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Effect of too soft a rear spring?
scutter - 9/9/11 at 08:56 PM

Folks, I've just been swapping the dampers ont he locost for some new ones suppplied by Matt at Procomp, (Excellent service as always) I'll be contacting him in the morning, but wanted to run something past the collective.

I always thought the rear spring rate on my car was 190lbs, and duly told Matt this, whilst swapping them over the springs have 130lbs written on them.

1, What effect will this have on the general handling of the car?
2, It did sometime bottom out on sharp ridges/expansion joints would this be the cause?
3, Do you all think that this would be ok or shall I order some stiffer rears?

Cheers Dan.

v8kid - 9/9/11 at 09:15 PM

Understeer
yes
no
yes

scutter - 9/9/11 at 09:22 PM

Short and sweet cheers

norfolkluego - 9/9/11 at 09:24 PM

Interesting stuff, so along the same lines what would be the effect of stiffening the dampers

austin man - 9/9/11 at 09:44 PM

Too hard its like riding a space hopper ask me why I know 1 was running 250's bounced around like a golf ball

v8kid - 9/9/11 at 10:02 PM

quote:
Originally posted by norfolkluego
Interesting stuff, so along the same lines what would be the effect of stiffening the dampers


rear only?
Initial good tiny in to first quarter of corner (say) then as before except on exiting corner will onersteer. Combined effect if to go into the hedge backwards after the corner

edit - my fingers are too big for this bliidy keyboard

cheers!

[Edited on 9-9-11 by v8kid]

myke pocock - 9/9/11 at 10:03 PM

For what its worth, when I built my car it had Spax adjustables from a Caterham. One was leaking I bought a complete set from Gaz for the same vehicle and the sticker on the rears said 1.9" x 12" X 120 LBS. It very occasionally grounds out but I can live with it and I have it set on the softest click of the adjuster as well. I had it up to 6 clicks and found that far too stiff.

matt_gsxr - 9/9/11 at 10:20 PM

Dan,

I run 150lbs/inch (vertical on a Phoenix) and it isn't uncomfortably hard.

I don't drive the road miles that you do, but I did Llandow and back and it was fine.

My guess is that you could go a bit stiffer, but I don't know much.

If occasional grounding is a problem then you could stick with soft springs which are great for traction and comfort but use some of those superflex bump stops, although I have no practical experience.



Matt

mad4x4 - 10/9/11 at 09:03 AM

your bump stops should stop it grounding