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Old 09-05-2008, 08:31 PM   #51
woody77
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I have them on 4.5 f/r right now. Rails on smooth pavement, rough on rough pavement, and it takes a monster of a hole to upset the car in a turn (stuff I wouldn't dreamed of hitting without the new dampers, and still prefer to set the apex to go around).

It's definitely stiffer than it should be, but I think I have a useable range of 5.5 to 4.5 where it's going to be "good", and where in there is best is going to be based on the road. I think 5.5-6 turns will be really nice on dirt washboard, but more body movement than I want for DD.

My 35 mile commute is half mountain twisties. Good cornering is a must.
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Old 11-11-2008, 02:08 PM   #52
kpluiten
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From the looks of it, I am running way stiffer than most on here. This concerns me because they do not feel overly stiff (maybe the roads are smoother here). I know the RCE springs are a much higher spring rate than most, maybe this is the reason.


USDM 2006 WRX Wagon, 62K miles,
For DD: 3 front/3.5 rear
For Fun: 2 front/ 2.5 rear
RCE Wagon Springs (~275 lb/in front ~250 lb/in rear I think...)
Group N Tophats all around
Extra Camber Bolts front & rear, but no professional alignment yet
Cusco 22mm Adj. Rear Sway bar with Kartboy endlinks
Home made rear spacers (Same quality, but way cheaper than Scooby921 spacers)
DD Tire/wheel: 17x7 stockers with stock RE92
Fun Tire/wheel: 18x8 et45 Work xd9 with 245/35/18

Last edited by kpluiten; 11-12-2008 at 06:42 PM.
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Old 11-11-2008, 06:34 PM   #53
EdHilario
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04 2.5RS (102k kms)
- Daily Driver: 6F 6R
- Weekend Warrior: 4.5F 5R
- Springs: Tein H-Techs
- Tophats: Stock Fronts & Rears
- Strut Bars: Tein Front & Rear
- Camber Bolts: Aftermarket Front (stock fronts used as strut bolts) & Rears
- Swaybars: Stock Front & Perrin 3-Way Adjustable 22-24mm (set to 23mm)
- End Links: Stock Front & KartBoy Rear
- Summer Wheels: UK WRX 17x7
- Summer Tires: Falken FK-452 215/45/17
- Tire Pressure: 36PSI (all corners)
- Alignment: -2F & -1.5R of Camber

Planning to try to RCE Yellows for next year and if I'm lucky enough, lowering front camber plates (also from RCE).
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Old 11-11-2008, 09:44 PM   #54
jay3737
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'06 WRX sedan, 38k miles
- daily driving: 4.5 TFFS F&R
- hpde: 2.5 TFFS
- TiC rear strut top spacer
- springs: swift spec R
- RCE camber lowering plates
- strut bars : whiteline 24mm F / 22mm R
- kartboy endlinks
- summer wheels & tires: rota torque 17x8 / falken azeni st115 235/45/17
- track wheels & tires: rota g-force 17x8 / yokohama s. drives 225/45/17
- alignment: -2.5º F / -1.7º R / 0 toe all around

very pleased w/ride for DD setup, and even more pleased with HPDE setup. after 2 events this year, starting to get clunking from the rear, but plan to get under the car this weekend and make sure the noise source is not something else (loose endlink, sway, etc).
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Old 12-21-2008, 05:47 PM   #55
Bullhonkie
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04 STi, 58k miles
3.5 TFFS front/4 TFFS rear
Crucial Racing springs (257 lb/in front, 217 lb/in rear)
Group N Top Hats all around
Stock sway bars
Stock 17x7.5 BBS on 225/45-17 Falken RT-615
-1.5 front/-1.0 rear camber, 0 toe all around

My car's purely a daily driver/weekend warrior.

I'm never really sure about my settings. I feel like I can't quite find that 'sweet spot.' I'm a relative suspension noob though so I'm going purely by subjective 'what feels good to me.'

I recently had them set to 4 TFFS front/4.5 TFFS rear for my trip from Socal to the Bay Area and it felt fairly nice, albeit a little wallowy. I then tried 3 TFFS front/3.5 TFFS rear and the car actually felt really good and bumps felt harsh but well controlled.

