What I really enjoy about your videos is that you convey "what it feels like" and how it actually affects the car on track. The science of springs, damping, suspension geometry is so complex its often so much better to concentrate on 'what does this change do to the car on track'. You guys explaining what the effects of each change is the most helpful thing for most racers including myself, so thank you and keep it up!
Interesting when you talk about wet running I have found similar with my touring car. When running a stiffer suspension setup closer to a dry setup it's working much better than a soft setup where the car rolls around a lot, the car is also handles more predictable. One change I do for wet running is more chassis flex which for a touring car is done by changing the top deck to a more flexy option
The knowledge in these videos is priceless, the problem is that people always think they already know… i know quite a bit about shocks and springs from my own messing around… and i try to do the best i can with remembering all aspects.. down to how well i was feeling connected to the car.. sometimes it just drives bad cause your driving bad…. But this jazz with putting on stiffer fronts to reduce some rear squat, makes crazy sense once you think about it… I find if your REALLY in tune with your car and ran it like that for a long time, sometimes small adjustments like that do have unexpected results… obviously sometimes explainable, but sometimes your just in awe at how it did the opposite of what you’d expect..
I find the softer springs doesnt add side bite (when done all around) nearly as much as dropping a weight in oil all around… its more initial steering i think, more than overall maximum steer…
- A softer spring transfers more weight but less energy into the tire usually equaling less pressure to the tire. - think just like more anti-squat adds more initial pressure to the tire but reduces transfer to the tire (this usually gives more grip) - or anti-roll (sway bars) add more initial pressure to the tire (usually as more grip) - (hint) with (stiffer spring/anti-squat/sway bars) you will have more initial grip but if it fall off at the end of the turn... if adding weight to the front fixes it (you probably don't have enough pressure on the tire) and weight is not the best way to fix this it more of a bandaid.
Thats all relitave to where your at already… theres a point where your traction wont transfer enough weight to begin the suspention to work… and theres a point where going softer isnt going to be ABLE to transfer more weight…. And the same feeling starts to happen if you have a stiff spring in front, and soft out rear… if you go too far, it starts to act backwards..
Any thoughts on calculating suspension frequencies as a means to select springs? I've been experimenting with this lately and it has taken some of the guess work out of picking springs or predicting how much of an impact different springs will have.
First of all, i wish all the best for hallbrothers web site. I have a question: you said that a lighter spring on the rear will push more on the chassis on corner entry than a harder one. And if i have understood well, it depends basically by the energy stored on preload making ride high. But this will move inside the range of downstop. So the lighter spring will use more stroke during suspension movement?
I think you got it right. If you didn’t, we both got it wrong. A stiffer spring will push up harder than a softer one when you compress the suspension by X mm. But the flipside is that when the chassis raises up, the stiff spring weakens the pushing up faster than the soft one. It’s funny because the idea of a softer spring pushing the chassis higher is counter-intuitive but that’s how it works. With equal amounts of acceleration and deceleration, and without hitting full droop or full compression, the harder spring allows less movement up or down. Allowing less movement down is the obvious thing we all know but the effect going both ways is important to understand.
My car is getting a lot of pop in the rear end, causing it to do s front flip off of certain jumps at almost any speed, would I change the spring or the oil to try to help?
