Has anyone who has seen the Hot version touge in japan notice that the suspensions that the top teams are running have really stiff springs yet are praised for good performance over bumps. for example,

re-amemiya runs 16kg front, 18kg rear
fujita engineering runs 20kg front, 20kg rear

i know they are rx-7's, but they are currently the top two cars in the series. they are also lighter cars than ours. not to mention they also lower their cars quite a bit.

so how are they still "soft" over the bumps? compression damping set very soft? how about rebound? I have never seen coilovers sold in america have springs rates this high and still be streetable at a high performance like these cars are. so what is their secret?

p.s. : the evos always do so bad!

Honestly, I'd take whatever I see in those kinds of videos with a grain of salt. There is nothing soft or streetable about a 900-1100lbs/in spring, no matter what damper you pair it with. Widening the track width to bring down the wheel rate, running a tire with a softer sidewall and driving on mirror smooth roads may help a bit, but I doubt there is any secret - there is no denying the laws of physics.

To an extent, you can get a softer ride than you would think with the right high-speed valving on the shocks. Reference Dsycks' claim that his 9k/7k zzyzx coilovers ride "like a sofa..."

They arent mcphearson strut cars (double wishbone front + rear), so their motion ratio's are like .5-.6 all the way around. That means they probably have simmilar wheel rates as our cars with aftermarket suspensions.