strano@stranoparts.com

I do sell both Koni and Ridetech. I currently own both, I've used both and I can disucss either/both with folks. The Ridetechs are newer, and not as proven over the long term, but they are very good about working with me and supporting the product. They just helped me with a little issue last week.

I can definitely feel a difference in compression with DA's that actually change compression. Years back I was trying to dial in a C5 with trick shocks. The compression was useless. I asked the guy what the shocks were valved like (I didn't sell them, and they were trick shocks). He didn't know. I told him he needed to find out and get some dyno's. He tried from the place he got them and was told to take a hike. We then pulled them off, and dynoed them, all 4... at every setting on both compression and rebound. And while I had some major issues with the rebound "curve", the compression was the real issue. There was essentially no change, which is what I was finding in turning the *****. Now, most shocks aren't that way, in fact most are the opposite way, where the changes are big... often way too big.

I'll finish with this thought. We've all seen the old Chevy Van with a wheel bouncing down the road.. that's a shock lacking compression. But how often do you see that considering how many cars are on the road and how clueless folks are? Not often. But you much more often see cars bounding and floating and rocking, and not taking a set... that's a lack of rebound. You can see, literally see how much more rebound does on almost any car any day.

Ramo7769

Awesome explanation. I looked at a few dyno plots and compared a lot of different solo pics of my car and I see your point about rebound damping. Great compression damping analogy too. I'm from Michigan. I get it. It explains the sensation I felt comparing my car to the BS car under braking better. I would have chased my tail adding front compression damping. Depending on how the pitch poles draw out, the driver could feel more motion from the rear end in braking and call it dive.... especially since the driver is sitting closer to the rear axle than the front.

Single adjustables fit the "budget" part of my build better too. On your website, the Ridetechs are similar in price to the Koni. A key difference I see between them is that the Konis are inverted. Are the adjustments on both accessible while installed on the car? Is there a substantial difference between them in terms of compression damping or range of adjustment in rebound? I picked up a set of polyurethane bushings for my Bilsteins and would probably reuse those, so the Konis not coming with any is not a big deal to me. Can you provide any recommendation or simply some pros or cons I might be missing by simply reading the description?

strano@stranoparts.com

Great, glad I could help!!! One of the perks of working with another racer for parts. And even better when the guy has a decent track record of making things work, I think.

As for details about the two shocks, that's really hard to explain in type. Best to talk about that in person. A lot of subjective stuff in terms of ride, etc. But can discuss adjustments, etc. But neither is what I'd call hard. The Ridtech you trade some hot location for ease... but if you have raceramps adjusting Koni's isn't hard especially if you use the rod-end I have made for the fronts (which also eliminates the bushing on the bottom).

Ramo7769

Sounds good. Will you be at the Toledo Match?

strano@stranoparts.com

One of the few I'll miss. Two days being my old A-Sedan Mustang on Shenandoah (like a big fast autocross, keeps you busy) for two days was just inviting this weekend.

Ramo7769

Ah, ok, there's always the next one. Wilmington Champ Tour perhaps. I won't be able to buy a set of shocks tomorrow, so it's not a huge deal for me. It might be more toward spring, but I'm planning on picking up a set of single adjustables from you at some point. I think what I'm going to do is push my power mods down the list yet again. Early spring I'll probably be installing some Borg Motorsports sourced delrin bushings and StranoParts sourced shocks. It's a little early to be looking forward to spring, but buying a first house will do that to me I suppose.

Thanks again for the advice and a great damping explanation.

strano@stranoparts.com

I carry Borg's stuff too. The thing to note is the Koni shocks are on sale for another month or so, and while not cheap, trust me they are cheaper than they normally are to the tune of about $300. The Ridetech stuff is not on sale, it's pretty good value to start with.

Ramo7769

I made good progress at the Toledo Match Tour. Running against a well prepped STI driven by Wampler and Martin Kriz, I split the driver and co-driver and sat in second place after the first heat with the run shown below at 63.0. Wampler was at 63.4, while Kriz ran a 62.6. I later dropped in heat 2 in wet conditions...



I didn't find more time Sunday. Struggled with overheating tires. My co-driver who has some nationals experience in several different cars though ran a killer time on Sunday. 62.2. Best time of STU for the weekend. It helped that the event paused for 20 minutes before his final runs to allow the tires to cool. But, still, it was a great drive and I can see where he is tighter on cones and makes a much better run through the slalom than I ever did. I think I have a lot of work to do on the mental aspect as well. Thinking about wanting to beat my co-driver never helps me beat my co-driver. But, I think getting fast people in the car will be beneficial in the long run.

