Currently I have an naturally aspirated H22A hatch (soon to be turbo H22 hatch) GC coilovers with 400F and 350 R spring rates. I have the car about 1.5" drop or so. With the low oil pan, and my low traction bars I do scrape sometimes. Personally I feel these springs are too soft. Especially in the rear. I cannot get the car to over steer at all unless I have the rear Koni yellows turned all the way to the top and the rear tires at 45 PSI and I do a very violent off throttle transition around corners. It handles pretty well but I am looking for more. My goals are:
-better handling (even though it does handle quite well)
-keep the traction bars and oil pan off the ground
-balance the handling out
-run a bit stiffer spring in the rear for better traction in the straight line
-trying not to get the car with an unstreatable suspension.

I was thinking about 450-500 pound springs. Thinking like 475F 500R. What do u all think? Also what spring rates are 10KG springs? cuz I have a friend who has the Skunk2 (Prelude spring rates) in his H22A hatch and I dont think it was all that rough riding.

Please feel free to make suggestions.

 

10K Springs are "roughly" 550lb springs.

If this is a daily driven/street vehicle, I wouldn't run more then 400-450 on the stock valved Koni's. If you want more oversteer try a 400/450 set-up, bigger rear sway? What are you alignment settings?

As far as scraping your oil pan and traction bars, raise your car. Stiffer spring rates aren't going to cure that.

 

i meant it scrapes when I hit bumps and the suspension compresses. As far as running 400 pound springs in the front I feel they are too soft for me. I can deal with a bit harder spring rate on the street. But thats me. My negative camber right now is seriously crazy in the rear. I forgot to mention that. Also I am running suspension techniques front sway bar and rear sway system with lower strut bar. Thanks.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Mr Milano &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">As far as scraping your oil pan and traction bars, raise your car. Stiffer spring rates aren't going to cure that.</TD></TR></TABLE>

 

Handling is also about alignment. Do you know your alignment settings? Have you gotten your car corner weighted? (not 100% necessary but makes a difference). Instead of just coming to the conclusion that you need different springs, I would at first:

1. Raise your car a 1/2" or more, so you are not scraping the oil pan and traction bars.
2. Get an alignment (1/16" total toe out up front, zero in rear, 2.5 neg camb front, 1.5 neg camb rear... these are just ball park figures, please adjust to your liking for more or less oversteer, etc.)
3. Drive you car with the new alignment and height settings. If you still are having issues and want more oversteer then think about:
A. Maybe an increase in rear roll bar or decrease in front bar
B. Maybe an increase in rear toe-out (edited)
C. Maybe an increase in rear spring rate

Remember for autocross, a super stiff setting will actually make you slower. Track driving is a different story and even though you don't want a loose car before you know how to handle it.

I hope this helps.



Modified by davidnyc at 10:53 AM 8/20/2004

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by davidnyc &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
B. Maybe an increase in rear toe-in
</TD></TR></TABLE>

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Greyout &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

</TD></TR></TABLE>

Whoops you are right... toe out.. my mistake

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by davidnyc &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

Whoops you are right... toe out.. my mistake </TD></TR></TABLE>

Says who??? I ran 1/16" toe in on my old car. Whatever works I guess.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Mr Milano &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

Says who??? I ran 1/16" toe in on my old car. Whatever works I guess.</TD></TR></TABLE>

I heard that toe out should give more oversteer. I run zero myself.

 

is it me or are they just far too many "setup my car" threads anymore? don't get me wrong, setting up your car is a great thing, but a web forum cannot do it for you. each and every person drives differently, no prescribed method of setting up a car can be the fastest for everyone.

nothing personal against the originator of this thread, just a general trend i've noticed.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by MichaelJComputer &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">is it me or are they just far too many "setup my car" threads anymore? don't get me wrong, setting up your car is a great thing, but a web forum cannot do it for you. each and every person drives differently, no prescribed method of setting up a car can be the fastest for everyone.

nothing personal against the originator of this thread, just a general trend i've noticed.</TD></TR></TABLE>

I understand what u are saying. I just wanted some personal opinions here. I know my car is pretty close to where I want it, but I am a perfectionist. So thats why I am asking.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by davidnyc &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Handling is also about alignment. Do you know your alignment settings? Have you gotten your car corner weighted? (not 100% necessary but makes a difference). Instead of just coming to the conclusion that you need different springs, I would at first:

1. Raise your car a 1/2" or more, so you are not scraping the oil pan and traction bars.
2. Get an alignment (1/16" total toe out up front, zero in rear, 2.5 neg camb front, 1.5 neg camb rear... these are just ball park figures, please adjust to your liking for more or less oversteer, etc.)
3. Drive you car with the new alignment and height settings. If you still are having issues and want more oversteer then think about:
A. Maybe an increase in rear roll bar or decrease in front bar
B. Maybe an increase in rear toe-out (edited)
C. Maybe an increase in rear spring rate

Remember for autocross, a super stiff setting will actually make you slower. Track driving is a different story and even though you don't want a loose car before you know how to handle it.

I hope this helps.</TD></TR></TABLE>

thanks man. As far as alignment settings go well I am not sure. I know I have alot more camber in the rear of the car than I do in the front. That I do know for sure. This car is a street car, and I dont have any plans to autocross it right now, I just want everything perfect. As far as corner weighting it has not been done yet. It will be dont shortly.


As far as saying that stiffer spring rates dont make a difference when keeping the oil pan and traction bars off the ground, well I tend to disagree a little bit. I have a friend that has 10K springs (550 pound spring rates according to this post) in F and 8K springs in the rear of his H22 hatch running on KYB AGX's (yes I know its too high a spring rate for KYB's but it works well for the time being). His car is lower than mine and usually can handle bumps and imperfections in the road better than mine can when it comes to scraping. Everyone seems to say that anything over 400 pound springs for the street is not really streetable. Well I didnt think the 10K and 8K springs were too bad on these rough UK roads. Just my thoughts though. Thanks everyone for their input. Anyone else want to add?

Modified by Honda_Tengoku at 11:51 AM 8/20/2004


Modified by Honda_Tengoku at 11:52 AM 8/20/2004

 

"streetable" is a very subjective term... I run 500F and 400R and think it's pretty streetable I'm looking to go up to 600F and 500R and suspect that it'll still be fine on most roads.

IMO, the best way to fixing the scraping issue is by raising the ride height some... if that doesn't fix it, then go with stiffer springs in conjunction with the raised height.

As always, my $0.02

Christian