hey guys bout to order GCs/koni yellows for my gs-r and just wondering a good spring rate for me? i want it to be a D/D and some what autoX nothing big. i was maybe thinking 450f/380r or 400r? let me know some opinions. my car is stock but planning on doin some suspension work andwanting to lower it maybe a noticable difference
ive got 440/340 and its pretty nice with the koni’s on max firm. its my daily driver as well. i highly suggest you get the gc extended top hats as well. at least for the front.
oh i am im getting the 2 front tops for now. im thinking 450f and 380r w/ 2top hats
thats going to be a nice setup. without the extended top hats you’d be riding the bump stops.in the rear tho its alright since theres a lot more ajustability.
well i think ill go with that setup then
You need the extended tophats for both ends of the car. I ran the extended tophats on the front only for a while on my autocross car and it developed pretty nasty oversteer problems. I think this was due to the fact that the front had good suspension travel, while the rear was running on bumpstops and had near infinite spring rates.
I run GC/Konis with GC top mounts on my car, 8K (~450lb) front 10K (~550lb) rear. On a daily driver car, I’d go for a max of 400lb front and 500lb rear. Running higher rear spring rates increases oversteer, and running higher front rates increases understeer. If it’s never going to see track time, rates of about 350F/R are sporty but still comfortable in my opinion. For comparison’s sake, the Type-R’s spring rates are ~270lb F/R. I daily drive my car with the 8/10 setup, but it’s a little annoying at times. I also have polyurethane bushings everywhere, and 16" wheels with 45 series tires, both of those contribute to the annoying factor.
As for Koni adjustments you’re only adjusting the rebound stiffness, not compression/rebound like most other shocks. Leave them both at about half stiffness and go from there. On my car, if I leave the rears too soft, the spring rates are too stiff and the car gets bouncy. I’m pretty much forced into leaving the rears 3/4 to full stiff, but the fronts I run anywhere from ~1/4 - 3/4 stiff.
ok thanks for the info. well why do some people want understeer and some oversteer? like some people get more in front and some get more in back (spring rate). i know because of the engine you wantmore up front right?
Understeer is when you turn the steering wheel and the car doesn’t turn as much as you’re expecting. The rear has more grip than the front.
Oversteer is when you turn the steering wheel, and the car turns way more than you’re expecting. The front has more grip than the rear.
Understeer is safer on the street by a long shot, you’re less likely to go off the road backwards because the rear has more grip than the front. I prefer a bit of oversteer on my autocross car, some people prefer a bit of understeer, a lot of people like a neutral car.
Generally:
More spring in the back=oversteer
more spring in the front=understeer
yea i knew the basics for all that but thanx alot maybe someone searching later will come across this info. well im ordering 450f 380r ill post pics when i get them on!
I’d order 400/400 if you’re considering ever autocrossing on a more than sporadic basis. If you get 400/400, you can always upgrade to a larger rear sway bar to get more oversteer out of the car, and if it’s too much oversteer you can mess with alignment values and shock settings to tone it down.
what about 450f 400 r?
It’s still going to have a tendency to understeer, even if you add a 22mm rear sway bar. If you get 400/400, it will feel very neutral with a 22mm rear sway bar, and it will understeer less than the 450/400 with or without the rear sway bar.
425f/400r its kinda close to what you said ^^^
Why do you want more spring in the front?
well i want to d/d this and not want it to be all wild in the back so i lose control while on the road. plus i was looking at a setup on here i saw with a gs-r http://www.g2ic.com/forums/showthread.php?t=168667&highlight=425f
i like that setup seems decent? maybe after i get use to a setup like this then ill go more extreme in the rear?
With 400/400, it will still have a tendency to understeer. You can coax it into oversteer, but it shouldn’t sneak up on you as long as you’re still using the stock rear sway bar. Upgrading the rear sway bar is effectively increasing the spring rate, but only when you’re cornering.
IMO:
400/400 stock rear sway = mild understeer
400/400 19mm Suspension Techniques = neutral
400/400 22mm Progress bar = mild oversteer
If you drive at the limits on a daily basis, then yeah you should be concerned with too much oversteer. My car is tough to drive at the limits, so I go maybe 7 tenths on the street, not close enough to the limits to hit oversteer. Also, it should be mentioned that I run -3* front -1.6* rear camber, so my alignment is set up to oversteer also. If you run ~-1.5* f/r camber, you’ll have WAY less oversteer.
so where did you find out about this 400f/400r thing? i havent seen alot of people running this setup? i was just trying to go with common setups but if your info is true i might just do that.
I’ve autocrossed for 4 years now on the same car with many different suspension setups. I’ve had HR sport springs, Skunk 2 coilovers, and now settled on GC coilovers with GC topmounts. I’ve had stock shocks, Tokico Illuminas, now settled on Koni shocks. I’ve had stock rear sway bar, ST rear sway bar and now settled on the Progress rear bar. I’ve had crappy strut bars, ogle bars, and c pillar bars. Ride height has varied from stock, -1.8", ~2", now I’m about -2.5-3". I’ve had front camber alignments from about 0 degrees of camber all the way to -3.2, rear has varied from about 0 to -2.
You can run whatever spring rates you want if you tell GC what you want when you order them. ~350lb springs make for a sporty ride on the street while still being comfortable (IMO). 450lbs is streetable, sacrificing a bit of ride quality. 550 is beginning to be a little much for street use, I drive on it everyday, it’s still streetable. 550lbs is about as much spring as stock Koni Yellows can handle, so anything more than 550 and you’ll need Konis made for huge rates. Once you get stiff shocks, you really start to sacrifice ride quality.
http://www.redshiftmotorsports.com/SearchResults.asp?Cat=12 if you’re looking to set up a honda for autocross, but don’t believe me.
i read that it helped alot. so what about 425f/ 450r or 400f/ 425r
i want it to be a D/D and some what autoX nothing big
400 is the max I’d ever go on a mainly DD car. Don’t go over 400 f/r if you want it to mainly be a daily driver. If you want to start autocrossing competively, a rear sway bar upgrade will be the best modification.