What would be ideal for a daily driven car, i mean i have the occasional spirited driving sessions but no tracking or anything. Any thoughts?

 

good read, thanks

 

This is a common argument, but for an evo, 12/14, 12/10 etc Front to rear is fine.

It also depends on what the struts are, if they came with 9/7's then that is what the struts are designed to take, you can put heavier springs on anything, but if the valving wasnt designd for the heavy springs all the adjustments wont do anything, the struts just wont respond as the spring overrides the valving in which case your now just riding on the springs, the idea is to keep the balance between spring and strut valving.

If you buy a set of KW's with a valving for 5/9's and go up to 14/12' you really need to revalve them so adjustments can be made and felt.

Spend a day at the track running at 70% speed and 100% accurate dialing them in, and enjoy what you have, too many people just throw their new coilovers in and rely on some guy in a workshop to tell them what to put the setup on, this will always remain un-perfected, you just spent a small fortune on new suspension get to know them and learn to dial them in, send me a message for how we do it.

Some people spend a fortune on coilovers to have the same rate of spring that an aftermarket set of spings on their normal strut would be and can handle with any adjustments not needed, this is where it is a waist of money, ditto doing the purchase and installation and never never touching the dial-in. If yo dont want to dial in the setup, just get springs to put on your struts, and there areplenty out there.

We once competed in our evo 8 against the factory evos on a tarmac rally, they ran $15,000 ohlins, we ran stock struts with eibach springs, and totally annialated them, all we did was concentrate on toe setup.

And we did it again this year, too. the difference is we put a set of ohlns coilovers in and then spent two days dialing in the struts setting (bump/rebound - day 1, and toe settings on day 2).

there is good thrill in that. We also went with a softer spring on the back for highspeed stability on this tarmac rally, it paid dividends. but for track Id have no problem with 12/12's or 12/10's etc.

JD

 

It's true that having the shocks valved for the spring rates is very very important, and an improperly valved car with nice spring rates is still going to suck. But a perfectly valved car with crap spring rates is going to suck too. Which is worse? Well generally I don't want to find out, I'd like to do it the right way and avoid both of those situations.

When you get to really high spring rates, the front to rear ratio may become less important and high speed stability becomes a concern. For auto-x though, we know a lot of cars run 12k/16k and sometimes with a big rear swaybar and do quite well. Time attack we know some cars do quite well with a much stiffer rear too but it does depend on usage and the driver and other factors.

It would be too easy and much less fun if everyone was doing the same thing.

- Andrew

 

madmax199 is a punk.......lol.

 

Any thoughts on KW V3's valved for and running 9/11k springs (fr/rr),vs. OEM KYB/springs... I know the performance gain will be great, any feelings/thoughts/experience as to how the 'kidney jarring' and 'rice ride' (as I call it ) would be compared to stock? This is a daily driver, and I don't mind a firm suspension.. but the jarring is pretty unsettling from these OEM springs/shocks...If you think this is a good line of thought, but the rates should drop some, to the 7/9k range or similar, I'd be great with that as well. Thanks!

 

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In my opinion 9kg/11kg springs won't be that uncomfortable on the street. My car isn't daily driven, but my rates are much stiffer, at 12kg/16kg, and I don't have any issue with it when I do choose to drive it on the street. I also have a friend who daily drove a IX w/ 12kg/14kg rates and another with 13kg/16kg who both drive with no issues. It all comes down to what you're willing to live with.

 

I personally run 8/9K with a larger rear bar and the car I feel is a perfect compromise setup. Compromise as in DD, AX, HPDE, and the occasional time attack event.
Mind you this is with Robispec V3's and a years worth of tinkering with ride heights and damper settings to get what I feel is right for me for any given situation.
That includes the drive to work, the glassy smooth SMMP, or our bombed out AX lot, all of which require different settings on different tires etc.

 

+1, although it depends on the damper. When I had Ohlins DFVs, 9k/11k rode better than stock if you kept the rebound fairly soft for the street. It was a little pushy for me for auto-x, but for a primarily street setup (at the time), I was pretty amazed at the ride quality.

Now I'm running ~12k/16k on Moton Clubsports, and while it's definitely firm, I don't consider it to be too much worse than stock. You'll know if you hit a reasonably large bump, but you could nap over bridge junctions if you wanted.

That said, as for running 12k/16k on a set of Megans or KSports or whatever other crap coilover - make sure you also invest in a spare kidney while you're at it. Bilstein PSS9s or revalved KW V3s seem to be the cheapest prerequisite for the stiffer spring rates.

 

It very much depends on the damper. I've been on 8k/6k springs that felt far worse than 12k/16k, because the damper was crap.

- Andrew

 

this needs a bump.

 

Thanks for showing me this thread ^ Its exactly what I need

So for you suspension guru's, I'm a bit confused with my setup.

I plan on running 245-40-17 R Compounds soon.. but for now I'm on a 255 or 265 sticky street tire

I have:
Tanabe 7 series coilovers
Pro 210 springs that came on the coilovers (either 12/10 front to rear or 12/14)
25.4mm front sway bar
22mm rear sway bar
poly bushings
solid aluminum rear control arm bushing

Just curious how my suspension compares to what other track guys are running? From what I've been told my setup is too stiff and the spring rates are all wrong. Looking for opinions

Keep in mind this is a race car, it does not see much, if any, street driving. HPDE and TT only

 

bump....becasue i'm gonna make a shock dyno thread soon, so read this first.

- andrew

 

Looking forward to it, there hasn't been a good suspension discussion in a while.