well i dont autocross. i did have some track time at limerock this yr. And as a result....i think my wife is number 2 in my life now. hahaha

My goal is simple: to upgrade the car in a cost effective way while still remaining streetable.
Well now that i upgraded to the konis with eibach progressive rate springs i dont feel i really gained anything besides a harsher ride. I think these springs are basically garbage on a track. I can tell you that i am amazed how much traction the car has but i never tracked it before the konis and eibachs. I think i need to go with the m2/gc conversion. Judging by most of the replies on this thread, its cheap and it seems i could really use the stiffer spring rate.

 

Yup... only other option is the high-rate (550/450) rate stock-replacement springs M2 sells... but i'd go w/ the conversion, so you can get the ride-height right where you like it!

 

can u adjust ride heigth with the shocks and springs on the car?

 

Yes, but you have to jack up the whole end of the car, i.e: both front wheels or both back wheels at a time, because if you just jack up one side, there still load on the springs.

 

...unless you disconnect one end of the sway bar too. But it's always easier to jack an entire end of the car.

 

Actually, what i did was bring the car down with the collars all the way up, measure how much further it needed to come down, put the whole car on stands, and adjusted the collars a little less than half the required distance for each wheel (i'd measured the travel of the shock shaft vs. the axle by installing a springless shock w/ a zip tie on the shaft, and jacking the suspension arm up, and measuring the distances.)... i forget the exact ratio, but this prevented the "trial and error" method and multiple jackings.

 

i actually leanred that lesson the hard way...i tried to install the koni shocks when only one side of the car was jacked..i pushed and pulled for two days in my garage. that was a disaster! the muscles in my arms and chest were sore for days. I think you guys were the guys that laughed and said to either jack the car up or remove the sway bar bolt...i was done in 20 minutes once i was empowered with that knowledge..lol

 

Mine was that the bottom of the shock wouldn't go into the a-arm. After about 30 mins of struggling that's when I closely studied it and realized all you gotta do is hammer the little sleeve in the a-arm back a little...

 

that got me too.

 

I used to run Tokico 5ways shocks with 550/450. Too harsh or too soft.

Switched to 450/300 with Koni yellows on full soft front and 1/4 turn from full soft on rears. Much more livable and I don't lose contact with the road.

If you live in DC try this road: take 14th street bridge, stay on the far right lane and hammer it as you're heading towards the 12th street tunnel. If your rear don't lose contact, your set up is good. With the 550/450 and Konis, my rear would lose contact as the road curves towards the right.

In fact, I think I should go 400/280 for streetability.

 

I run 450 ft and 350 rear with koni adj and love it........

 

What's with the fan things on the back? Between those and the skirts that nearly touch the ground I'm guessing that this is a "sucker" car that makes downforce with a vaccuum, isn't it?

 

Yep. First you have to understand that Jim Hall was one of the real pioneers in racecar aero. He developed the hub mounted wing along with the chin spoiler. After finding succes with those he developed the 2J. She was basically a v-8 powered ground pounder (as all Can-Am was) with an extra two stroke snow mobile motor in back driving two fans. The car was sealed to the ground with flexible skirts which were tied to bellcranks on the suspension. They say that when the sucker motor was fired up in the pits the car would lower 2 inches just sitting still. The competitors in the pits didn't know what it was, but they knew it was trouble The 2J only raced 3 times before being outlawed, and she never actually won though she dominated in qualifying. She broke in each race due to teething problems. Lotus and Brabham would both later build sucker cars in F1 that were quickly outlawed as well.

I love Jim Hall and his Chaparrals, there's plenty on the web to read if you want. I can point you towards a lot of books too.

 

That's really cool, never knew or imagined that technology usage!

Steve

 

Interesting...

 

I was involved in my school's FSAE team. (college design project sponsored by the big 3 automakers... build a ~500lbs open-wheel car with a 600cc bike motor)

I heard stores that one year a team (Cornell I think) showed up with one, destroyed EVERYONE, and then got sucker cars banned... ohwell. At least my team won the forced induction high HP award one year (and would have won the second year but we blew up our MAP sensor just before our dyno run)

 

Be careful not to go too soft in the rear. I tried some 8" long,, 2.5" diameter, 250 lb/in springs for a while and they would coil-bind sometimes. THUNK!

-Max

 

For rates that low, you might just as well get regular lowering springs... I think H&Rs are that high.

 

I have since switched to some 7" 350s. The 350s are better for me since they don't coil bind and are a better match for my 450 fronts. I just tried the 250s since that was all we could find laying around the shop in the middle of the night before an open track weekend. I have coil-overs, so I had to use some standard size springs. I agree that running stock-style springs is the way to go if you want to go that soft in the rear, though.

-Max

 

As I was stating........... I have tried different spring combinations on my 230k miles chassis FD and the 450 ft and 350 rear is the best oeverall.

 

Great info guys but I think this is apples and oranges. The Vette has years of development behind it while the RX-7 does not. Even the stock Japan only 2002 RX-7 is heads and shoulders above what we last had here(1995). We're talking 9 years of additional development. Stock vs. stock there's not much to compare unless we talk about a complete re-tool of every single suspension piece of the 3rd gen. Just my 2 cents..

 

Just a thought unless it was already mentioned. Maybe the 7's bushings are worn or cracked? After all, they are around ~10 years old and its natural with age for rubber bushings to start wearing, perhaps causing the harsh ride. The Z06 was first released as an '01 so its suspension is of course more tighter.

 

What does the rears not breaking loose on one particular corner in Washington DC prove as to the handling of the car? There's more to it than that...

 

That was NOT Cornell. It was Virginia Tech in 1989. I donated my Ninja 600 engine for the first year car in 1988. The car used a snowmobile CVT to transmit power between the engine and the fan. We knew it would be banned but the rules were wide open. Damn, I'm an old fart!

 

Ah, VT I stand corrected. FSAE was so much fun. What's what that screwy setup they require for turbo cars? (For those that aren't in the know, get this... if you want a turbocharger, you have to set up induction in the following order: Throttle, intake restrictor (can be combined) and THEN turbo. Every turbo car I've ever seen had the throttle after the turbo, not before. Very weird. We managed 85RWHP while breathing the motor through a single 20mm restrictor with that setup however.