I have it set now to 3.5 front/4 rear as sort of a compromise, but I'm leaning towards going back to 3/3.5 because it honestly felt better for some reason.
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Old 12-22-2008, 12:55 PM   #56
Back Road Runner
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Small note on this thread.

Damper setting is relative to the spring rate used and the mass load it supports. That means the actual setting is based off the lb/in of the spring used and the overall weight and weight balance of the car. A 3500 lb. car with a 60/40 weight distribution on 250 lb/in F, 200 lb/in R springs will use a slightly different damper setting then a 3200 lb. car with a 58/42 weight distribution on the same 250/200 lb/in springs.

There will be ONE correct damper setting for a specific setup. The front and rear dampers will most likely NOT be set equal.

Notes on tuning.
Too stiff: car feels like it's "falling" after bumps and the car feels skittish over bumps since the tire leaves the ground and has a delay falling back to Earth.
Too soft: car bounds upward after bumps causing excess chassis motion and an overall sloppy feeling.

You'll want the point in between where the car feels like it "floats" over bumps. You'll want both the front AND rear to do this. This will give you the best ride and best car behavior.

Adjust the struts in coarse increments and as you get above and below the ideal, step down to smaller increments.
1 turn
1/2 turn
1/4 turn
1/8 turn
1/16 turn
fine tuning

You should be able to dial it in both quickly in coarse steps and exactly as you adjust in finer and finer detail.

To stay on topic to the thread:

02 Forester S
Weight: 3300 - 3500 lbs ???
Balance: 60/40 - 57/43 ???
RCE Wagon springs front (279 lb/in)
Prodrive STI springs rear (~200-220 lb/in ???)
Front turns: 2 13/16 turns
Rear turns: 5 5/8 turns

If anybody wants a rough starting point for their D-Spec settings, look at "suspensioncalc.xls" on this forum. Then take the D-Spec dyno graph (again available on this forum if you don't have the manual lying around) and multiply by 9.81 to get the N/mm, mm/s values in the Excel spreadsheet.

Example:
3500 lb. car
58/42 weight distibution
250 lb/in front
200 lb/in rear

100% rebound dampening goal (stiff, starting point, and you will tune down from here)
Front rebound rate (at 0.3 m/s): 2600
Rear rebound rate (at 0.3 m/s): 1950

Divide by 9.81
Front (kg): 265
Rear (kg): 199

These are the numbers you look for on the D-Spec dyno graph at the 0.3 m/s point. It can be any point really as the D-Specs are pretty linear in rate. 0.3 m/s seems common.

On the dyno graph, you find this correlates to around 3 turns Front and 4 3/4 turns Rear.

Now in the SuspensionCalc.xls spreadsheet you can play around with car weight and weight balance to see what I mean about how the dampening changes a little with these adjustments. You can get a good starting point with this route, and then tune slightly to the actual ideal setting for your car. I've personally found this method to create a slightly stiff setup, and you have to tune down from here a little. However, it seems to be decently close and within, say, a quarter of a turn or so from ideal. It sort of depends on how good your guess is for your car's weight and balance as well as how accurate the spring rates are.



SuspensionCalc.xls spreadsheet:
http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/show....php?t=1292451

Last edited by Back Road Runner; 12-22-2008 at 01:22 PM.
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Old 02-27-2009, 01:34 PM   #57
0db
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Awesome thread, hate to dig it up out of the bowels but I'm having trouble settling on agreeable damping arrangements for my setup.

I'm running prodrive (Blue) springs so from what I understand that's around 175/175 spring rate, on an 03 wagon. Only other suspension mods are rear strut tower brace (2-point) and a whiteline rear sway bar (running on medium settings).

Using the suspension calculator I think I should be between 5-5.25 turns front and 6.25-6.5 turns rear. On moderate bumps or general cruising down the road this is pretty good, but around here even the freeways have some pretty substantial dips/bumps and on these I feel like the car is just sloppy. Maybe it's even dropping down to the bumpstops (running stock stops with one ring trimmed off).

