopping hatch with the bones to be genuinely quick on a forest stage if you give it the travel and the spring rate to cope.

For gravel-stage rally work in a Liata, the priority is keeping the contact patch loaded over washboard, jumps, and crested corners where a road coilover would pack down and skip. This kit is the FO11 fitment for the 1994-1998 run.

What this coilover does for your 1994-1998 Ford Liata

Long stroke and a long spring are the two specs that matter most on a car this light. The Liata’s short suspension travel from the factory is the first thing that bites when the surface gets rough; extending stroke gives the inside wheel time to find the ground again before you load the outside on corner exit. The inverted tube layout puts the larger-diameter body at the top, which keeps the shaft protected from stone strikes and stiffens the assembly against the side-load a rally car generates mid-stage.

Spring rates have been tested by rally teams, so the baseline setup will not have you guessing on a recce. Expect a Liata that stays composed over compressions, lands flat off small crests, and holds its line through ruts instead of tramlining.

About the Gravel Rally coilover

The Gravel Rally is XYZ Racing’s dedicated rallycross and gravel-stage damper, engineered for the most punishing surface conditions in motorsport – sandstone, snow, silt, broken tarmac transitions, and everything between. The inverted tube design is the headline construction choice: it relocates the working oil volume and the main bearing to the top of the strut, which deals with the bending loads that destroy conventional dampers on gravel.

Long stroke and long springs are specified to absorb chassis vibration on high-speed bouncy sections and to withstand the lateral G-force loaded into the suspension on a flat-out turn-in. Spring rates are not theoretical numbers picked off a chart; every setting has been signed off through actual rally team testing. This is a damper built for an environment where shock absorbers are, in XYZ’s own framing, the single most important utensil on the car.

Fitment for the Ford Liata (1994-1998)

This kit is the FO11 chassis fitment, covering the Liata production run from 1994 through 1998. The setup is matched to the front strut and rear damper geometry of the platform as delivered from Ford – confirm your model year against the table below before ordering.

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Pick your spring rates, ride height and damping spec below to configure your Gravel Rally kit.