ok ok maybe you got me tehre about the ride height..

but wat about hotchkis.. they are the only company that has designed springs that have the rear to be lower.

TEIN, TANABE, have lower fronts
PROGRESS, GOLDLINE, EIBACH have same lowering all around

and wat about driving downhill... isnt it better to have the rear a little lower. less than .5inches to lessen the load on teh front tires?

 

Hotchkis certainly does alot more research than most suspension companies and have a long and solid record of quality, why I went to them for our project car and proudly am sponsored by them. I only go to companies that make what I feel is the best product I can use when doing sponsorship requests and fits within a reasonable budget, building a whole car project is fairly costly as we all know.

Our car is not directly relateable to others in several ways due to the more extreme real performance we are building into it. i.e. moving the battery to the rear, 46 lbs off the roof, 35+ lbs saved by the seats, building my own alloy seat brackets(in the next week or so, have modified steel ones for now) redesigning the internals of the rear seats to save a few more lbs and they will seldom even be in the car, removing every little thing that just does not need to be on the car (I have a couple of bins full that adds up to around 30lbs of excess "stuff") Going in for a Crome Molly back half roll bar(later will be a full cage) costs three times as much to save a few lbs, filling the entire chassis with structural eurathane foam,... It would take a small book to tell about everything we are doing to shave weight yet have a very solid and exceptionally good handling car that is quiet, comfortable, balanced and built for real performance and run it in alot of auto crosses, some drags, some track days and have a modular world championship class audio system that we can remove in a few momments if we choose do to so at any particular event.

Every single part of the car is being analized for weight reduction, adding strength if needed, cushy type comfort is being cut in a few areas but it will still be a totally drivable, reliable long haul means of transportation for those long drives to races and shows we will attend alot of.

We have not gotten to the front to rear ride height issues yet, not until we finish all the known mods, corner weigh and balance out everything then test various settings until we get the best overall drivable setup to and from events and have a log book of settings we end up using at particular locations.

So, a car that is far more stock than ours may very well benifit from being lower in back than in front, Hotchkis does know what they are doing But, our car cannot be totally compared due to the more extreme modding we are doing to it and what I have listed above is barely scratching the surface of where we are taking this car, it has alot of yet untapped potential

As for the simple mater of being lower in back while driving down hill that may be true but it has to be balanced as best possible for all driving situations, uphill, level, slow speed, high speed corners, etc. etc, so a compromise has to be done for the best of all situations. If lower in the rear is it, then so it is, for those cars that fall within the scope of thier suspension design parameters, i.e. mostly stock weight distribution.

Rick

 

so woo hoo for me

a downhill circle on ramp. but you only drive about 3/4 of a circle. my entry speed was a little fast but perfect to say...

the car oversteered a bit but i wasnt scared this time because i held the oversteer for about 1/4 of the way through the turn. (3/16 of a circle).

but my question is,
did i experience oversteer because of to much weight shifting to the front? lower front and higher rear (tein s.tech springs)

or was it due to the weaken stock shocks? (stock shocks with tein s.tech springs for 30k miles)

 

It is so darn complicated that it is difficult to say exactly, look how hard race teams can struggle with this even when the do it for a living and are paid very well.

The roll shocks play in that(primary roll that is) would be the speed of the weight transfer to the front, to fast will cause the front to lose grip thus understear. Better to have slower rebound in the rear to slow down the weight transfer so not so sudden.

Cool that you are having fun like that, be carefull though buddy, we do not want to have you hurt

This is why I like autocross so much, I can just go nuts and it is a very slim chance I will damage my car if I overdo it once in awhile.

I do mis my growing up in a snow climate, gravel roads, slick paved roads, RWD, sideways was always so much fun!!!!

Rick

 

I know ppl hate it when I ressurect old posts, but this one has a lot of merit and shouldn't be buried amongst all the "OMG show me your drop!" posts.

Rick, did you end up modifying the suspension geometry significantly to address the roll-couple issue, or did you guys settle on a less significant drop?

btw: this link explains the issue with diagrams. some of you may find it helpful. http://e30m3performance.com/myths/We..._transfer2.htm

 

I guess raam really did write what I posted on the other thread. You don't write for Sport Compact Car do you raam? So how much drop is about ideal for a mostly stock suspension with coilovers?

 

this is good stuff.

 

SCC, best dang real articles on suspension ever in an import tuner magazine, real tuning!!!

Actually they rekindled an old flame for me and I had to dig out some old books and study up again.

Not sure what the best drop is, I will measure our car again since it is working well and let you know, once off the jack stands. That may be awhile yet, has not had four wheels on the ground since the first part of January.

Rick