I am looking for coilovers for my tc. ive been looking at adjustability, spring rates, etc etc.... one thing i noticed is with our cars that the rear spring rates are usually stiffer to help correct the understeer and make the car more neutral. spring rates are shown sometimes in (kg) or in lb/in... just for reference -- 1kgf/mm = 56 lb/in


stock springs are 2.7kg front 4.5kg rear (150/250) ... ok
tein coilovers are 7kg front 10 kg rear (329/559) ok...
progress coilovers are 4.5kg front 6.3kg read (250/350) .. normal

now.. ksport and megan are different...

megan coils are 8kg up front 5kg in rear (448/280) ... stiffer then teins in the front but barely over stock int the rear... doesnt make sense..

ksport coils are 6kg front 3kg rear (336/16 ... SOFTER the stock in the rear???

if the megans were 5/8 and the ksport were 3/6 ... this would make more sense. i was really considering megan coilovers for my tc but now im really confused as to why the spring rates are this way. can anyone help me out ?? thanks!

 

i was thinking the same thing too..
maybe it has something to do with over/under steer?

 

it would cause more understeer which would be bad for our car since giving it more oversteer would make it neutral..

 

megan has been haveing problems with the rear. k-sport i'm thinking it may be a typo.

 

email from megan racing--

Hi,
We are updating the rear suspensions, so info will be changed later.
Most
cars have softer on the back, only some have stiffer on back, because
the
engine is in front and front needs higher spring rates to support, but
some
cars like RSX, then they need higher on the back due to body set up.


Thanks

....

who knows...

 

anyone on ksports spring rates?

 

there is one simple explanation... they had different R&D team :lol different goal or different paycheck

 

im not sure what you mean

 

So the stiffer the spring rates the better? When I mean better I mean like handling wise I couldn't careless about the comfort side.

Also is the Tanabe sustec pro o 2 closet thing to the ssp spring rate wise?

Tanabe Sustec Pro S-OC Type II - ~$879 (3/8"-2"F/ 3/8"-2 3/8"R) (336 lb/in F/ 448 lb/in R)


Tein ss-p - ~$779 (1.4"-2.7"F/1.4"-2.6"R) (392 lb/in F/ 559 lb/in R

 

better handling i guess. it is harder to compress so you can put more turning force on it.. but then you have to have good tires to grip.. if you drive everyday streets.. teins will make you feel every bumb and kill your liver but if you were to get like progress coils.. they arent much stiffer than stock..

 

As to why we have stiffer springs in the rear may be due to just how our suspension geometry works for the front and rear. With a coil/strut at a non-direct angle will have a different effective stiffness on the wheel movement compared to one being perpendicular. Also how far away it is from a pivot point may change the effective stiffness on the actual wheel movement.

 

im tryint to find out why 2 coilover manufacturers chose to make the rears softer then the fronts

 

Ok after watching a touge video on the internet I was looking at a integra (first car in this video) and the fronts were stiffer than the rear also... so I just thought this was interesting.. Check below for video.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9V1FOf9Kwro&search=touge

 

ksport 6kgf/mm front 9kgf/mm rear.. pretty close to teins

 

this is a very good question, and I unfortunately don't know enough about certain suspension components to answer it.

I do know that if you have a car corner weighted and have springs specifically manufactured the spring rate is a direct correlation to the amount of weight on the wheel, and the more weight, the stiffer the spring needs to be to support it. Also the stiffer the spring the more it affects handling like oversteer and understeer and also makes you skip off the proper line in a turn if you start hitting bumps, which would be very dangerous on the streets.

 

Good Info:

Now, if I subscribed to autocross suspension theory I would choose rates equal to roughly half the static weight on each corner.

Some quick, ballpark estimates...

TC = ~2900 lbs.
Front = 1740 lbs.
Rear = 1160 lbs.

Front tires, individually = 870 lbs.
Rear tires, individually = 580 lbs.

Obviously these numbers aren't exact, fuel load and driver screws it all up. But since I'm not going for *perfection* there can be a little slack.

So I need ~435 lb. front springs and 290 lb. rear springs.

 

i have the ground control coilovers. can someone tell me what these numbers mean:

gc front# 150.64.53
gc rear# 180.77.61