Wangracing

Hi crew,

am looking at installing some coilovers (PSS9's, ohlins etc) on my EVO 8 MR. I have noticed that the out of the box spring rates on some (PSS9) seem to favour stiffer springs at the rear than the front.

My confusion is that many other sets of coilovers on the market run a stiffer spring up front. Any feedback on why the softer front spring is used?

Also complete in alot of autocross and tarmac rallying and weekend circuit sprints, any suggestions on spring rates that may better suit this activity.

Am located in Australia and while we have some good suspension shops here and are well developed on the WRX here, we have only just got the evo so you guys are way in front with them. Am looking to buy a set of coilovers from the US set up there for autocross and have them shipped to me here in Oz.

I know this topic has been danced around a bit (I have spent seveal hours reading old threads and searched) but would appreciate any fresh guidance as I am trying to make the decision remotely and it will be a bit hard to drop the units back for a tweak. So just trying to get it right first time with a proven setup that will get me close to the right settings out of the box. So I guess it will be the unit valved and sprung to match with suggesstions of the ride height and geometry settings to match as a starting point.

Thanks in advance for the feedback.

RuckerPark

iTrader: (66)

Most of out of the box Japanese Coilovers tend to have stiffer spring rates up front than the rear. The reason is because the JDM coilovers are R&D for the road conditions in that region. I have been to Japan a few times, and believe me, their roads out there are much much better than the ones out here in U.S.. hence stiff spring rates would be ok over there, but quite jarring when used here.

As for why these PSS9s are designed this way? well.. It does make sense that Bilstein R&D these coilovers w/ "compromise" of both worlds in mind - Street/Track. Therefore by increasing the spring rates slightly from stock ( IIRC, the Stock Spring rates are 180lbs(3.2k) front and 225lbs(4.0k) rear......and proper valving to suit the slight stiffer spring rates would definitely achieve this goal.

GTWORX.com

iTrader: (35)

Very true...the roads in japan are like a smooth glass lake in the morning....whereas over here it's like a sea state 5, perfect storm in the north atlantic type of thing.

The Bilstein's basically try and reach a comprimise....and they work very well.

termsheet

iTrader: (1)

Not sure why the spring rates are higher. That said, I just put the Bilsteins on and I'm really happy with the ride quality. I'll track them this weekend and report back.

nvr2fast

iTrader: (1)

Any news?