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Brakes & Suspension Forum sponsored by The Tire Rack |
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02-10-2010, 10:05 PM | #176 |
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If you are getting full droop with koni's/dspecs and GC's on the street you are just driving like an ass hat. More likely your excessive speed for the road conditions will cause you problems.
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02-10-2010, 10:15 PM | #177 |
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There is definitely difference between good coilover and cheap coilover.
But be in mind you're comparing a $800 coilover vs $2000 coilover.. |
02-10-2010, 10:18 PM | #178 |
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I can see plenty of situations where you need full droop or close to full droop in normal driving conditions.
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02-10-2010, 10:19 PM | #179 |
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That's the point. You sacrifice a ton of things going with cheap coilovers and the argument that they're "good enough for the street" is complete crap.
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02-10-2010, 10:33 PM | #180 |
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then you always have the choice to buy $2000+ coilover like KW or AST or Whiteline.
The final word is stlll you get what you pay for. You can't compare $800 vs $2000 coilover. it's not equal comparison. It's like comparing Subaru vs Porsche. |
02-10-2010, 10:35 PM | #181 | |
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02-10-2010, 10:52 PM | #182 |
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+1
I'm with you, where are you driving that you need that much droop on the street? San Francisco? |
02-10-2010, 11:26 PM | #183 | ||
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02-10-2010, 11:43 PM | #184 | |||
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Real life just uses way more suspension travel than you guys think it does! Quote:
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02-10-2010, 11:49 PM | #185 |
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Here, let me bring it back:
From 0:00 to 1:27 is me driving down a normal road at the speed limit. In several places, you can see the wheel cycle from full droop to full compression. IIRC, on my setup that's 6.75" of travel. 1:27 to 1:47 is me pulling out of my driveway. Just getting to the end of my driveway uses more suspension travel than most of the Cheap Crap Coilovers have. 1:47 to 1:52 (hard to see the cut) is me pulling into a gas station at about 10mph. You can see that I use up all the droop the right rear has and actually pick up the right rear wheel. |
02-11-2010, 01:30 AM | #186 | |
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The point is if you have $800 to spend on suspension, and actually care how it handles, don't buy crappy coilovers. There are way better options for that amount of money. A new D spec setup and a set of good used springs, will run you that much, and not suck. If you have $2000 plus to spend on suspension buy good coilovers. |
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02-11-2010, 02:23 AM | #187 |
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Williaty,
I've watched your video several times, what suspension do you have? By your statement, even your car doesn't have enough travel since it lifts a wheel going into the gas station; does that mean you have crappy suspension? NO, there will always be cases where suspension will be lacking for the road condition. I get your point about how much travel is used. My point was that if you are using almost all of your stock droop travel, you may need to rethink your driving style. No matter how much travel you have there will always be a condition where you could use more. I didn't buy coil overs for the .01% of times when I come across a gas station that lifts the rear wheel. I bought them to increase performance, if this means I can't do 70 over that bumpy stretch of road, I DON'T; that's a compromise I'm willing to make. What would be really great is to get several different setups and run them over the same road so we can see the differences |
02-11-2010, 03:17 AM | #188 | |
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I've avoided really taking any real part in this discussion because, frankly, I do not know enough about the nitty gritty of race setups to justify/rationalize the lack of droop travel on most tarmac/road course setups. But this whole droop thing has always had me wondering ever since I started rebuilding Group 4's. The Race spec Group 4's run shorter springs and longer droop limiters (which shorten the stroke giving shorter droop) compared to the Circuit spec. I always wondered about that.
A couple of things. first, it was probably a misnomer to title this thread "Cheap coilovers and droop" as there are plenty of big buck setups with short amounts of droop. Granted, these cheap coilovers are more than likely "copying" big buck race setups to get the overall stroke length and respective bump and droop amounts in their designs. Its easy to poke fun at these setups but with so many cheapos copying, I had to wonder, what was the original thinking to this type of setup (beyond cheap to produce). Because more than likely, some big buck race team did it first. So why? Well, I've been doing some rough research on some of the SAE forums and there have been some interesting discussions about running zero droop, or less droop. Its going to take some years for my dense brain to fully process it, but it seems that there is indeed a method to the madness and its not just to be "yo, jdm tite, yo"! The sad thing is we don't have any "real" chassis engineers here, say from Dallara or Prodrive on hand to give us first hand experience and background as to why this is actually done. i agree on a road going car, a decent amount of droop is necessary and not just to get up into driveways. However, from what I'm reading, there is actually a tuning/setup function to using lower amounts of droop in addition to <gasp> spring preload. I think, from reading this stuff, we may have yet another setup tool to experiment and ruin our car's handling with! Here are a couple of threads we should read and try our best to absorb. I haven't finished reading it all, but so far, its been very interesting and may serve to open up some of the usual dogma we tend to spread around here. http://fsae.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/1.../m/99910383721 main thread: http://fsae.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/1...21#18910968321 Interesting excerpt here from that main thread: Quote:
I also suggest doing a search on "droop" on that site. A few pages worth sifting through, I think, to glean more info from real techno nerds! Last edited by Arnie; 02-11-2010 at 03:54 AM. |
