well I'm looking at KWV3's at the moment, i think they are 8/7 (kg's) which is a fair bit stiffer than stock...

I personally dont mind it too much - but when the wife-to-be gets in the car she doesn't like it, and I become a lot more aware of the bumps too

 

There is a whole lot more to the Vishnu setup than the springrates. The real value add vs. off the shelf ohlins flags was the custom valving that Paul's guys in CO did. You're not going to be able to just copy the springrates and get the same kind of performance unless you go with very, very expensive dampers.

Don't even get me started on bilstein. I have had the worst experience imaginable with their Poway, CA service shop.

+1

In my admittedly limited experience, digressing the force off above ~5in/sec will eliminate all the harshness that you seen in JICs, Teins, Megans, and the like. I'm running Konis right now which have a sharp knee in their plot at about ~4-5 in/sec. No harshness at all.

 

Agreed ... Sorry to resurrect ...

From my other limited experience the front end can be played with quite a bit and only a few mods really make a huge difference. First is the ride height. One of Paul's former students, Joe, seemed to know a lot about the front roll center, and this seemed to be a hot topic for the EVO. Second is tire choice / characteristic (pressure, temperature, traction) and then spring rates. As far as cars goes the EVO has a pretty nasty roll center on the front. In fact WhiteLine racing offers a kit to get things a little more predictable on the front end. However for us grassroots guys, if you get the ride height setup according to Paul's specs the front rollcenter is in an initial sweetspot. I highly recommend shocks with adjustable perches for this feature.

Now the other really important (probably most important) factor in getting the EVO to track around a corner, is the rear setup. The stock EVO VIII suspension has an oversteer characteristic that's initially way to quick. The EVO however benefits from generous amounts of oversteer. Paul's valving helps the rear rotate on command and more importantly, stop rotating on command with predictable effort.

Most suspension setups try to get the rear to rotate using a stiff rear anti-sway bar. I consider this very hard, and less predictable to go fast with, and for an amateur driver (like myself), potentially dangerous. Paul's setup tries to do what the stiff swar bar does with valving, spring rates, and ride height.

I hope this information helps.

Cheers,

~Joel.