Is this because my settings aren't right or is this because the prodrive springs give up too much travel without raising the spring rate enough? Either way on the 101 freeway around Ventura the car is JARRING and I got the Prodrives because I expected them to offer a more comfortable ride than stiffer alternatives. It's a little disturbing because our BMW 330 with performance package rides on the same size (and brand) tires, appears to have less suspension travel available, and still rides MUCH better without handling any worse.

Should I be pursuing a stiffer spring to play nicer with my D-Specs or should I just be bracing the crap out of my chassis to stiffen this thing up?
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Old 02-27-2009, 01:38 PM   #58
williaty
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The D-Specs should be able to be soft enough to match the Prodrives, though they'd be near 7 turns FFS. What I'm wondering is if you're riding on your bumpstops. Doing so raises the effective spring rate and in essence makes your dampers too soft. Not sure of a good quick way to test that, but your current damping settings are in the range people with 225-ish springs are using.
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Old 02-27-2009, 01:54 PM   #59
sniper1rfa
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I guess i should add to this.

Swift coilover springs 225f/200r. Pillowball mounts all 'round.

4 front and 6+7/8 rear. Feels unbelievable. Literally.

Last edited by sniper1rfa; 12-03-2009 at 09:40 PM.
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Old 02-27-2009, 01:55 PM   #60
0db
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Quote:
Originally Posted by williaty View Post
The D-Specs should be able to be soft enough to match the Prodrives, though they'd be near 7 turns FFS. What I'm wondering is if you're riding on your bumpstops. Doing so raises the effective spring rate and in essence makes your dampers too soft. Not sure of a good quick way to test that, but your current damping settings are in the range people with 225-ish springs are using.
I actually just tried dialing it down to 6.5 front, 7 rear, small bumps are better but big stuff is still a mess.

Maybe I should get my wife to drive down the freeway and I'll lay on the hood with my fingers wedged between the strut body and the bump stop.

No, maybe not.

I did trim the stops, but maybe I should trim them more dramatically.
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Old 02-27-2009, 02:00 PM   #61
williaty
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Well, it would be better to tie her to the hood and have her point a video camera into the wheel well while you drive like a bat out of hell....


In all seriousness, get her to drive you car while you follow in her car. Make sure you get on the freeway some where you can sit a lane over and a little behind and watch your car. It's astonishing what you can figure out about your car's suspension by watching it from the outside.
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Old 02-27-2009, 02:02 PM   #62
0db
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Quote:
Originally Posted by williaty View Post
Well, it would be better to tie her to the hood and have her point a video camera into the wheel well while you drive like a bat out of hell....


In all seriousness, get her to drive you car while you follow in her car. Make sure you get on the freeway some where you can sit a lane over and a little behind and watch your car. It's astonishing what you can figure out about your car's suspension by watching it from the outside.
Good call, i'll see if I can talk her into this. Might be useful. I'd like to do it with a video cam so I can watch it more carefuly later.
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Old 03-12-2009, 12:19 PM   #63
thrasher
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02 WRX, 62K miles
4 TFFS front/4 TFFS rear
RCE Black springs (285 lb/in front, 269 lb/in rear)
RCE Lowering Camber Plates (front)
04+Group N Top Hats/Scooby921 spacers (rear)
CUSCO 22mm front swaybar
CUSCO 22mm adjustable rear swaybar
Prodrive P1 225/40-18 Falken FK-452 (street)
Enkei RPF1 245/40-17 Dunlop Direzza Z1 Star Spec (track)
Camber: -2.4 front/-1.3 rear
Toe: 0.0 front, 0.0 rear
Caster: 2.5 left, 3.0 right

My car is currently a non-DD, hoping to do some autoX's and HPDEs this summer. Planning on keeping the settings at 4TFFS for the break-in period, and then tweak from there.