Also, his celebration at the end is NSFW. lol


I'm optimistic about the car after this performance. Even nervous about the car getting booted from STU thinking of all the time the car can still pick up and the time I can pick up as a somewhat inexperienced autocrosser. Potential overdog. But, I hope more cars are added to the class rather than fast ones getting kicked out.

froggy47

Are you on a LEVELED set up area?

Ramo7769

Yeah, I found that more of the issue was having the bar mounted off to one side. I centered it a bit better and set the preload of the endlinks back to zero. Thanks, Froggy.

Ramo7769

I started looking for ways to get to nationals yesterday after being competitive at the Match tour over the weekend. My car is a bit underprepared for STU at the moment, but I have the desire to make a more serious run with her next year. So I figured the experience this year would still be beneficial. Plus, there are some Subarus registered, so I am confident that I wouldn't finish last. (Just joking vehicular trash talk)

Another good thing about having experienced autocrossers drive and love my car is that they seem open to buying tires. Initially I had written off running this year due to funds. But, a co-driver could make it possible for me now.

froggy47

I have found if the bar is properly mounted (so that it can move in the brackets with a slight resistance, that it will self center.

Ramo7769

Mine did not do this. And I greased the bushings and torqued the bracket bolts to spec. I can rotate it by hand while it's mounted, I found. But moving it laterally is a lot more difficult.

Ramo7769

Since Vette Brakes and Products has a decent exchange policy that aids testing, I'm considering changing my spring rates up again. For one thing, that would be upping the front spring rate to 1500 lb/in which Lane Borg ran first and designed some delrin adjusters to allow it to work at a wider range of ride heights. Prior to that, the car wouldn't go below stock ride height with the VB&P adjusters.

For the rear spring, I don't have concrete evidence, I believe the VBP design adds more roll stiffness relative to total stiffness in heave based on what's been tested by myself, Lugod, and Borg. So I'm considering running no sway bar in the rear and running a higher rate VB&P rear spring perhaps closer to 1000 lb/in.

I'd like to have a ride rate in the rear at least half of that of the front axle. Currently at 1200 front and 800 rear, the rear end still feels pretty floppy. The only thing at that point is that it's a lot easier to balance the car with swaybars than springs and being limited to adjustment of the front bar only will be a bit more difficult to deal with than turning either/both *****.

Another option is running a Hyperco spring in the rear and retaining more balance options with the rear sway bar, assuming my hypothesis about VBP rear springs adding more roll stiffness...

I don't think leafsprings perform any worse than coils, but it sure does muddy the waters when it comes to tuning...

strano@stranoparts.com

Feels floppy, but you have no shock control to speak of. Don't band-aid lack of rebound damping with more and more spring.

I will some other things. Look at any picture of even a stock car... they don't roll miles. So I ask are you feeling a lot of roll in terms of amount, or in terms of speed? I submit the roll rate is higher/quicker than you like. Which is why so many folks when they get shocks say something like "It doesn't roll anymore". Yep, it does, as much as it did before (excepting quick transitions where slower roll rate and the time between direction changes is just so short that is does actually roll less).

And frankly a rear spring costs half of some better shocks.

Ramo7769

Just to let you know where I'm at in terms of planning, shocks are at the top of my list still. I'd like to optimize the current setup before upping spring rates. I'm just getting more ideas and posting on them. I understand your point about making a car too stiff. I tend to like a compliant chassis myself. Out of the limited entrants in STU at the Match Tour, my car was the softest by far, yet still had the best time in it. But, Borg for example is running about as much front spring as will fit and it's still only 250 lb/in front wheel rate according to his measurements. And the ~800 lb/in quoted rear spring is at ~150 lb/in wheel rate.

By his measurements, the spring upgrade I'm talking about would be a front wheel rate of about 250 lb/in and a rear wheel rate of about 200 lb/in.

Even with the upgraded springs I speak of, I'm still confident that I'd have one of the most compliant setups in the ST field. It's my opinion that a lot of Corvettes C5+ are tuned to have high roll stiffness with contributions coming from both springs and swaybars, but due to relatively low spring rates in heave, seem to have huge pitching motion. In addition to damping that motion, I'd like to reduce the magnitude as well. That's my thinking at least.

strano@stranoparts.com

I get it, but I don't get it. I hate cars with those kind of springs, even on R-comps. To each his own. I know one other car at least is that has big springs but also shocks that have little to no low speed rebound force to speak of. I think that spring is being used to cover that relative lack of damping.

