Compressed vs lowering springs V7

[STiGNE]

Im wanting to lower my V7 sti but dont want to lose much in the handling side of things! i know coilovers would be best but other than them.

Has anyone had there sti springs compressed and noticed much differnece in the handleing?

and what would have better handling the compressed springs or lowering springs?

If compressed springs still have beter handling does any one know a good place to get standard Sti springs compressed on Christchurch

[Marky]

Chamberlains do it don\'t they?

Sandyford st in sydenham, across the road from the muffler place between durham and colombo

[STiGNE]

Yea they do it for $200 but is there any change in handling after being compressed

[Guest]

Used to use chamberlains no problems there. Any difference in ride height will change handling theres a good write up on fortyone.

This:

[font=]Welcome to an overview of consumer-level suspension setups!

I believe it\'s a an uphill struggle to want to lower your car in order to achieve a nice slammed look but overlook the other crucial aspects needed to maintain proper functionality. It\'s also surprisingly unsafe! When you intend to slam your car, you\'re setting yourself up for a load of trouble if you don\'t address the related components of the suspension system.

It can therefore be quite costly once you start down this path to correctly set up your car - excluding any installation and certification costs - if you don\'t sort it out from the start!

In the first instance, lowering your car generally always requires camber correction. As you lower your car, the wheel pivots up like a draw-bridge, lifting the tyre up from the road on the outside and towards the road on the inside. This creates excessive wear on the inner tyre, resulting in bi-monthly bills to replace quickly worn wheels. Not to mention the reduction in contact patch area with the ground resulting in poor grip levels (safety!) and the excessive amount of sheer load being placed on the hub and nuts!

So when you lower your car, you should always factor in camber correction. But it doesn\'t stop there. Quite often when you lower your car, your suspension geometry and the items that rely on this (stabalizers especially) become misaligned. By misaligned I mean this - a car\'s springs, height, stabalizer size and strength, roll center, camber, toe, caster and so on are all relatively tuned from the factory to be fairly neutral but fundamentally inline. Lowering your car alters the forces and dynamics placed on all these factors.

Example - when you lower your car your roll center changes. Your lower and upper arms usually end up pointing towards a different location than factory (lower down) - shifting your roll center. Why is this bad? In short, a roll center that is not near the center of gravity of the car creates more body roll. Think of it like this - picture yourself standing still, arms at side, and having someone press on your hands to tip you over. You\'re pretty stable. Now, extend your arms out at shoulder height - it doesn\'t take much to tip you. (A good Engrish translation from our buddies at J\'s Racing can be seen here)

Roll Center adjusters are not terribly expensive - click for options. They address the roll center issue and often take care of some camber issues as well. They drop the lower arm down by increasing the height of the knuckle, which brings up the roll center. They come in cylinder form (EK / EG / DC2 etc), knuckle form (S2000, DC5, EP3, Drift cars) and plate form (L2 / S2 camber joints) which space out the lower arm mount, bottom of hub. Related to this is caster and toe which are often affected by altering your suspension. For some cars, caster and toe correction is also available.

Next up is the poor old stabalizer. As your firm up your springs and dampers, the next weakest part of the system begins to take up the transfer of load from these components. The result is fairly low suspension travel when cornering but some pretty horrible body roll. To correct this an uprated (note: we didn\'t say thicker!) stabaliser should be considered. Uprated can mean thicker or it can be constructed differently (hollow vs non-hollow, different routing, different mounting, etc).

Strut bars are another area where handling performance can be attained - the same with cages of course. Along with lower arm bars, they help to share the load across the chassis resulting in nice linear handling. Click the link at the start of the paragraph for an intro to them!

The last area we\'ll touch on is unsprung weight. I\'ve done a quick overview on this before but if you really want the best performance from your suspension set up, then removing excess unsprung weight is the way to go. This includes considering not only camber correction kits, but lightweight camber kits. It includes lightweight control arms, brake kits, rotors and wheels - as well as tyres - which can weigh as much as the wheel itself. Whilst these are not necessary components for correct suspension geometry, they will certainly complete a potent suspension set up resulting in far better performance than simply slamming your car.

Options and Prices

From Fortyone Automotive there are numerous options, not just for Hondas. Here\'s an overview:

Suspension

We generally recommend coilover kits over everything else - springs and sleeves. This is because when you lower your car on springs you often place more load onto shortened OEM shocks, often resulting in premature wear and collapse. This costs more in the long run than going with a good set of coilovers. Springs are also designed for a fixed chassis weight - as you lighten or increase the weight of your car, you will find that the spring rates no longer fit your requirements. Damper adjustable coilovers can go a long way to provide a large window for you to operate in.

Prices start around $1000 and go up from there depending on specifications.

Camber Correction

Rear camber kits are commonplace and quite cheap - from about $130 up to $1000 (eek!) depending on features (sealed, helm / rose jointed, weight, material, construction method, camber range). For street cars, nearly any kit will do. For rarer Honda\'s, shim kits are sometimes the way to go as custom hand-made camber arms are very expensive and mostly unjustifiable.

For the front, traditional upper C-Arms are the popular solution, ranging from $200 upwards. Front and rear arms normally provide 5 degrees +/- camber correction whilst some hand-made options out of Japan can offer more (up to 15 degrees for some cars) but do cost more.

Don\'t forget to consider weight and strength. We would recommend hand made tubular arms for race cars over plate-pressed arms any day!

Where applicable, camber top plates on coilovers kill two birds with one stone - you often do not need front camber solutions as a result.

Stabalizers

There are differences between bars - not all bars are the same. And thicker isn\'t necessarily better! There\'s many options from various brands - from solid bars to hollow bars, bars of different shapes, custom set ups and so on. You are looking at $200 upwards for upgraded bars, to over $500 for the most rigid options with endlinks.

Unsprung weight

Perhaps too big a topic to cover options for so I\'ll just cover what is typically done. It\'s no surprise when you come to replacing your suspension that bushes and arms often look very worn. They are in exposed, high-abuse locations and many decide to change the arms out at the same time. Lower Control Arms range in price from $200 upwards and the more expensive they are (generally) the lighter they are and the more superior the material. Like most things car-wise, the lighter the more expensive!

Summary

In summary there are numerous things to consider when upgrading your suspension. You can certainly get away with just lowering your car on springs or coilovers but the resulting issues can be costly - and if you are going to pay such issues wouldn\'t you rather correct them from the start and have no issues down the road?

Street set ups can "get away with" very cost-efficient options. If you are tracking your car we will always recommend stronger options which do cost more but once again in the long run it simply makes sense, as you don\'t want to be replacing anything because of failure!

Suspension is a high-stress area and therefore your primary concern should be to do it once and do it right. Otherwise - like anything where short-cuts are taken - you\'ll be doing it again in the future which can cost more.

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[Marky]

haha - that write up doesn\'t mention compressed springs tho

In my experience compressed springs are just the bastard cousin of cut springs - it gets lower, but you don\'t get any real change in spring rate. Net result being lower looking car more prone to bottoming out than one which had purpose-built springs.

To be fair you can pick up second hand lowered springs for cheaper than that if you keep an eye out, half the time already fitted to shocks so you can just onsell your STi struts to some bloke in an old legacy

[Guest]

Doesnt it make it ride bumpier as instead of being progressive its allready partly progressed if you know what I mean?

[STiGNE]

Thanks to both all that is helpful!

I love the handing that the Sti has, and I am only want to go down 30-40mm

I\'ve been told if compressing them is done correctly there is no change in response and handling, I didn\'t ask chamberlains when I was talking to them but if this was correct then I would probably compress them!

Can either or any of you support that ha!

Chur!!