Dual Rate Springs vs Linear Rate Springs

[Yanchik]

I was wondering if anyone had any experience with dual rate springs (specifically the ones by HyperCo). In theory it does sound very practical; having a single spring with both a soft and stiff spring rate for different road situations.
But does it perform as good as it sounds? Or am I better off with the conventional 550/150 linear rate springs?



Thank you and Happy Holidays!

[79T/Aman]

Variable springs have their place, my opinion on them is that for specific racing application they are fine as long as their characteristics are taken into account.
One of the things we try to do is take out variables because they are unknown this makes tuning more difficult especially with cars that have to deal with many different situations such as street, track autoX, drag, straight roads curvy back roads and so on.

Variable springs also need expensive shocks to control them.

[David Pozzi]

I think they have their place on a street car where you want it to sit low but still ride well. They have to be engineered pretty accurately for the car, - it's weight and motion ratios, so the soft coils bottom out at the right point and allow the stiff section to take over and prevent bottoming of the car. Most shocks won't be able to match the dual rate needs, so there will be compromise. But when ride is important, they fill a need & people seem to be happy with them. Shocks mainly control spring extension, or rebound, and shock rate is relative to spring rate. In a variable rate spring, you are probably going to match your shock setting to the lighter street rate for a good ride.