I was looking at your site for front tube arms and coil overs and semi coil overs.

You offer 350/450 lbs semi coil over dual adjust QA-1's My question is have you ever installed them on a car and tested them? I have called QA-1 and I can never get a good answer out of them as to why only light too long springs are offered

 

 

I had them on my car for about a year and a half before going to true coilovers. QA1 also has 550# springs I believe. They tend to generalize on their shocks and springs from what I have found. The same kit offered for the vette is also offered for other GM vehicles and they base everything off of the cars weight. I personnaly do not like the semi-coilover kits and the main reason if because of the springs. Matter of fact on all of our coilover stuff we have replace QA1 springs with Hyperco springs. They are more consistant in their rates. We are talking about pulling the semi-coilovers in 09'.

If your after the bigger spring rates, you can use the lower coilover arms with coilovers and than go big on the spring rate. I don't have the book in front of me now but I think we can put you in the 700# range. We may be able to bigger if you want with a little bit of mods to the lower a-arm and a different shock.

 

Spring rates for the kit we sell are 700#'s, 800#'s, 900#'s or 1000#'s.

 

My neighbor could use a pair of those for his wifes bathroom scale.

 

gkull, looks like this could be your answer to getting that 700# rate I've been wishing you to try out up front, as I still haven't found those std. type 700# coils I thought I'd seen. May have been dreaming...

 

700's are nothin. I had a guy running 1100# springs up front in a 69. He is an excellent driver though. Car is retired now as he is in a C5.

 

I've heard about a few guys being on 1K+ springs, and have had 860's on my BB SA (street) for ages. Given gkull's shark is a SB which sees both road and track, I've surmised moving up to ~700 ought to be a good step (once balance is re-established); something I'm anxious to hear proves itself out should he follow thru. Gosh, I like spending other peoples money.

 

My local road racing track is kind of rough. I had to crank in height to get the so called big block 450# semi coil overs to not let the body hit the front tires. I finished out the last two races of the year on cut down about one inch 550# which are the biggest offered by QA-1. They still hit down when pushed hard, but wasn't worried about trying to make them work

I'm trying to figure out where to put my money over the winter. I'm really thinking about the coil over kit and I would start with 700# and use shocks to control the front end. You can stop allot of front end compression just turning up the dual adjust to 18-20 on the compression side

Some of these older racing BBC Vettes tell me that they are running 1000# and smaller front tires than I have. Well I go and smoke them every race so they are either bad drivers or they just are not willing to try different things. I think that it is good to end up with a couple of inches of front wheel movement. Putting a 1000# spring and just a one inch sway and those old Vettes probably are not even getting an inch of movement.

 

You've hit on the key point, that of not getting stuck on one way of doing things. As long as you're open to the scientific method of testing different ideas and paying honest attention to the results you'll keep finding improvements, even if that means you misstep on occasion and have to retreat back to the drawing board.


BTW, those guys who still have huge sway bars with their very stiff springs have forgotten a basic concept of vehicle dynamics; that of needing less bar to adequately control roll when more spring is used, which facilitates a reduction of lateral weight transfer. Besides, as much as I like heavy spring rates, there is such a thing as being to stiffly sprung for a given surface.

Many believe that the goal is completely flat attitude under cornering loads, and they unwittingly go overboard trying to achieve that at the expense of cornering capacity. No, the goal of roll control is to maintain/manage suspension geometry within practical limits so that its movement in travel doesn't too significantly compromise grip. But, there is a crossover point where roll control beyond that required itself becomes a first order factor in compromising grip. That is why my philosophy is to run as stiffly sprung as conditions allow, subsequently using only the least amount of bar necessary to tame roll and, lastly, as a secondary fine tuning tool only in as much as such a crutch is required, rather than considering bar(s) as a primary component dictating everything else (which is IMHO working backwards).


edit - More bump is only slowing down travel so that there's not enough time for the front to compress down as far, but it's also speeding up weight transfer... something else you'll be free to dial back out with more spring.