I am looking to do a suspension upgrade this winter and this is a really great thread. I have a track oriented ’14 BRZ that sees light daily driving. I have upgraded brakes and exhaust/tuning. I generally like the way the car handles on the track, but am looking to increase overall grip, and reduce some of the understeer on corner exit of big sweepers (I am destroying RF tires on a mostly left turn track). I have Michelin PS4S (225/45 R17) and want to stay with those rather than go to a more focused track tire (Cup 2 or other).
I am thinking of something like Ohlin R&T with camber plates. To target something like -2 degrees camber upfront. At stock height I have -1.25 negative camber in rears right now (and zero camber upfront). I will want to test out stock height vs say a 20mm drop to see the difference.
Here is my confusion. I have been told that Ohlin suggests spring rates of 50N/m (443 lbs/in) front and back. And they say those springs were sized assuming that you keep the OEM anti-sway bars in place (18mm and 14mm).
This was surprising to me. This thread seems to suggest that using a combination of softer springs and stiff bars (like the OEM set up) is an “older” approach to suspension and that it is better to try to get the spring rates right directly and then use bars only to tune balance preference.
At 443 lbs/in, this seemed to imply that without the bars, Ohlin was targeting something that had similar stiffness upfront to the OEM, but 35% more stiffness in the rear (using the really great “wheel rate” data on a related suspension model thread
https://www.ft86club.com/forums/show...t=26661&page=8). For a road and track suspension, this seemed like a good place to start.
But if you keep the OEM 18mm/14mm bars attached and just add the Ohlins, that is increasing a lot of stiffness all around (plus adding more in the back).
Which outcome was Ohlin targeting when they recommended 50N/m springs in their coilovers?
Or am I misunderstanding something here?