Roll stiffness is a way of describing how much the car rolls for a given lateral force, simply speaking. Anti-roll bars increase the roll stiffness of an axle. If, by lowering the car and not increasing the spring rate, you reduce the roll stiffness of the front and/or rear of the car, the balance and responsiveness will change in the same way as if the anti-roll bars were removed. This is generally bad for responsiveness.
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How to get tighter handling like my friend's BMW 3-series?
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Roll stiffness is a way of describing how much the car rolls for a given lateral force, simply speaking. Anti-roll bars increase the roll stiffness of an axle. If, by lowering the car and not increasing the spring rate, you reduce the roll stiffness of the front and/or rear of the car, the balance and responsiveness will change in the same way as if the anti-roll bars were removed. This is generally bad for responsiveness.
Arkaign
Lifer
Great points. This is why it's really important to have several pieces of information before doing something like this.
(1)- What's a configuration that's proven to work on this model down to each final detail?
(2)- Who has it in this exact setup so I can test it before investing.
(3)- What will be the operational costs and life expectancy before needing suspension service in the future? Stiffer/lower setups by their very nature are more prone to wear in most cases.
(4)- Is it worth it?
soccerballtux
Lifer
1. rice.
2. brown rice.
3. ricing is cheap.
4. why not? you get a bro-ploma and license to use "bro" and "brah" everywhere you see fit.
lights under car to come.
2. brown rice.
3. ricing is cheap.
4. why not? you get a bro-ploma and license to use "bro" and "brah" everywhere you see fit.
lights under car to come.
soccerballtux
Lifer
Is KJBMotorsports legit? I ordered from them Monday night, haven't received a tracking number, called them and it goes straight to voicemail. I was hoping to get them by Friday, the springs are going to be here tomorrow...🙁
soccerballtux
Lifer
Cause some dude linked them for the shocks 🙂
alkemyst
No Lifer
could you please butt out if you have nothing to add. It's getting old.
alkemyst
No Lifer
No, that's not how you presented it. Also if you were to take those 911's and make that inner tire stick, you'd be introducing worse performance.
Lengthy discussions with someone that races doesn't mean crap. Most drivers have no idea on what makes a difference. Tons of NASCAR guys have no clue what to do....they don't need too.
Back to lowering cars, the main issue is lowering a car changes the entire geometry on most makes. Excessive lowering also limits the suspension travel.
Many 'lowering kits' combat this by increasing the spring rates so that it's pretty hard to bottom out on the bump stops. Some actually require you trim them.
The advantage of coilovers is often times their is adjustment inherent to them that allows you to retain most of the appropriate travel.
You still face geometry changes which are sometimes detrimental to a real 'race' setup. For these models things like spindles, spacers, and special toe rods/ends etc are sold. One of the biggest issues is excessive camber...camber plates, slotting the strut housings, eccentric bolts can overcome this.
In general though, most are looking for looks rather than 10/10ths performance on the street.
soccerballtux
Lifer
I've installed the TRD rear sway bar. Nice improvemment, I like it very much.
Bought the eibach prokit springs (coming tomorrow) and Koni shocks. Not sure when those coming. If ever. Whatever, paypal or CC will refund the money from KJB motorsports, just bummed I won't have them by the end of the week.
Will get allignment after, going to read about aggressive vs not alignment, one of the nice things about the springs I got is you can align to OEM specs. Will see how that feels with the 1.2" lowering and tighter susp.
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alkemyst
No Lifer
They are a legit company, but with any discounter one should expect 2-3 days for processing and with most anything going ground at least 7-10 business days from order to reciept.
Almost every company I deal with with their free shipping or ground would never get me a package ordered on Monday night by Friday.
alkemyst
No Lifer
You may want to wait more than 48 hours before you start smearing a company.
soccerballtux
Lifer
Well, I figured I'd have more than an instant paypal email after $500 and 48 hours....shoulda just paid the extra $35 for someone bigger....
alkemyst
No Lifer
With paypal? Figure even more time for that with most resellers...just use a freaking credit card.
I'd stick to ordering locally though. I order 95% of everything online...I'd never be butthurt over a monday night order that I did via paypal and hadn't heard back in 2 days...nor would I be expecting it on that Friday unless I SPOKE to someone and confirmed shipping and availability. I wouldn't expect ground to be the option on that even if I lived in the same shipping zone.
yottabit
Golden Member
GL with the eibach pro kit... you should definitely see an improvement in handling but generally eibachs are pretty soft among lowering springs IMO... I think you'll see the benefits of lowering, but not really any benefit from increased spring stiffness (at least I'm guessing off the top of my head) Should be a very good choice if you want a similar-to-stock ride
I think with a good alignment and that setup you'll be very happy!
