mtflyboy25

Well they may say that, but with just the sportline springs it was 1 inch in front and 1.4ish rear... They may have settled more now, but it doesnt look any different. I will go measure sometime.. But I DO have them on my car, the SAME car as the OP.

So um...the race cars that are suuppper low, but correct geometry have bad handling huh? So why do coilovers drop you far lower than springs? It makes you handle better. Lowering the center of gravity for less body roll, etc..

Please explain how I am wrong...

Norm Peterson

The key is "correct geometry". And about here you might as well figure that the OE geometry is pretty good at its design ride height, else this chassis wouldn't have the reputation that it has for handling. More on this later.

There isn't anything particularly magic about coilovers - they're mostly just a different solution to packaging a spring and its damper. Beyond that, there is much better availability of spring rates with which you go about tuning your suspension in order to extract all of the performance that it POTENTIALLY has. But you have to go through and do that work, as it is unlikely to be perfect for you straight out of the box.

Lowering does not necessarily translate to less body roll. In fact, on strut suspensions if the spring rates were left the same as OE you'd end up with MORE roll rather than less. Taking that thought just a little further, part of the additional spring rate that any lowering spring should be giving you is kind of wasted - all it's doing is holding the amount of roll to the same value as you had with the OE springs at OE ride height. Yes, you (usually) gain overall, but it's kind of like having to drop $2 on the ground in order to be allowed to pick up $3.

It's later . When you lower the suspension, and particularly when you lower a strut suspension, you take that suspension away from where it will recover more of the camber lost to body roll in a turn on that all-important outside front tire and put the geometry where doesn't gain as much (geometry is not "fixed", but changes with ride height and other things and doesn't have to improve just because the suspension is in a different position). You'd be surprised how fast -1° camber goes away and then goes positive once you're getting enough roll to notice inside. Cornering on the front tire outside shoulders and up into their sidewalls is not the way to gain cornering grip or responsive behavior. It might be a good way to make lots of cornering tire noise, though. And maybe scare you when you want (or desperately NEED) turning action and only seem to be getting noise.

There are even rear axle steering effects, which tend to deteriorate when lowering goes beyond some approximate amount.


Norm

Norm Peterson

Wes - just to anticipate one of your next thoughts . . .

Yes, you can let your camber be more negative to "crutch" the geometry going away on you. The trade-off with that is a poorer contact patch under heavy straightline braking.

The more you get into this stuff, the more you realize that it's nearly always a compromise. Gain something here, give up a little over there. And it might not always be obvious where "over there" is.


Norm

mtflyboy25

Fair enough... I am by no means just an expert, just know what I feel and see in my car. Less body roll, more ability to go fast around corners, less brake dive, less body movement on launch/shifts... I am waiting for Eibach to come out with their sway bars and when they do I will get them and their shocks/struts... Either that or some Konis or something.. Not sure which route to go.

Norm Peterson

Less body roll is not really a goal in itself. You want it to be low enough to not botch your cambers, but past that point (that you arrive at as a compromise among roll stiffness, static camber, camber gain, etc.) the gains likely won't be worth it in a street driven car.

Might as well post this picture here too. This is what Sam's bars set on the mid adjustment up front and firm out back looks like in a pretty hard corner on street tires (Goodyear Asymmetrics). Koni sports . . . and STOCK GT springs.

Yes, the static camber setting is more aggressive than stock, and probably more than most folks would find liveable. Keep in mind that about 1° of what the roll that you see is due to tire deflection effects that cannot be eliminated by stiffening the suspension (not even if you welded it solid and turned the car into a 107" wheelbase go-kart).

I question whether you'd ever really need less roll than that for any halfway sane street driving - never mind that when you're driving that hard with your mind on where you want the car to be going, amounts of roll like that are hardly noticed.




Norm

chrumck

Well mtflyboy25, I strongly encourage you to read what Norm wrote at least three times, then buy the book How to Make Your Car Handle by Fred Puhn and read it three times too. I'm somewhere half way through this process and I just started putting the pieces of this puzzle together. From what I understood by now I can tell you one thing: you have to be VERY careful when you mess with such well tuned suspension as S197's. It's much easier to make it worse then better.

Another note. I believe there is a difference how car 'feels' on the street in the traffic and what is its true potential and behavior when pushed to the limit. For example, I'd be careful with the selection of the swaybars you mentioned. You may enjoy less roll and 'sportier feel' with stiffer bars but what you can easily overlook is the fact that the car is more sensitive to driver's input when stiffer and may get inherently loose with the relatively stiffer rear bar. That means that you may end up with the 'sporty feeling' car which will spin out on some highway ramp and bite you in the butt before you finish saying 'oh sh_t'.

Sleeper_08

That is why manufacturers delibrately build cars with understeer or as Fred Puhn puts it "Understeer is a common handling characteristic of a stock sedan. It is considered safe by passenger car designers, and so understeer is designed into most road cars."

As a former owner of a swing axle original Beetle I can confirm that oversteer can bite you. As a present owner of an SC equipped Mustang it can also be fun when used in moderation.

chrumck

'In moderation' is a very good expression. I had a pleasure to try out Sam's bars in stiff/stiff setup and Steeda sports on full wet at Beaverun lately (stock shocks, long awaited yellows coming!!). I had an impression even a thought of squeezing the gas pedal caused oversteer.

I'd also add oversteer is fun when anticipated. It can cause a heart attack when not.

Sleeper_08

Or it can cause a "small" spin. My last one was only a 270 degree spin. When we first started running the car my brother did a 720 degree spin with my Dad aboard!

whitetstang

Well, the thread has been hijacked a little bit.... but still a lot of good info, in the end, considering that i'm not planning to race the car and that ride quality is still important to me, I decided to order a set of Eibach pros. I understand that it might not be the best solution for handling improvement but I hope it will be a good compromise. Meanwhile I'm still debating if I'm going to buy a set of shocks.
Thanks everybody for your inputs