J

Last edited by thrasher; 02-11-2010 at 05:12 PM. Reason: I'm a dumba$$
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Old 03-12-2009, 05:38 PM   #64
VA07WRX
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^^Is TFFS, Turns From Full Stiff or Turns From Full Soft?
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Old 03-12-2009, 06:22 PM   #65
GullyWagon07
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full stiff i believe^
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Old 03-12-2009, 07:32 PM   #66
wrxSIN
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07 WRX ~16k
4 turns from stiff (FRONT) 4.5 TFFStiff (REAR) - DD
Full stiff F/R for auto-x
RCE blacks
Ride height from center of hub to metal edge of fender - UNKOWN
Group-n fronts, stock rears
none
sti bbs - re01rs
-1.4f/-1r
Comments - First auto-x season with dspecs. will be playing around with settings.
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Old 03-12-2009, 10:06 PM   #67
mla163
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Quote:
Originally Posted by wrxSIN View Post
07 WRX ~16k
4 turns from stiff (FRONT) 4.5 TFFStiff (REAR) - DD
Full stiff F/R for auto-x
RCE blacks
Ride height from center of hub to metal edge of fender - UNKOWN
Group-n fronts, stock rears
none
sti bbs - re01rs
-1.4f/-1r
Comments - First auto-x season with dspecs. will be playing around with settings.
sweet setup Ken now you just need some swaybars

don't turn them up that high for autocross, you'll just be bouncing off the tires and top hats. I turn mine up about 1/2 turn if at all.
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Old 03-12-2009, 10:17 PM   #68
mla163
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My new one is...
RCE Blacks
Dspecs (of course)
Group N front top hats
24mm FSB full stiff
22mm RSB full stiff
2.5*F, 1.8*R
RT615s/RE01Rs
Uh...it's blue

4.25 TFFS, front 4 rear
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Old 03-12-2009, 10:26 PM   #69
bmw50021
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hey guys ive got clunking in the front passenger side, and sometimes in the rear too i think. what causes this? d-specs /w prodrive springs on 02 wrx sedan....
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Old 03-12-2009, 11:45 PM   #70
wrxSIN
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did you do your
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mla163 View Post
sweet setup Ken now you just need some swaybars

don't turn them up that high for autocross, you'll just be bouncing off the tires and top hats. I turn mine up about 1/2 turn if at all.
thanks mark

so are u saying put them at like 1/2 from full stiff or just 1/2 a turn stiffer? ill probably try 2/2 for the first time. i plan on going to the TnT at the end of the month. hopefully i can play around then.

Quote:
Originally Posted by mla163 View Post
My new one is...
RCE Blacks
Dspecs (of course)
Group N front top hats
24mm FSB full stiff
22mm RSB full stiff
2.5*F, 1.8*R
RT615s/RE01Rs
Uh...it's blue

4.25 TFFS, front 4 rear
damn. you have more camber and bigger bars, but i will try to keep up mark!!
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Old 03-14-2009, 04:36 AM   #71
rykus
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hey sorry if this is kind of an un related newbi question, but ive been searching and sifting through too many threads and its gettin late..... soooo will d specs and sti pinks fit on a 99 impreza, and if i needed new top plates anyways would the camber adjustable ones be worth the extra $$ or just find some from a newer model. thanks
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Old 03-14-2009, 07:58 PM   #72
eraser535
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07 wrx, 13k miles
-Daily Driver: 2.5F 3R
-Autocross/fun: 2F 2.5R
-RCE Yellows
-Group N Tophats front and rear (with scooby spacer)
-Cobb sways front and rear 25mm
-Kartboy endlinkes front and rear
-Stock wheel with 225/45/17 Re-01r
-Alignment: -1.5F and -1.5 R Camber, 0 toe

Mostly a daily driver and occassional autocross events.
Just recently installed the suspension and am still playing around with settings. Feels pretty planted at 2f and 2.5 r.

Whats a good tire pressure for the re-01?
Also would like more input on the settings from fellow RCE yellow users!!
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Old 03-19-2009, 11:09 AM   #73
pzary3233
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Wow, this is a really great thread with lots of good information!

I used to Auto X with a Koni Insert and GC setup (450 f/ 450 r) and looking for a more street friendly setup so these D-Specs are looking like a great strut to go with. With either some GC stuff in the 300/270 range Or RCE Yellows.

Thanks for all the info guys!
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Old 03-19-2009, 12:00 PM   #74
sniper1rfa
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From what i've heard, you might just look into some new springs. The konis are supposedly the better strut, just less durable for high speed or full stroke travel.
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Old 03-21-2009, 08:57 PM   #75
eraser535
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What should i set my cobb rear adjustable sway bars at?? my settings and mods are listed a couple posts above!
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