Coilovers on a DD???

i did it. i had Bilstein HD's with Hyperco springs from MM. i liked it, but i had a high tolerance for kidney pain. i had the car corner weighted by MM at a track day i was at, made all the difference in handling.

Sorry for the brief tangent; what is corner weighted?

Coilovers or not, the spring rates have a much larger effect on ride quality than where they are placed. However, how I understand it is that coilovers allow you to run a lower spring rate and achieve the same handling as a more aggressive spring placed on the control arm.

BaXTeR3221 said:

Sorry for the brief tangent; what is corner weighted?

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you put the car on 4 scales, one under each wheel. you disconnect the sway bars, and adjust the ride height to even out the weight side to side. you can also adjust front to rear weight distribution. and were talking about scales from Intercomp, MM had the full digital NASCAR setup.

Just to state the obvious - what is ideal from a handling perspective on a racetrack is often total crap on real roads in the real world.

If you are hellbent on lower lap times, you tolerate noise and harsh conditions in your car that would be intolerable as a daily driver or on a long drive through the country. And tracks generally don't have potholes. So consider that what might be needed to control the car over potholes and rough tar, patched surfaces, etc. would not be necessary on a race track, and so "race suspension" really won't automatically improve a street car. It'll actually be worse if you start bottoming out while trying to turn.

Coil-overs are really only nice on a track because you can more easily adjust spring rates and corner weights. There are more options for springs and shocks, basically. They don't really offer any other benefit besides set-up options. If you are planning on setting it up and leaving it, I don't see why you'd insist on coil-overs.

Coil-overs place the spring in a different location than the stock springs, so you need a different rate spring to keep the same resistance to compression. The actual spring rate would be a function of the length of the lever formed by the spring location and the suspension pivot point, and the rate of the spring itself. One argument in favor of coil-overs is they can be smoother and more supple than the stock arrangement, allowing a stiffer total rate to be more comfortable. But a frequent complaint of suspensions designed for maximum handling is increased noise due to less isolation of the components from the chassis, so at the end of the day you might end up with a nice handling car that rides pretty smooth for as flat as it corners, but every dip and bump echoes through the car with creaks and bangs. Not sure that's a net gain for pleasure cruising on twisty back roads, myself

I was going to go the coilovers route, but I'm glad I didn't. My C-Springs handle great, and the suspension is still compliant and quiet. My only complaint is excessive body roll, but that could be addressed by using larger anti-roll bars. I'll get around to it eventually

the noise and harshness thing is true. and if you want factory NVH stick to factory.

if you want better handling better ride tubular is that way to go. your going to be taking a lot of weight out of the front end. and a torque arm setup in the rear eliminates dive, squat, and is far superior to factory setup. ur going to have a noisey corner arver with tubular.

ive said it before. for having no front swaybar, using 90/10's, and running 165/r-15 front runners, my car handles suprisingly well. no corner carving for me, but it is safe to drive.