Suspension Tuning – What's Involved
The job of a car suspension is to maximize the friction between the tires and the road surface, to provide steering stability with good handling and to ensure the comfort of the passengers.
Adding power to your vehicle is all well and good; however, without an adequate suspension modification, you can find that you have more problems than before the engine upgrades. Adding additional power makes your car more unstable. It changes the dynamic involved when you corner, as well as when accelerating. A suspension upgrade can make the difference between braking through a turn and accelerating through it. What's involved in a suspension upgrade? Actually, there is quite a bit. Here's a rundown.
No matter what car you drive, your vehicle’s development engineers were faced with considerations that ultimately affected its performance – snow chain clearance, bad roads, bumper heights and the number of people the vehicle was designed to carry. To accommodate all of those variables, your car’s suspension had to be tuned for average conditions, acceleration, confort, braking and cornering. But if you’re not average, you may want to tune your vehicle to better match your driving style.
Springs – The first step in suspension tuning is to change springs. Properly engineered aftermarket sport springs are designed to enhance its appearance and performance at the same time. Vehicle appearance is improved in two ways. Sport springs will typically lower vehicles to give them a more aggressive stance and reduce the vehicle’s fenderwell gap. Vehicle performance is also improved in two ways: they reduce ride height and have higher spring rates that are carefully tuned to the vehicle. This ensures sufficient load capacity and lowers the vehicle’s center of gravity for added stability. It also improves the vehicle’s responsiveness by reducing body movement, allowing the tires to function more effectively when performing at their limits.
Springs are suitable for reducing the height of the vehicle by up to 60 mm. Lowering springs up to 40 mm can be used with standard shock absorbers. In general, however, the use of sports shock absorbers is recommended, and is a compulsory requirement for any further lowering.
What is wrong with heating or cutting a coil spring to lower a vehicle?
Heating or cutting a coil spring in order to lower a vehicle is just plain foolish. These procedures are very dangerous and at the very least results in poor handling due to the changing of the original springs characteristic and pre-load.
Shock / Dampers – Convert the suspension’s kinetic energy into heat by forcing fluid through a series of valves within the shock body. Provide control of unwanted suspension motions allowing the tires’ contact patches to better stay in contact with the road surface. Dampers can have a major affect on the vehicle ride quality and handling balance anytime the vehicle suspension is moving through its range of motion.
There are shock absorbers on the market designed for drivers looking for a sporty driving experience. These products focus on exceptional road-holding combined with an acceptable level of comfort. Its characteristics include responsive steering, reduced body-roll and limited body movements. They were designed around the original equipment springs and while they add a level of performance to the vehicle's suspension, additional performance can be obtained with a damper tuned specifically to match the characteristics of lowering springs. These dampers take advantage of increased spring rate and vehicle’s new lower center of gravity. The result is additional performance throughout the entire working range of the suspension.
Coilovers – The first thing that you need to do is modify your ride height. While many tuners prefer to lower their vehicle as much as possible, this is a cosmetic upgrade only and does not improve handling. Dropping your ride height can add benefits, but you will need to tweak it, in order to find the most comfortable (or stable) height. While lowering springs are cheaper, coilovers are the best way to do this. Coilover sets allow you to adjust your ride height once they are installed, unlike lowering springs, which have only a single setting.
A Coilovers is a device that replaces the damper and spring in a Macpherson strut suspension system. The spring, shock and bump stop are incorporated into one assembly with the spring encompassing the shock and bump stop. The name comes from “coil (spring) over strut”. There are a lot of aftermarket manufacturers coming up with different brands and types of coilovers. Coilovers are popular due to their adjustability. You can adjust the right height and in some cases you can also adjust the dampening thus produce superb handling. Each shock is tuned with a progressive rate spring that is engineered from its inception to work with the shock’s valving, creating a finely tuned suspension system. Coilovers are the suspension answer for everybody, from daily drivers to the serious tuner.
Most of the coilover brands use state-of-the art components and technology resulting in the best suspension product that you can buy for your vehicle. They provide awesome handling and ride comfort. Some are designed for track and sport events use, they provide supreme directional control, reducing of nose-diving under hard breaking and also reduction of unsprung weight. Reduced unsprung weight improves suspension articulation resulting in optimized performance and ride.
Stock Springs vs. Eibach Pro-Kit Springs
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