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Re: rear Spring stiffness

To: "Henry A. Morrison" <dos_gusanos@email.msn.com>, Fot@autox.team.net
Subject: Re: rear Spring stiffness
From: "R. John Lye" <rjl6n@server1.mail.virginia.edu>
Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 17:10:54 -0400
At 03:08 PM 9/23/99 -0600, Henry A. Morrison wrote:
>Could this actually make my car handle worse than before?  Will I be 
>constantly be spinning out due to the increased rear spring stiffness?  
>(already a problem)

Hi Henry,
      Stiffening up the rear of the car without stiffening the front
as well will certainly affect the handling; it will add a lot of
oversteer.  You need to think of the suspension as a system, and you
need to maintain a balance front to rear and side to side.  In this
case, to get back to a good handling car, you basically have two
choices: 1. stiffen the front springs even more (but you say that they
are already very stiff) or 2. use a thicker front sway bar (or a smaller
rear sway bar, if you've got one installed).  Given what you say above,
I'd guess that a thicker front bar is probably the better choice for 
your car.  You may want to stiffen up the shocks to handle the stiffer
springs to maintain reasonable damping rates.

Hope that helps,

John Lye

'59 TR-3A, '62 TR-4, '70 GT-6+
email: rjl6n@virginia.edu
homepage:  http://avery.med.virginia.edu/~rjl6n/homepage.htm

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