Are coilovers really a must on a drift car?

[turbo23]

coilovers are excellent if your looking to do daily driving, with some drifting, and autox/road race. But if you are running the car for a certain style then a spring shock combo would be fine as long as u know what u want

[raging panda]

you kinda got it backwards man, a spring/shock combo will do better on the street because even though coilovers are adjustable, they are not adjustable enough to make it tolerable on the street (depending on your pain threshold). Spring shocks will never be stiff enough to be a bother on the street.

[CrazyHawaiian]

I dont run coilovers because my chassis type was not designed to do so, but I'd imagine they would be great for the street. You could adjust the spring rate and dampening for comfortable ride on the street or stiff for the track. As long as you dont change ride height you'll retain your alignment. Even better with something like the EDFC where you dont even have to get out of the car. Spring / Dampener setups only allow adjustable dampening, so you're stuck with a stiff spring rate on the street. Because of this I've leared that it is entirely possible to run too stiff of a linear spring on the street. But I guess it really depends on how good your local streets are. My local streets suck, very uneven surfaces. I've heard that some of the roads on the mainland US are very well maintained and would ride smooth as glass. My stock front springs were 540#. I tried 900# and it was insane on the street. Now I'm going with 700# and I'm way happier.

[mranlet]

The reason that you don't see springs and coilovers with similar rates is that they're designed differently to do 2 different things.

Coilovers are intended mostly for race application. The spring rates and dampening in coilovers would be way too hard for street driving, especially in areas like the Northeast where plowing and snow takes a toll on road condition. The notion that a stiffer suspension will handle better is only true to a certian extent - stiff suspension will supress body roll and help the tire stay in contact with the road, but too stiff a suspension can cause inside tires to lift, prevent tires from achieving maximum contact time with the road, introduce higher levels of stress into the frame, and all sorts of other bad things.

Street springs and dampers (shocks) are a good chioce for the car that is a daily driver and only taken to the track occasionally. They offer a much more livable ride and more consistent tire contact, especially over rough surfaces.

The adjustable coilovers might be alright for a car that sees double duty as long as they are kept softer for the street and stiffer for the track. A wonderful benefit to coilovers is their ability to almsot instantly change the demeanor of the car - if you want more oversteer, simply turn up the dampening in the rear. More understeer? Turn up the front. For smoother surfaces, turn up both and for rougher surfaces turn down both. You can also change ride height by raising or lowering all 4 coilover perch rings or compensate for an imbalanced car by raising individual ones

Crazy - what are you refering to about changing rates without changing ride height? From what I understand you can't change the rate of a spring and by raising or lowering the perch ring you'll raise or lower the car unless donw one or 2 at a time. Do you mean set the shocks to softer dampening?

-MR

[raging panda]

yea, you cant really change the spring rates without replacing the actual spring itself. Thats not easy. Good coilovers have dual spring perches where you move the spring up and down both on bottom and top to keep the spring and strut in full range of motion if you raise or lower the car.

[mranlet]

Is there something magical that you do only in Hawaii to change spring rates?

That would be a cool trick...

-MR

[Bustadouglass]

CrazyHawaiian, how much did it cost you to get some custom springs made, and how long did it take? Oh, and i coulda sworn that groundcontrol uses Eibach springs? Plus i was always under the impression that the "sleeve coilover" things were really cheap; but if they work for you and i can get the exact rated springs i need then i may very well go with them!

[mranlet]

You can get cheap sleves, but one of coilovers' defining characteristics is having an adjustable perch for the spring.

Custom rolled springs is mucho $$$...

-MR

[CrazyHawaiian]

I was under the impression that you can modify the spring rate without modifying the ride height on those 25 way adjustable coilover setups. If I'm wrong, sorry about saying that. I am not very knowledgable when it comes to coilovers (I've never owned or used them).

I was refering to the conversion of spring rates because for domestics we use lb/in but everyone else uses kg/mm. I have no idea what the conversion is. My custom springs were between $55 and $60 and they were shipped within 5 days. The fronts are Eibach linear rate springs, and the rears are Suspension Spring Specialists linear rate springs. Sorry about that, forgot the fronts were Eibachs. I dont think Ground Control lists all the available SSS springs, but they do list the Eibach ones here. I do run adjustable spring pertches and they work good. I think they are overpriced from Ground Control.

[mranlet]

You can adjust dampening on coilovers but you're stuck with what you've got in terms of spring rates.

If those really were custom-made springs you cot a whopping heck of a deal, but I'd bet that they were units that were simply not listed in the conventional catalog. When I wanted custom springs for my Legacy I think Eibach (or was it H&R, can't remember) wanted something like $750 for the set or something wild like that.

Did the adjustable perches just fit right on to your shocks (if you have the shock-in-the-spring design, and if so, what kind of shocks) or did you have to modify them?

You supply so much good info I think it's only fair to mes sup once in a while

-MR

[mranlet]

I think this thread needs some pics...


These are Zeal coilovers for 2nd Gen CRX - note how the spring perch and adjustable sleeves are incorporated into the shock housing.


Not the best picture, but these are Tockico Shocks and springs for the same car - note how the spring just sits on the perch and doesn't have any adjustments


Sorry for the small picture, but this is a sort of "kind of a coilover" hybrid shock - the same Tockico shock as seen above but with an adjustable sleeve for the spring perch. It's not a true coilover, as I don't think that this model has adjustable dampening on the shock, but it will allow you to adjust ride height or compensate for out-of-balance corner weights.


This is a kind of coilover-conversion kit. Technically, the springs and perches seen here are considered to be "coilovers' in themselves, but when mounted on an adjustable shock they become part of a fully adjustable system.

I believe this information to be accurate and hope that this helps bring some illustration to the topic.

-MR

[Emagdnim]

Originally posted by mranlet
The spring rates and dampening in coilovers would be way too hard for street driving, especially in areas like the Northeast where plowing and snow takes a toll on road condition.

So true. I can't go 30ft without seein a pothole or a raise in the road where there used to be a pothole. The roads are pathetic out here. There bad to the point where you do really have to go with softer springs. But you can compensate with frame rigidity, sway bars and whatnot.

[mranlet]

Have you driven on I-84 East lately? The place looks like it used to be a minefield, my CRX could fall into some of those holes...

-MR

[AlexPfeiffer]

There are a couple points to coil overs that you guys are missing.
First is that the aftermarket coil over kits usually come shorter. This is because the stock type shocks are usually too long and will bottom out which is a really bad thing to happen.

Second, coil overs allow you to corner ballance your car. Meaning you are supposed to put your car on a set of scales and adjust the weights of each wheel to get the cross weight as close to 50% as posible. Imagine a table. You and your friends are having lunch, talking about cars, your food is on it and one of the legs are too short. You put your arm down and the whole thing shifts to one side. Then your friend across from you puts his arm down and it shifts back the other way. What is happening is that since one leg of teh table is short, all the wieght on the table shifts from one direction to the other. Now if your car is unballenced, it does basicly the same thing but the wieght will shift from one corner to the other as you get on and off the gas or turn one way or the other. This excess of wieght transfer will cause the car to unsettle as you shift the wieght around.



All the suspension parts on your car do one main thing, that is time the wieght transfer of your car. The stiffer, the quicker the wieght transfer. Your tires are the only things touching the ground and they are affected greatly (traction wise) by how fast and how much wieght is put on them.

[AlexPfeiffer]

Sorry about the little tech thing but to answer your question about coil overs to be nessasary. No if your just starting out but in the long run you will end up on stiffer spring rates with larger tires, lower cars so you will need shorter shocks with less travel.