Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums Modifications Suspension Altering Your suspension?

We were having a discussion under a post in the Pics forum, just moving it to where it should be. Anyways:

We were talking about how with any spring/Strut combo your ride quality is decreased due to bounciness. I am just trying to understand why?

It seems to me you should be able to add lowering springs and keep your car from bouncing around. Isn't that what the struts are for.

Is it because your usable strut length is decreased so the dampening Coeff. is messed up. Is it something like that?

If so why doesn't someone make a strut made for the lowering springs?

I want to lower my car about 1-1.5" make my ride a bit stiffer, but not have the bounciness that I keep hearing about with the H&R-Eiback-GC/Koni combo.

Thanks

I am not going to get into suspension dynamics, because I dont know ****. I am just talking from experience. You are going to lose some ride quality when you switch to an aftermarket spring/strut combo. It is going to bouncy regardless not matter what you do. The question is to what degree.

Heheh, I know what your saying my post was useless huh??

Bat makes their springs to go with their struts and sells them as a kit.

Nah your telling from experience so, its about as valid and you can get. Just doesn't seem right, if they can make stock susp. systems which don't have the bounciness effect, why couldn't these companies created a little stiffer/lower riding suspension system which has no bounciness? I donno, wishfull thinking I guess.

Any pics of the BAT Kit. Would it be a performance increase?

My Eibach/Koni combo isn't bouncy at all.

It's a bit on the harsh side with the 17" wheels, but no bounciness. You'll get used to it.

John

I'm really not concerned with the stiffness, sort of the reason you go for an aftermarket setup, just don't want a Bouncy Suspension.

Thanks for your help JVT, Are H&R's any diff. than Eibach's other than the drop is reversed from F/R.

My set up is stock 95 SE springs (the stiffest available to the best of my knowledge) cut down 1 in. frt & 1/4 in. rr with adjustable Koni's. The struts take care of bounce by damping suspension oscillations. I've seen Eibachs and Roush springs and I can tell you defintively that they are softer than my SE springs. They're made as variable rate, so they're soft at initial compression and they stiffen up as they compress further. Linear rate are preferable IMHO. However, different manufacturers have differing ideas on what works best. Yes, I understnd the logic behind variable rate and when you lower more than 1 inch it's almost a necessity to utilize variable rate to maintain some semblence of ride quality. My ride is stiff, no bounce, with a slight positive rake (Koni's on full soft).

Here goes yet another writeup.

This car is NOT bouncy: Those wheels are 19's. The suspension is Bilstein PSS9. Heck, even my girlfriend thinks that this VW rides better than stock! With over 4000$CAN invested in suspension components, it does just everything perfectly.

My car does NOT ride better than stock, and it does NOT ride like my other modified cars used to. I think that the best aftermarket suspensions are developed and sold as matched sets of springs and struts, everything else is just "you and me" trying our best to assemble parts that cannot work perfectly together. BAT sells their kit with springs and shocks. So does Leda.

As popular as the Eibach / Koni setup is on the CEG, it was still not engineered as a package. It probably works great for most people. Just like the GC kit on any strut. It won't feel "just right" unless the shock travel as well as valving for bounce & rebound have been tuned with the exact spring characteristics in mind. Bilstein's PSS9 suspension uses progressive springs, matched to the dampers. The GC kit uses single-rate, linear springs. Those are usually race applications where ultimate performance is the goal. Using them on the street is going to be a compromise. I know race car drivers that even prefer progressive springs on the track to soak up creases and bumps instead of skipping across the surface because of too much initial "bite" in the suspension.

One cannot expect a dream setup without buying it as a "tuned" package. Unfortunately those usually come at a cost that some of us are not willing to pay! This is what makes a Ferarri handle so well, yet ride so good, it's suspension is developped as a package, not assembled from off-the-shelf parts.

I'll tell you this, if there was a kit for the SVT that let the car ride as good as stock and be dropped at the same time, I would save up the cash and drop the 4k on it. I'm trying to figure out if the Leda suspension is the answer but so far it looks as if it isn't.