I dunno. All I do know is I was laughed at, hard, by many folks in my Camaro days in ESP because I was running 500 or 600 front, 150 rears (stock being 292/115 or so), where many others and all the west coasters were on 1200/300 or 400. I never lost an ESP National Championship in that car on two very different surfaces.

I drive my FRC around a lot, and my Z06 too. And I think about how little they truly roll, even the Z on Hoosier's. I get a little more front spring in addition to some front bar but think that the numbers you get on some of the springs do not square to reality and maybe things are not as stiff as you are led to believe.

But in the end, I don't much care. I look at the way the car loads the tire and if it's not all leaned to the mirror, and has good wear, but I want it more crisp I'm doing that with shock.

ltborg

Remember those rates are in ride only. In roll/warp, things might be very different, but I haven't been able to confirm yet. I also like stiffer and looser setups than most, so keep that in mind with your tuning. So far I think only two people that have codriven the car at an event have not spun it at some point...

Ramo7769

Great input as usual. I love the feedback. You're reminding me of another racing great, Randy Pobst. I vaguely remember hearing him say once, and I'm paraphrasing "I don't really care how the car is sprung as long as the damping is right" while testing the 5th gen Camaro 1LE vs. the new 2015 Mustang, complaining about the damping on the Mustang. Surely, the I found the ESP anecdote interesting. For what it's worth, a friend of mine is still running a catfish and I know his spring rates are 1300 up front with 200s in the rear. I see him lifting a front tire pretty often which doesn't surprise me in the least with that setup. Was that common with your setup?

Some of my experience is from tuning a Lemons Chevy S10 that needs to pass a bounce test for BS inspection. The car must bounce... if it doesn't, you cheated and are given penalty laps. So, you can be sure we were compensating for damping with springs there with front coils from a junk yard box truck cut down to size. But this is obviously apples and orangutans...

On the aftermarket leafsprings for the Corvette, you say you don't like them even on cars running R-comps, but go on to say that they are not as stiff as we are led to believe which is also totally true. So, they're really not that stiff. So, can you put your finger on what it is exactly that you don't like about them? I'm just thinking maybe you don't like the way the car is tuned aside from the spring perhaps?

I think I am tending to like my car on the loose side too, although I prefer some compliance. I like the current balance and don't currently want to mess with changing swaybars. And actually my co-driver went backwards over the weekend at the Match tour event. Good information though on your preference. I like the car to be as close to neutral as possible in the high speed sections of an autocross, say around 65 mph... so that it won't understeer so badly at 30 mph. I like adjustability of a compliant setup. For low speed corners, I feel that I can get the car turned in with the brakes quite effectively in a low speed corner where the car would surely plow at steady state... I wouldn't want to lose that. But, untrained feet can easily spin my car as it sits today. So I'd like to clean that up... and I'll start with dampers... decide if I want more spring or not. Maybe I won't even want to turn the wrenches once the dampers are well tuned...

What you say about the rates you tested being in ride and the potential for differences in roll is exactly why I want to test more springs. The hypothesis I will test is that VBP rear springs add more roll stiffness at an equal ride rate to a stock style spring with equal cross section throughout. I'm confident in this just from studying the application of the spring in these cars and what the cross sections look like. So, I'd like to see if the stock rear spring causes discernible push in my setup. And later perhaps swap to a Hyperco... especially if I find a used one. Then I can swap at the price of the time to turn the wrenches.

I'm getting a bit ahead of myself here. But I enjoy the discussion. Especially when 2 national champs chime in. Thanks

strano@stranoparts.com

My car never carried a front wheel (the Camaro) ever. 1300 is nuts IMHO. I know the car you speak of and it's well driven. And I know the prior owner is an engineer and all that jazz. I also know I won, more than once in my car against cars like that. And not only am I not 150 pounds (you've met me) but my car had both the stereo and A/C in it too.

In fact we weighed a certain black LS1 Camaro vs. mine in 2006. Between the drivers and the cars, I was racing a full 300 pounds heavier, with the softer springs, and won.

And BTW, winning then meant beating Madarash, Berry, Motonishi, etc.

As for the spring "rates". I think they are largely bogus, which someone (maybe Lane?) kind of pointed out because the method employed to figure them weren't the same. How do I come to such a conclusion? The same way I do my sway bars, with real world use and playing around to dial in. I don't much care what the claimed number is, just how it works. And I know that every, single, time I drive a car with those big springs, it's not "in" the ground to my liking. Maybe it's something else but for all the cars I drive the common factor is high rate springs when I get that happening (and not just on Corvettes).