67 Camaro Spring Rate for front Ridetech Coilover

[piratebaseball]

Hey guys,
I bought the complete coilover ridetech kit about 5 years ago for my build and just put the engine in the car recently. What springs are you running in yours? I have jacked the compression up since they are adjustable with their wrench but I'm still durn close to the tire rubbing the fender. I havn't had the car aligned yet so that may be the problem but just wanted to check what spring rates y'all are running. Looking up in the car, it looks like mine are 600 lb springs. Engine is a 5.3 aluminum darton sleeved block with a 4l80 trans. And I don't have the interior in the car yet either.

[dhutton]

650 or 700. You should do a rough camber alignment before worrying about fender rubbing. Makes a significant difference. -.5 degrees or so.

Don

[TheJDMan]

Rod and I just recently had this discussion and based on his recommendation/calculation I moved from a 600# spring to 800# up front and from 200# to 300# rear. I have only just driven on the street since the change over but I can tell you from experience that 600# is far to soft.

[Ryanater]

I ran 800# up front and 300# in the rear when I had the ridetech setup. That seemed to work well for autocross and was surprisingly tolerable on the street. I was always chasing a slight front end push on tight courses though.

Before I switched to 800# springs in the front, I had 600# springs on. The 800# springs seemed to perform better for my application/setup. My car weighs just over 3,400lbs.

[dhutton]

I have a theory that a lot of preload on the springs leads to a lousy ride on the street. The lower the spring rate the more preload you have to run and the ride suffers in my experience. Britt from ridetech doesn’t necessarily agree on this point but I also discussed it with Brett and he agreed that it can cause ride quality issues. At least that is what i took away from our discussion.

Don

[piratebaseball]

Thanks guys for your comments. Currently I have 600 on the front and 200 on the rear. I'll take your advice and get the front end aligned first to get it to quit rubbing and then I'll wait until I get the interior in before I considering changing spring rates. Actually driving the car would probably be preferred too before changing spring rates.

Don - I see your signature says LSA 6l90e AME sub/IRS... Wow... I'm going to save up before I start my next build and hopefully build something like that. I love Art Morrison stuff.

[marolf101x]

Something to think about. . .the threads on the shock body do not go all the way to the top of the shock. A lot of people freak out when they get close. Don't worry, it'll work just fine. You can crank it all the way to the end of the threads, it won't hurt anything.
If we ran the threads all the way to the top of the shock most people would just keep cranking the spring higher until they reached their desired ride height (regardless of if the shock is in the correct travel range for proper ride height or not).
The smooth area serves two purposes. . .1-we need a smooth area to seal the o-rings when the shock is used in a shockwave (air spring); 2-the threads are set so the spring will not coil bind before the shock is fully compressed. So you cannot add so much preload as to coil bind the spring.

There may be a little confusion on ride quality with lighter spring rates. So long as the spring rate is not so light that the car bottoms out, and/or so long as the spring does not reach coil bind, a lighter spring rate (within reason) will provide better ride quality than a much heavier spring rate. Additional preload does not change spring rate, it is only holding up the static weight of the vehicle. If it takes 600# to compress that spring 1", it will take 600# regardless if the spring is 8" tall or 4" tall.
If the spring rate is too light and the vehicle bottoms out all the time, or the preload is so dramatic that the spring reaches coil bind, either will certainly diminish ride quality.