Originally Posted by Norm Peterson

The amount of shock/strut damping for best grip comes in somewhere around two or three times the amount of damping that provides the best ride. It would be fair to assume that most cars end up with shock damping chosen closer to best ride than best grip, especially for those cars not intended to be the king-of-the-hill cornering/handling champs.

Noticeable wallowing or bouncing suggests damping that's well below the level associated with "best ride". "Best ride" and even "best grip" damping still permits the suspension to overshoot its final position a bit, but most people don't particularly notice this. There's other things going on that shock/strut damping is affecting, and most people don't intentionally drive hard enough anyway.

Most people barely use 1/3 of a car's ultimate performance anywhere except for WOT acceleration and the occasional emergency braking event. If you used just half of the car's cornering potential, you'd drive away from just about everybody every time the road stopped going straight. And that's about the level where additional spring/bar stiffness starts actually benefitting the performance from a mechanical standpoint.

Stiffer springs and sta-bars will also tighten things up, at least in terms of how much roll and pitch (nose dive/rise, tail squat/lift) happens. The biggest benefits in street driving from these are probably subjective. I'm not trying to discount the importance of the subjective side here (this can be very important when operating up near the limits), but the amount of actual performance used on the street - and how much the car moves around on its suspension as a result - really isn't all that much.

There is one other thing about stiffer springs and bars - the extra stiffness requires somewhat more damping in order to stay in the same place on the "wallowing - best ride - best grip - etc." spectrum. Otherwise the extra stiffness has an easier time "overpowering" the shocks/struts (essentially, you'd move downward on that scale). Even if you only upgraded the bars and left the springs as OE, the suspension would still need a little more damping.

You'll find that many of the people whose compromise point is somewhere out on the handling side of ride vs handling prefer Konis, particularly the yellow adjustables (aka Sports). Not because they might impress by seeming a little spendy, but because they work (know that there are shocks out there that make the price of Koni yellows sound absolutely bargain-basement).


Norm

Originally Posted by Sleeper_08

I've had both Tokico and Koni adjustables and the most noticeable benefit of the Koni's is that they are less 'harsh' as described by Norm.

The instructors that I went to VIR with teach there are 6 ways to steer a car;
1) steering wheel
2) throttle on
3) throttle off
4) brake on
5) brake off
6) choosing the wrong gear

The better the power/torque to weight ratio the more important 2) and 3) become and the more you need to learn that the throttle pedal is a rheostat and not an on/off switch. My car is only an 2008 GT but with the Roush SC still has more power than the 2013 GT's. I'm still learning.

Originally Posted by 05WIMustang

Thanks again Norm. Your real life experience helps explaining it. Just for future reference what brand of rear LCA and upper CA do you suggest?

Originally Posted by 05WIMustang

Thanks again Norm. Your real life experience helps explaining it. Just for future reference what brand of rear LCA and upper CA do you suggest?