supergoat

So I have had troble with the car bogging when the rear squats. As well as bad wheel hop on almost any kind of wheel-spin inducing take off. So just to test it, I went out and bought some of these blocks you can put in the springs to "help" old, sagging springs. I had my doubts but other people have had good things to say about them so I said what the hell.

Well, my car rides MUCH better. Now on fast take offs there is no rear end drop or bogging at all. I used to not be able to to just rev to 2k and drop the clutch because the rear would squat badly and my car would bog. Now it just shoots "off the line" very quickly. It makes merging into traffic via a left hand turn much easier. And hard take offs produce no wheel hop now. I can spin my back tires easily and smoothly. Not that I spin my tires a lot, but when the tracks open back up I want to be able to launch and not break something due to wheel hop.

Hopefully I'll have my rear springs replaced by then.

peejay

lowering is bad, mmkay?

when the car sits low, the geometry of the rear suspension changes drastically. The rear control arms angle upwards (from front to back), which means that when you accelerate and the wheels try to go forward, the control arms act like a lever and it actually pulls the suspension up, causing the car's back end to go down. That's why the back end droops so much when you accelerate. It's even worse when you try to launch - it levers the suspension so hard that the back tires come off the ground. No traction when the tires are off the ground, so the suspension slams back down again. That causes the tires to hit so hard that it levers the suspension up... etc. Wheel hop city.

That's why Mazda designed the electronic struts on the GXL models to go full-stiff when you accelerate. Trying to prevent wheel hop and scary suspension motion.

(The fix, of course, is to go to a solid rear axle with a nice 4-link )