- Sat Jan 10, 2009 11:25 pm
#88132
I'd be inclined to agree, although suspension stiffness is not the principal cause for loss of traction.
Ideally you'd want a very stiff rear spring and a reasonable front spring rate with a high profile tyre in order to generate traction. That's a drag setup however.
For the street, you WANT more stiffness, not just to control body roll, but to control suspension pitch. You can lose just as much traction but having a spring that is too soft as you can from a spring that is too stiff: ie the car leans back a lot and you produce wheel hop. Not likely, but it has been known.
Suspension tuning is entirely down to compromise. A stiffer spring has many benefits but will detriment ride quality. It's not until you're in the high reaches of spring stiffness (I mean 10kg/mm+) that you're really going to suffer with noticeable traction loss. But that would be sacrificing straight line traction, whereas you will get good traction off a corner... you are minimising suspension movement and depending on alignment presenting a much higher % contact patch on the outside tyre (all undone with no LSD obviously).
Compromise is the problem. I do laugh when people say to me "I just want a real stiff ride" as it invariably makes the car much more difficult to drive when you want to have fun or are on track. It's all very well reccomending coilovers left, right and centre but a well setup suspension kit will be as good as any coilover. The only benefit you get (other than height adjustment) with a coilover is a shorter spring and a more controlled damping curve than with a traditional suspension setup. Again, it does make the car harder to drive quickly; when you find the limit of grip it invariably ends with a spin and / or crash
I'm gonna stop now lol
suspendedHatch wrote:To the OP, stiffness is an unfortunate byproduct of suspension tuning. It's not desirable. The stiffer the spring, the LESS traction you have. The trade-off is reduced body roll. In your case the problem is that your wheel/tire aspect ratio is too big. There is really not much you can do but get the correct size wheels and tires. If you increase the spring rate to the point that your wheels don't bottom out, your car will be too dangerous to drive on the street. You'll slide right off the pavement in a turn.
I'd be inclined to agree, although suspension stiffness is not the principal cause for loss of traction.
Ideally you'd want a very stiff rear spring and a reasonable front spring rate with a high profile tyre in order to generate traction. That's a drag setup however.
For the street, you WANT more stiffness, not just to control body roll, but to control suspension pitch. You can lose just as much traction but having a spring that is too soft as you can from a spring that is too stiff: ie the car leans back a lot and you produce wheel hop. Not likely, but it has been known.
Suspension tuning is entirely down to compromise. A stiffer spring has many benefits but will detriment ride quality. It's not until you're in the high reaches of spring stiffness (I mean 10kg/mm+) that you're really going to suffer with noticeable traction loss. But that would be sacrificing straight line traction, whereas you will get good traction off a corner... you are minimising suspension movement and depending on alignment presenting a much higher % contact patch on the outside tyre (all undone with no LSD obviously).
Compromise is the problem. I do laugh when people say to me "I just want a real stiff ride" as it invariably makes the car much more difficult to drive when you want to have fun or are on track. It's all very well reccomending coilovers left, right and centre but a well setup suspension kit will be as good as any coilover. The only benefit you get (other than height adjustment) with a coilover is a shorter spring and a more controlled damping curve than with a traditional suspension setup. Again, it does make the car harder to drive quickly; when you find the limit of grip it invariably ends with a spin and / or crash
I'm gonna stop now lol
