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Old 05-13-2014, 06:29 PM   #160 (permalink)
wstar
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Location: Houston, TX
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As long as you guys are way off track talking about spring rates like you know something (and I don't!). Not trying to hyper-optimize, but give me a general ballpark answer here...

On my 370, I'm currently running JRZ's low-end dampers with some fairly soft springs that were packaged with them at 650 and 500. It doesn't feel as stiff as it could, but with these dampers it's not that bad. I've got Hotchkis swaybars on (the front is among the thickest commercial ones available), with their rear set to full-soft. I've done a lot of experimenting with that rear sway setting over the past year and I know it's still too much rear sway. The only time I've ever had success with the car feeling better with a stiffer rear setting was when I was suffering from a lack of front camber and I was stiffening up the rear sway as a bandaid, trying to force the rear to lose traction as fast as the front to balance out the car and prevent understeer. I'm on RS3 tires currently and the setup works ok, I can drive it.

I think what I'd like to do, even on the current tires, is dump the rear swaybar, and then maybe up the rear spring rate to compensate a bit. It could probably use more spring rate all around in general on top of that. Then there's the fact that I'm going to start experimenting with switching from my RS3 to some real slicks a few months down the road, and I've heard you generally up spring rates with that change as well (although on the flipside, I don't want them so hard that I can't get traction in the wet with rain tires either).

So... from the 650/500 setup I'm on now, any thoughts on (a) what numbers to move those to now, on the RS3's, while killing the rear sway and gaining some overall springrate, and (b) would your answer be different moving up to slicks (and I guess (c) is it possible to have a spring setup that's good for slicks and wets without swapping springs?).
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