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02-11-2010, 07:33 AM | #189 | |
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While people are reading these posts, keep in mind that the thread Arnie posted only applies to the front suspension. Also keep in mind that it's applied to RWD formula cars with double-wishbone front suspension and very low ride height. While there is a good amount of disagreement in those threads, there are a couple points which stand out: First, limiting droop is good for turn-in (transition) but bad for overall grip. There seem to be a few reasons listed. First, it dramatically reduces body roll and adverse camber gain by shooting the roll center to the outside tire instantly during turn-in. Second, depending on your suspension setup (IE, wishbones that are level at static ride height) you can cause the car to jack down in place of roll. That allows less load transfer to the outside wheel, reducing the spike in loading and reducing turn-in understeer, at the expense of ultimate grip. Third, running preload allows more downforce from aero without squishing the car onto the pavement. Fourth, this can be used to tune specific cars to specific tracks - by tuning the transient ability of the car against the ultimate cornering grip to take advantage of how twisty or flowing a track is. Also note that the subject of bumps was only discussed briefly. So, very interesting discussion and definitely something to keep in the back of my head. However, it definitely needs to be said again that those techniques apply only to racing cars. Last edited by sniper1rfa; 02-11-2010 at 07:42 AM. |
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02-11-2010, 07:48 AM | #190 | ||
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he said in his initial post with those pics that that is about stock suspension travel. So yes, you would use all of that in a normal day of driving. I know of quite a few dirt roads in the area that would require that much travel. It's the reason I never take my WRX on them because bad things will happen. I know of a few roads in DE where you need that much travel as well due to lack of repair by the state. Last edited by Daishi00; 02-11-2010 at 07:57 AM. |
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02-11-2010, 07:53 AM | #191 | |
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Let's face it. You're not going to agree and continue to argue because you don't want to admit you dropped a bunch of money on something that has actually lowered your overall performance. |
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02-11-2010, 07:57 AM | #192 |
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02-11-2010, 07:58 AM | #193 |
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I know. I just reread your initial post and edited mine and you just happened to post RIGHT before I hit the save button you bastard . My point still stands though I may have to give myself a Riker palm pic though
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02-11-2010, 08:28 AM | #194 | |||
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Well, the only thing left stock in my suspension is the rear knuckles (yes, literally true). However, the bits you're really asking about are D-Specs and USDM STi springs.
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02-11-2010, 12:40 PM | #195 |
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Daishi00,
My first setup was AGX struts with Prodrive springs, great for the street and decent for the track. I sold them and put Cusco Zero 2Es on and the car is faster with the cusco's than the AGX setup. Are there better track setups? Yes, but budget played a role here. You're correct, the mods on my car have lowered its DD performance, but they weren't done for DD. Bottom line coil overs are not the answer for the street, I don't know why you think that's the point I'm trying to make. Daishi00/Williaty, All I'm trying to do is get you guys to opine on what is an acceptable coil over for a car doing track time and LIMITED street duty. All you seem to willing to do is thrash BCs and their limited travel. I'm with you, they are not the answer; but I've read through this entire thread and it has done nothing but devolve into a comparison of a quality strut setup (like yours) to cheap coil overs. |
02-11-2010, 12:47 PM | #196 |
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Track time and limited street duty? How seriously are you about the track?
Just in it to have fun? Struts and springs. In it to win it? RCE T0/T2 or TiC SST or something even more $$$ I've said that multiple times before. I'm not sure why you think I haven't. |
02-11-2010, 12:52 PM | #197 | |
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And though it is talking about formula fords, not exactly apples to apples, I think the basic principles may apply. Agreed, it is a discussion for racing vehicles. But, that is the gist of my point. Where did this low droop design aesthetic come from on the cheap coilovers? They most likely copied from higher end race setups. So the discussion is: what is the purpose, benefit of the low droop setup? |
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02-11-2010, 12:54 PM | #198 |
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Thanks.......
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02-11-2010, 01:11 PM | #199 |
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Question for TIC:
Do you think the cheap coils(I'm assuming they're BC) would be faster around the track than stock suspension if all other aspects of the car were kept constant? Have you guys ever considered such a comparison? I just find a lot of people are trying to compare 1k coils to 2k+ coils. Rather unfair. And yes, I know there are 1k spring/strut setups... but those aren't height adjustable which is important to many people. Not at all trying to defend the cheapo coils btw. When I buy, it won't be those. |
02-11-2010, 01:20 PM | #200 |
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Even cheap coilovers would be 100% faster around a track compared to stock suspension (assuming that both were optimized as much as possible). The lower CoG, stiffer spring rates, better camber management of even a cheap coilover will trump a stock suspension. No question.
but it would be an interesting comparison between a BC/Megan and say, a DSpec/RCE spring (and some method to generate equal camber to the BC/Megan like double bolts/camber plates). Set all suspension to the same alignment/ride height specs, same tires, swaybars, etc. and see what happens. Actually, scratch that, I say simply optimize the setup for both systems independently. For example, one may need more neg camber on the DSpec/RCE setup with its softer spring rates, etc. etc. Last edited by Arnie; 02-11-2010 at 01:27 PM. |
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