need info on uprated springs
Discussion
I am wanting to lower my V8S for track work. At the minute I have AVO shocks on with what I am told are standard springs but the car is very high even with the adjustable shocks at their lowest. Can anyone tell me what poundage the standard springs are on the front and back and has anyone put on heaver springs and what is the max poundage you could use. The car is only to be used on track. At the minute there is a lot of roll on the corners and I assume it is because the car is to high and standard springs.
Cheers
Cheers
Edited by rnd on Tuesday 4th July 20:21
Be wary of lowering it, by moving the roll axis you'll probably end up increasing the body roll rather than reducing it. It will also affect the roll induced camber changes, and depending how much stiffer you go on the springs you may find you need shorter dampers to stop the springs unloading in droop.
When you stiffen the springs you need to stiffen the dampers too of course, and the further you go the more important it is that you have really good quality dampers. My own experience with AVOs has not been encouraging, but maybe you'll get on better with them. If you have trouble getting an acceptable compromise between stiffness and ride quality, look for better dampers.
How do you find the handling with the standard suspension, what do you want to change?
When you stiffen the springs you need to stiffen the dampers too of course, and the further you go the more important it is that you have really good quality dampers. My own experience with AVOs has not been encouraging, but maybe you'll get on better with them. If you have trouble getting an acceptable compromise between stiffness and ride quality, look for better dampers.
How do you find the handling with the standard suspension, what do you want to change?
That was a lot of words well over my head. I am finding the car very roll happy compaired to my Chimaera on the corners on track and i thought if I stiffened the springs it would take a lot of that out. I was going to get the camber reset after doing the springs, is that what you ment. Are tha standard springs 10". Would the V8S rollbar not be the same as the s3. I find the AVO's to be quite good and they are quite new so I would not like to replace them. Have a look at the site www.reallymeansounds.com and go onto reports and look at "clubgti trackday" look at pic 59 and you will see what I mean.
rnd said:
That was a lot of words well over my head. I am finding the car very roll happy compaired to my Chimaera on the corners on track and i thought if I stiffened the springs it would take a lot of that out. I was going to get the camber reset after doing the springs, is that what you ment. Are tha standard springs 10". Would the V8S rollbar not be the same as the s3. I find the AVO's to be quite good and they are quite new so I would not like to replace them. Have a look at the site www.reallymeansounds.com and go onto reports and look at "clubgti trackday" look at pic 59 and you will see what I mean.
I believe that Avo's would normally run on 9" springs but if you run stronger springs it's normal to drop to an 8" to overcome the stiffer spring making the car sit higher.
I wouldn't go past 550/600 springs running on Avo's standard valving on the front and 400/450 on the back.
The V8S has a 22mm front roll bar as opposed to a 26mm on the S3
rnd said:
That was a lot of words well over my head. I am finding the car very roll happy compaired to my Chimaera on the corners on track and i thought if I stiffened the springs it would take a lot of that out. I was going to get the camber reset after doing the springs, is that what you ment. Are tha standard springs 10". Would the V8S rollbar not be the same as the s3. I find the AVO's to be quite good and they are quite new so I would not like to replace them. Have a look at the site www.reallymeansounds.com and go onto reports and look at "clubgti trackday" look at pic 59 and you will see what I mean.
Changing the ride height will throw the static geometry out, but that's correctable. But it also changes the way that the camber changes in bump and roll, and that isn't correctable without moving the suspension pickup points. I'd just say that lowering the car can change the handling characteristics dramatically, not necessarily for the better, and it's not something I'd recommend unless you have a solid understanding of the theory of car suspension and handling and know what you're doing.
Can't see your picture but I assume it shows the usual generous body roll in hard cornering. I had the same problem. Fitting solid drop links so the ARB is connected rigidly to the wheels helps, and increasing the road spring rates helps too of course. I'm running 600/400 now and I'd like to go further from the point of view of roll stiffness, but I think it's already losing too much grip through contac patch load variation and I don't want to stiffen the road springs any more. ARB upgrades will be the next step, when I get back to working on the handling. I repeat though, that as you stiffen up the springs and dampers you become more sensitive to the quality of the dampers. Get the best you can afford - it will be money well spent.
Oh, and also get in the habbit of checking the rear trailing arms and mounts for stress cracks, and keep a carefull eye on the state of the lower wishbones. Running stiff springs can cause trouble in these areas especially if you're using harsh dampers.
Do you think if I put on 500 at the front and 350 at the rear but did not drop the height to much (just slightly below standard)would it be ok. I am thinking of 8" springs,would the AVO's have enough adjustment. what do you think?. Does anybody know were to get a 26mm anti roll bar and I asume I would need to change the brackets but are the fixing points (holes etc) the same.
rnd said:
Do you think if I put on 500 at the front and 350 at the rear but did not drop the height to much (just slightly below standard)would it be ok. I am thinking of 8" springs,would the AVO's have enough adjustment. what do you think?. Does anybody know were to get a 26mm anti roll bar and I asume I would need to change the brackets but are the fixing points (holes etc) the same.
I can't remember exactly, but I think i was slightly harder than those rates when i had AVOS on my V8S .. was effing hard on the road though and I quickly changed them for custom nitrons because i felt i was doing the car serious harm. I'm now going to change them again for double adjusts.
Also as you get up to those rates you need shorter extended length .. otherwise as GreenV8 says you'll end up with the springs coming loose on full droop .. you can use light helper springs to combat this but it's a bit of a bodhe compared to getting the right dmper in the first place, and there's the rub i think .. you've got the wrong dampers for what you want to do with the car. I'm running something like 750f 600r now but it has it's own issues in chassis flex.
a 1 inch bar would come off a V6 S as Derek says .. contact one of the specialist TVR breakers .. only issue with the V8s is it's a bugger to change because of the proximity of the sump .. you'll probs have to raise the engine off it's mounts. Alternative is to run a second antiroll bar in addition to the one you already have.
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