The last major factor is tires, and how long you want them to last. A good UHP tire has a crazy amount of responsiveness and much more outright grip. Depending on how many miles you drive per year is what I'd let determine the kind of tires you want. If you want tires that will last 40-60k you'll probably want a "high performance all season", for ~30-40k you can get a good "high performance summer" and for ~10-20k you can go with an ultra high performance tire
Examples:
All season: Falken Ziex 512, Kumho Ecsta Whatever
Summer: Nitto Neogen or BF Goodrich GForce Sport
UHP Summer: Falken Azeni, Dunlop Dirrezza Z1 Star Spec, etc
For the characteristics you're looking for, you want to stay away from any tire that advertises "smooth ride" "quiet" "luxury handling" or "touring"... don't worry about trying to cram a wider tire on your stock wheels, stock size or slightly larger should be fine. Going to a summer (if you are running all seasons) or a UHP summer would be a huge difference in grip... just realize if you go for UHPs you'll probably be replacing them every year (fine if you autox as you'd replace them anyway)
I think with a good alignment and that setup you'll be very happy!
The last major factor is tires, and how long you want them to last. A good UHP tire has a crazy amount of responsiveness and much more outright grip. Depending on how many miles you drive per year is what I'd let determine the kind of tires you want. If you want tires that will last 40-60k you'll probably want a "high performance all season", for ~30-40k you can get a good "high performance summer" and for ~10-20k you can go with an ultra high performance tire
Examples:
All season: Falken Ziex 512, Kumho Ecsta Whatever
Summer: Nitto Neogen or BF Goodrich GForce Sport
UHP Summer: Falken Azeni, Dunlop Dirrezza Z1 Star Spec, etc
For the characteristics you're looking for, you want to stay away from any tire that advertises "smooth ride" "quiet" "luxury handling" or "touring"... don't worry about trying to cram a wider tire on your stock wheels, stock size or slightly larger should be fine. Going to a summer (if you are running all seasons) or a UHP summer would be a huge difference in grip... just realize if you go for UHPs you'll probably be replacing them every year (fine if you autox as you'd replace them anyway)
jlee
Lifer
Heh - I've had one of each off that tire list. Star Specs are awesome. Don't buy Kumho Ecsta AST's if you want sticky - they suck. The ASX's are supposed to be okay, though. BFG g-Force Sports seem to be pretty decent, though I never ran a matched set of them (just a pair of rears for a fairly short time).
soccerballtux
Lifer
yeah I'm a little worried about the springs too...we'll see, hopefully the progressiveness kicks in fast, they're only $200 so I could get something else if I wanted and sell these~ what would you have recommended?
I'm not sold on tires. The improvement from the sway bars is already so good, and when I took this turn the other day going 50 I was sliding out of my seat and thought about the comment of getting race seats. 🙂 I can't tell that mine were "slipping" because I don't think they were, afaict; but I may just not have enough experience yet to be able to notice it.
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soccerballtux
Lifer
I'll give you $100 if you can find a "pay by credit card without using paypal" option on their site.
Tires make a huge difference. The best suspension in the world is useless without good tires. They can transform a car.
Also, if you were starting to slip with street tires, you'd hear it loud and clear 😉
BassBomb
Diamond Member
Pro-kit, even sportlines won't give you the improvement you need
The best thing to do is to get coilovers with linear springs and decent spring rates (for Mazda 3 think BC Racing, not the most reliable option though...)
If you could just get GC springs onto your Koni's with custom rates
Tires make a HUGE difference and I would reccomend getting some nice tires to go with the rest
Tires was the cherry on top for my suspension upgrades (Koni Yellow + Eibach Sportline, sway bars, Yokohama S-Drive tires on lightweight volks)
Lighter rims also helps... think Enkei RPF1
The best thing to do is to get coilovers with linear springs and decent spring rates (for Mazda 3 think BC Racing, not the most reliable option though...)
If you could just get GC springs onto your Koni's with custom rates
Tires make a HUGE difference and I would reccomend getting some nice tires to go with the rest
Tires was the cherry on top for my suspension upgrades (Koni Yellow + Eibach Sportline, sway bars, Yokohama S-Drive tires on lightweight volks)
Lighter rims also helps... think Enkei RPF1
jlee
Lifer
He doesn't need coilovers.
soccerballtux said:
I'm not a big fan of S Drives. I do love my Star Specs. As for springs, the Pro-Kits and Konis on my MR2 do quite well - certainly good enough for me, and it doesn't knock your fillings out when you hit a pothole either.
jlee
Lifer
For a daily, sure..but to recommend linear rate coilovers because ProKit/Koni is inadequate - and then top it off with S-Drives? Seems strange. If you're going to go all out, go all out. I'll put my Pro-Kits with Star Specs up against coilovers and S-Drives.. 😀
Well, yeah, that is mis-matched performance.
The S.Drive's on my Miata with a stiff coilover setup do neuter performance a bit.... scrub tires to the rescue!
BassBomb
Diamond Member
I didn't reccomend S Drives I just said they make a huge difference... I am running S drives but that doesn't mean he should. I got them because I could get them for a better price than other tires...
You mentioning that with star-specs will be better even with a lesser suspension just proves my point that tires make a huge difference 🙂
I am just trying to answer his OP where he wants to be like his friends BMW....
You mentioning that with star-specs will be better even with a lesser suspension just proves my point that tires make a huge difference 🙂
I am just trying to answer his OP where he wants to be like his friends BMW....
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