ok, im just wondering if anybody has driven thier car with stiff spring rates over the winter, and driven in snow storms and all that crappy weather that comes that time of year. the reason i am asking is because i live in northern MN and i have to drive in the crap for a good 4 months, and im just wondering if the stiff spring rates of the omni powers (or similar) will cause me to lose control much easier in this type of weather. cause the last thing i wana do is crash up teg because it was so hard to control. and yea i really dont have the choice of not driving is some crappy conditions so i want a suspenion that will it even harder to live with these conditions. so anybody drive thier car in this type of weather with the omni power coilovers or really any other spring with stiff rates... and did u have any problems? should i be worried? thanks a lot! sorry for the long post...

 

i ran 10kg front and 12kg omnis on my accord in chicago...no problems here...got new shitty all seasons and didn't drive like an idiot...commute around 50 miles a day...you'll be fine if you drive normally (although i did get stuck in the snow once lol...i guess i thought my car was higher than it was)

 

sweet, thanks, yea i just go through some nasty crap and its stressful enough as is, and if it was worse, i would hate to see how white my knuckles would get....

 

It all depends on how easy you take it. The softer and more compliant you make your suspension, the easier it is to get grip in iffy traction situations. It's the same reason why racers will at least soften their sway bars and shocks when racing in the rain, if they can some will soften springs as well. Generally, softer and compliant is going to be better for getting the most mechanical grip than stiff and limited weight transfer. But again for street driving, if you are minding your Ps and Qs and not trying to be a pro-rally driver then you can probably deal with it.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by CRX Lee &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">It all depends on how easy you take it. The softer and more compliant you make your suspension, the easier it is to get grip in iffy traction situations. It's the same reason why racers will at least soften their sway bars and shocks when racing in the rain, if they can some will soften springs as well. Generally, softer and compliant is going to be better for getting the most mechanical grip than stiff and limited weight transfer. But again for street driving, if you are minding your Ps and Qs and not trying to be a pro-rally driver then you can probably deal with it.</TD></TR></TABLE>

hey lee this brings up a question i've been meaning to look into.

given the same car and all conditions except spring rates, will a softly sprung car give more grip than a stiffly sprung car? not taking transitions or anything fancy into consideration

so, given a 200ft radius circle, will the softly sprung car achieve a higher speed than the stiffly sprung car?

i personally don't see how this would make sense...since the load transfer on the softly sprung car will more weight on 2 of the tires instead of tryiing to distribute it to all 4....but this could have something to do with mechanical grip...which i don't exactly know what it is

 

I drove all winter on Ground Controls with 330F/250R spring rates, 14mm rear sway and Energy Suspension bushings (these suckers get HARD when its really cold) all winter with no trouble. It's actually quite fun because I could rotate the car at will with blips of the throttle (look ma, no hand-brake ) The only unpleasant part was the bouncy ride on my winter tires since their soft sidewalls would compress before the springs did over small bumps and no shock no matter how expensive can control the rebound on tires.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Jamez &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> It's actually quite fun because I could rotate the car at will with blips of the throttle (look ma, no hand-brake ) </TD></TR></TABLE>

and u consider that a good thing? that sounds like the problem if u ask me!

 

Shouldn't effect your ride at all. If you are on very bumpy roads sure but it would do the same if it wasn't snowing. Really depends on your tires. Narrower tires are better in snow and rain and also save on gas.