So me and a few fellow racers have been discussing how too many people are running too soft of suspensions to be really competitive and stay at the top of their classes. I again recomend people read Jim Susko's book as I am running the softest spring rates he recomends for competitive use, and I wish I would've gone stiffer. Some say to run softer rates in the guise of streetability, some just because they havent driven anything different. Well this last weekend my girlfriend was able to spend some good time in my car with my newish suspension. Before I has Eibach prokit with KYB GR2 in front and KYB gas-a-just in rear. Now I run respeed coilovers and rear adjusters. Mazdatrix camber caster plates with 300 front and 200 rear springs. Tokico BZ1089 MR2 inserts in the front set on 5 and the same kyb gas-a-just in the rear.
Long story short. I asked her if she noticed any thing different and she couldn't feel any change in ride quality at all. She didn't even notice I changed anything until I told her, and after she knew she still couldn't tell. The key to running stiffer springs is to have properly valved shocks and struts. So, what have we learned today? Buy the right shocks and you can go stiff and fast with out pissing off your lady. That is all...
k-night

p.s. this car is my daily driver
Slammed_GSL daily drives his Fb with 450/300 or 400/275(i forget), and it's honestly not much stiffer than my car.

 

you might want to try the illuminas in the rear as well, it really works well. i was astonished. yes i know i'm running very soft rates. might upgrade sometime later...

 

That your girlfriend really isn't interested in all that "car" stuff?

 

TITLE IS MISLEADING....I WAS ABOUT TO VOLUNTEER MYSELF to test her suspension but...

 

lol!

you sir, are made of win.

On topic though, the slight added cushion of not running rubber bands for tires anymore actually made RoXanne score higher on the GF/Wife test than she did before. Still might change some things on the suspension anyway...

 

Yeah girlfriend suspension test could mean she had a big ole' booty.....plenty of cushion for the pushin'

 

omg >.<

 

Looks like your girl is not that interesting on this stuffs...

 

sounds just like my gf, she tells me to throw my rx7 away and buy a new bmw... wtf? i'm a college student making about $1000 a month

 

No, my girlfriend has been huge into Rx-7's and miatas since I took her to her forst AutoX. She noticed how much faster it was through some turns and noticed the change in how I could drive it, but she stated ride quality was just the same. FYI. gas-a-just's a re a momotube gas shcok dampened very hard. They're linking running the illiminas set on 3. The gas-a-justs have such strong rebound that they are known to lift the rear of the car and inch with stock sagging springs.

 

My girlfriend can definately tell the differences in the various suspension setups I've had. In both my GSLSE and my 96 Miata I went from the original blown setups to RB springs and Tokico blues for the SE and stock springs with Tokico Illuminas for the Miata.

RX-7 before: She hated this car, it's too bumpy and the rear slides a lot

RX-7 after: It's still too bumpy (blues are stiff without much dampening) but she loves it when I hit the gas or take corners fast

Miata before: She hates this car too, but the shocks were DEAD. Riding on the bumpstops sucks.

Miata after: She loves riding in the car now, it handles great and doesn't slide, hop, etc. Most of the time, she has no clue how fast I'm going. FWIW, Illuminas are 10X as good as Blues, I wish I had paid extra to put them on the 7.

 

i run my illuminas at 1 and 5... 1 when i have a passenger or if i'm around speedbumps and 5 when its just straight road.

 

The best way to use your girlfriend to check your suspension setup, in my humble opinion, is to ask her to wear a low-cut blouse and then watch her cleavage for 2nd-order harmonics.

Also, if she crosses her arms under them, the suspension's too stiff...

(I just put blues in the Z last weekend, to replace the exhausted factory struts. Gigantic improvement. Wife-testing this evening, heh)

 

Hahaha that was funny G! I'm going to try that this weekend.

 

Yeah Divin....if you tested half of the women out in the "909" where you live you might even get into 3rd and 4th order harmonics!!! You know the ones I am talking about!!! The ones that hang out at the burrito stand or at In and Out with their large FUPA's hanging out!!! (Fat Upper Pu$$y area)!!

 

Here is a place where you can get some suspension testers......enjoy!!!

http://fupahunter.blogspot.com/

 

1. if the car handles better but rides the same, thats good, yes?

2. we're making like 25lbs/in changes, thats less than the tolerance in the manufacturing of the spring! "Just like shocks you must test your springs, and do so regularly. The spec on a Hypercoil is 3%, and at stiffer rates, it is possible to try and add 50lbs of rate, but swap in a spring on the soft side of the spec for a spring on the stiff side of the spec, and effectively do nothing except fool yourself. TEST TEST TEST! Unlike shocks, no spring vendor is going to provide test results for individual springs, so you get to buy a spring tester. Tell Marty and Tom I said "Hi"."

http://farnorthracing.com/autocross_secrets5.html

3. for ride quality they actually measure it in amps, which is kind of a fancy way to say head movement. if your head moves around too much, you get driver fatigue

 

ugh, i wouldn't wanna have 'em in my car... it would suck to get them out~!!!

 

Struts in the Z were getting so bad that the drive into work in the mornings on the 'bad' part of the 91 freeway left me feeling like I had Shaken Baby Syndrome...

Worn struts combined with stiff springs = no bueno.

 

Glad to see you've found something you like Hyper.

We just got back from the tail of the dragon at 1 this morning. What a freaking blast that was! The car was handling so good that I never touched a thing on it, not even tire pressure. And she ran great all the way down and back too.

Orion and I got some pretty good footage of chasing each other through the twisties, and of a Skyline chasing me up the mountain and then me chasing him back down. Should be some good stuff in all that we shot. Watching the videos I can't believe how fast we were going, but at the time it seemed pretty casual.

 

Cool....get those videos up!!! We wanna see!

 

nice! its amazing what a simple FB will outrun/keep up with huh? my old -SE is an s2000 killer

 

That car is a go-kart. During the midnight run there were two cars in front of us, an Evo and the Skyline R32 GTR that took off pretty quick, then the rest of the group fell way behind. We weren't keeping up with the turbo AWD monsters, but we were walking away from everyone else. The RE-Speed parts and adjustable dampers blow my RB stuff and Tokico Blues away without trying. Kentetsu was easily going into and through most corners 10-15MPH faster than I would ever dream of doing in my car. In my videos you can even see the tire sidewalls flexing and moving as I went through corners. I bet with just a wheel upsize and tire change I could improve my handling exponentially.

My videos will be up as soon as I get around to properly saving them and then posting on youtube.

 

If you really want to be surprised, put heim joints on your car. I did this about 2 years ago, with 350 / 175 lb springs. It feels even softer than the Eibachs I had beforehand.

The rubber bushings in any suspension system actually work in parallel with the springs to increase the spring rate. If they're replaced with heim joints, it's like having softer springs.

Impact harshness is greater if I hit a pothole, for example, but the ride over "smoother" bumps is very good.

 

Car handles much better and drives much better. much more like driving a BMW instead of a Japanese tin can now.