My car is setup for handling

Im looking to re-do my springs, again...

I had Spohn's Iroc replacement springs, they were great for handling, but sat way to high

I now have Sportlines, they are nice too, but with planned exhaust upgrades and having my lakewood bellhousing eat pavement twice, i want to raise the car a bit, and install some slightly stiffer springs

I was planning to do 800lb springs on the front and 200 lb on the back, thats a small increase over the Iroc front rates and a bit more on the rears, am i going in the right direction? should i go stiffer? softer? should i stick with something around a 175lb for the rears instead? Am i totally lost?

thanks
Phil

 

I would say the rear is way too stiff.

I run 800/150's & they are pretty nice, but it will oversteer slightly with the 36/24 bars. I am considering trying a smaller rear bar to see if it helps.

I would think the 200's could be borderline dangerous. I had once considered 175's, buy after buying the 150's, I do not think I would do 175's on street tires.

You definitely need some good (I love my Koni's) shocks to control that much spring.

I am no expert of course, just relating my experiences.

Give Sam Strano a call, he has always lead me in the right direction.

Lonnie

 

It depends where you CG and roll enters are.

A car with 800 lb springs and lowered 1 1/2 inches can roll more into a corner than a car at stock hieght with 700lb springs. Also depends on your damper choice and its valving rate and quality.

There is no way anyone on this forum could give you an answer to that question based on your perticular car. Spring packages are designed to somewhat perform at the height and spring rate they are combo'ed in and sold to the generic market. you start play with things on your own then you will need various sets of different rates to come up with a decent combo. Hit it the first time and I commend you on your luck.

Took me three different tries to get a spring combo I liked at the ride height I desired.

 

Phil, Try calling Sam Strano at Strano Parts. He is a tremendous with this and will be glad to help. Tell him Ryan from UMI sent you.

Hope that helps!
Ryan

 

thanks for the input, im new to spring rates and dont know my a$$ from a hole in the ground when it come to them.

thanks Ryan, i'll have to give him a call, you wouldnt happen to have their # handy?

 

Yep, you can get there information from there site at www.stranoparts.com

Sam has won 3 national championships and has sourced and sells his own springs with his rates and his own sway bars.

Hope that helps,
Ryan

 

While I do agree that Sam is a great guy, and very good. I don't always agree with him on springs rates, he tends to go with less spring than I like, because his experiance is with auto-x. I like quite a bit more rear spring that Sam recomends, or uses himself.

86TA -- Dean is right, we can't really judge this, there is a lot of tweaking you can do, and get away with though, just to show how varried it is, I run 750/175's, and am actualy going with even less roll bar in front than I have right now, but part of that could be driving style, it could also be roll centers, etc.

 

I have autocrossed my car (87 IROC, stock so far) twice this season and plan on doing so for many more. I was told swapping for some new IROC springs would help make it stiffer but since my current springs have 137K miles on them, I was thinking that would also raise the center of gravity. I plan on getting some Koni Yellows and a new set of sway bars too. What would be the best combo of springs and sway bars for this? A little lower would be nice... maybe an inch. I was looking at the Spohn Sway bar set (1 5/16" front (solid) & 1" rear (solid) 4140 chrome moly sway bars). Would that be way to stiff? Would I always experience understeer/oversteer? I'm 16 and my only experience with moding cars is from what my dad has told me and with what I helped his friend do to his 69 Camaro, so any advice to get me headed in the right direction would be great.

Thanks,
Mike

 

The spohn bars are too much IMHO. Don't get your roll control from them, just use them to balance the car. You can mix and match stock bars to balance the car out.

What class are you running in auto-x ?? The class rules may allow or disallow certain springs, etc. That will be a big factor in what route to go modifing the car. If you are running f-stock, what you can do is limited. Where as if you are in StreetMod, CP, or ESP you have some more options.

--John

 

I can only compete in Stock, STX, STU, SP, SM, SM2, and ESP. My car wont fit in any other classes. I have run in the stock class so far, but as long as I am not in SP or SM I don't care (mostly because I don't have the $$ to make my car competitive at that level). I haven't really been placing well in the Stock category, but then again my car is 20 years old and completely bone stock. It also doesn't help that I'm against new RX-8's and such that have performed every mod available in stock class. Heres a link to the sheet I'm looking at as to what class I want to be in: http://www.scca-milwaukee.org/Solo/c...sification.pdf

At the beginning of the season I was racing my dads Dodge Dakota Quad Cab Sport and beat a couple corvettes and camaros and such... (only on index) so that might be a reason as to why I'm not doing to great in my car. Still have to get used to the height difference.

It will be tough to balance my car since it has a V8, but I was thinking of removing the A/C unit (doesn't work anyway) and relocating the battery to the rear, but I heard that the cables used to move the battery make the relocation pointless. Would changing to a tube panhard bar and trailing arms over the stock U-shaped make a noticeable difference? What about some more ideas to balance the car? Best spring rates and sway bar combos? I would like to put all the parts on the car over the winter so I dont have to change class half-way through the season.

 

Get good shocks first. 3rdgens should be descently competative in F-Stock, with Koni's Yellows on them. Any other modification you do, is going to bump you into other classes. It might not be a bad idea to do shocks, and get a 2nd set of wheels to run race tires on, and see how you do in f-stock. At auto-x, the nut behind the wheel is the one that needs the most work. ;-). Beyond that, if you are serious about being competative, you need to pick a class you plan to run, and do modifications according to that classes rules.

--John

 

I have the 1" Spohn bar...way too much. Going to try a 24 or maybe a 21.