Mrsideways

When I measured the Shocks off the car the Stock perch is within 1mm via a tape measure of the Top Koni Perch, The lower perch looks to be about a 1/4 inch lower then that.

P.S. The rear end isn't unpredictable, It's very predictable, You turn the wheel It comes around. Simple.

GChambers

Without using the proper technical terms, I am going to explain to you what I have found with my car.
The rear of my car is not unpredictable by any means. It never has been. I hear some people complain about this supposed "snap oversteer" thing but I have never experienced it but, under hard cornering, I have had the rear end slide a bit for me. It has never been anything that a little countersteering would not control. When the car is properly and responsibly driven, this should never be a problem

The rear of the car is somewhat loose as compared with the front with stock suspension and stock alignment. You can change this with a slightly different alignment or by stiffening the front of the car.

As for the shocks, anytime you can control the tires and keep them planted to the road, you are going to have better handling. As my car would go over small, sharp bumps or rough road, the tires would lose contact with the road surface. The car would feel like it was skipping across the road. This is especially bad when you are cornering. As the tire reaches its limit and the car hits a bump, the tire loses contact with the ground and the car starts to slide. This can be very dangerous. With the Koni shocks, this is not the case. They do a much better job at controlling the wheel travel and keeping the tires in contact with the ground.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by NYS2K
If the above is indeed the case, it should mean that anything that can be done to limit rear suspension travel would reduce the “snap oversteer” issue. This, apparently, is what the race coilovers do with high spring rates (sometimes rear biased).

What is being said in this thread seems to be the opposite, as softer compression damping should allow for faster loading of the rear suspension and thus more oversteer, but this dosen't seem to be the case.

NYS2K

GChambers

Is your analysis of the Konis based only on driving with them on public roads? If so, should you not be posting on S2000 TALK? No offense.

Perry

PedalFaster

That's kind of harsh, and there's no need to yell -- GChambers is speaking to the original question ("How's the ride?"). I agree that it doesn't have anything to do with the track, but that's not his fault; it looks like this thread was initially posted to another forum, but was moved here by a moderator.

Steve

GChambers

[QUOTE]Originally posted by PedalFaster
That's kind of harsh, and there's no need to yell -- GChambers is speaking to the original question ("How's the ride?").

Gregg Lee

These things are not always intuitive. Get a suspension book and read up on shock (damper) rates. Carrol Smith's Tune to Win is one possibility.

Briefly, the softer compression rate allows the wheel to track over the bump - to let the spring do it's job. If the compression rate is too high, the bump launches the tire slightly off the surface, where of course it has no grip - if you are cornering, the rear move out.

I have seen "bump steer" comments also, but I don't think they know what it really is (toe changes as suspension travels up and down). I have checked my car and there is very little. People must think it means "handles bumps badly."

As to coilovers, the key is not the spring rate per se but that shock rates are well matched to spring rates. The problem is not with the stock spring rate, but that the shock rate is not matched to it. Springs and shocks are a functional unit - rates must be matched to each other (and to the sprung weight of the car and the unsprung weight of the suspension.)

Suspension isn't easy. Lots of elements, all interactive. It cannot be learned on a web site.

Gregg


[QUOTE]Originally posted by NYS2K

NYS2K

I've been corresponding with Koni on the questions of the S2K, spring rates and Yellows and here is the gist of it, from the horse's mouth:


[QUOTE]Perry,

After speaking with one of our ride development engineers who has spent a lot of time in the car, I found out that the

vroom

NYS2k - Thanks, now that was informative. I'm looking into getting Koni yellows for next years autocross season and that correspondece provided everything that I needed to know.

Great post Gregg, Carol Smith's stuff is really informative.