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Views on Lowering 

 

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Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2005 7:02 pm 
Getting Side Ways
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Age: 41

Posts: 533

Joined: 12th Jan 2005

Location: Melbourne
VIC, Australia

Spork wrote:
You have to remember that looks, performance and comfot are three different things.

It is possible to have a suspension system that does all three very well but it is also very easy to have a system that does one well (looks) but is very poor in the other two.

1. Really hard suspension is not better - Imagine the car fixed in place while the road undulates under it, what keeps your wheels on the road is the suspension. You want springs/shocks/swaybars to keep the car as stable as possible while keeping the tyres pressed firmly to the road.
-If your springs only have 2 inches of travel this isn't going to happen.

2. Lowering the center of gravity is generally good for stability aslong as it doesn't excessively compromise point 1. Or cause clearance issues or rub tyres.

3. Comfort is mostly determined by your shocks and stiction in your suspension (how easily it moves), and there response to high frequency compression or large velocities. More $$$ = better control = better handling and more comfort.

At the end of the day you have to decide what you want from your suspension. Looks, comfort, performance. If you want all three then you have to spend more. you pretty much get what you pay for and in the end you have to make a compromise.


1. I have to disagree with the 2" travel. It's a prety decent amount of travel. If you can get more it's good, but then you've also got to consider what's the point of having 3" travel when the car will only ever use 1 1/2" unless you whack some street legal racing rubber on and go down to Calder?

2. I agree with you there.

3. Comfort is more determined by spring rates. If you have a soft spring, you have a soft shock. And if you have a firm spring, you have a firm shock. So while the shock does play a role in comfort, you can't whack the spring rate up to 400lbs and expect to put a soft shock in there for confort. The shock rate is determined by the spring rate, so the comfort of the shock is determined by the spring rate.

That said, progressive rate springs are not very expensice if you know where to go. The major advantage of whiteline, lovell, king etc is that they're an off the shelf item, not the performance.

I have always said it, and I always will say it, if you lower, go pregressive rate. It gives you a soft spring for minor suspension movement which gives you a nice ride. Then when you barrel into a corner it starts acting of the much stiffer coils and give you the same performance and the king springs.

The other thing the progressive rate offers is that the soft coils can be softer than the standard ones to give you more comfort, but the stiff coils can be stiffer than your king springs which gives you better cornering. You might be able to go up as high as 400lbs in progressive rate, but if you put 400lbs single rate springs in your car, it will handle like a go cart untill you start taking corners at philip island @ 200km/h
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