What to look for and WHY: Coilovers

Jordo!

Nissan tuned all the 370Z motor the same way. They don't give you a blank ECU. Its all copying based on an empirically validated model. The end user can then fine tune to the best of his or her ability.

The other option is massive amounts of datalogging -- which is ideal -- but impractical for someone who hasn't got the resources.

Consider the simple principles in chassis stiffening -- you can make educated guesses on a set up by knowing whether bracing one region over another is likely to induce more over or understeer.

For things like shock valving and spring rates, it's more complicated, but modeling your car after one that is highly similar (i.e. same make, model, weight, tires, power/torque, etc) is better than starting from scratch or choosing items with many, many options of adjustment where the end user will either have no idea or no time to work it all out for their unique situation.

How do you decide on tires? You look up what the hotshoes are running on GRM and decide if that will work for you, given price and typical road conditions. Same for alignment, and so on.

What's wrong with copying? It just can't be done blindly. Each person has only so much time to embark on a "project car" journey, and having done many such projects, I can tell you pioneering stuff is exciting, but not for everyone. Copying a good working model is more likely to work than traversing a steep learning curve aimed at preparing a singularly unique car for track use that will mostly serve as a DD (see further threads on my problem with those who over-cool their oil...).

I am not suggesting someone blindly shell out for and set their car for track conditions if its primary use is the road -- brakes that don't work well when cold and tires that can't handle wet are no good, but you can still copy more modest set-ups that will map onto a spirited DD with a modicum of research.

The whole point of sharing knowledge is to not waste time reinventing the wheel. You can adjust as needed from the established model or scrap it entirely if you have a good reason, but typically, the average end-user won't.

Someone who buys expensive highly adjustable parts who can't adjust them is probably as likely to ruin their handling as improve it. Not everyone has the time, resources or background knowledge to innovate -- and often that will be based on an existing design anyway, not one specially developed for their unique personal car.

This is the same concept behind sharing dyno tests for various bolt on mods and so on. It's so someone can copy that on his or her own car without starting entirely from scratch.

I'm more put off by people putting parts on their car or setting things based on name recognition without any data to go on. Show me the data, and I'll buy it if I can afford it, otherwise, I'm skeptical (see my verrrrrrry detailed commentary on this stuff regarding tuning in the Proven Power Dyno Thread).

I like sharing data and am happy if something found to work well can be copied. We're not all competing with each other in F1 or rally cross, right?

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