CSG and RCE tag-team suspension Q&A thread! Ask us anything!

[MINOCIN]

Originally Posted by dradernh

Are the Nittos 38 hot or 38 cold at the track?

oh, 38 psi hot. I'll update my post to make it more clear.

[Racecomp Engineering]

Originally Posted by wparsons

I think you need more camber and spring rate for the tires you're running.

I agree. Def run more camber.

- Andy

[MINOCIN]

Thanks guys. I'll start off with a more aggressive alignment then and see how things go from there. Based off of @solidONE suggestion I think I'll go with -2.8 front and -2.4 rear.

I already have my next set of tires lined up.

Track day tires: Hankook Ventus Z214
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires....1OLD&tab=Sizes
These tires are a bit big for my 18x7.5 wheels but I couldn't resist the price.

Daily tires: BFGoodrich g-Force Rival
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires....7GFR&tab=Sizes
I think these should fit well on my 17x8 wheels.

As soon as I get the tires on I'll get a new alignment.

[solidONE]

Originally Posted by MINOCIN

Thanks guys. I'll start off with a more aggressive alignment then and see how things go from there. Based off of @solidONE suggestion I think I'll go with -2.8 front and -2.4 rear.

I already have my next set of tires lined up.

Track day tires: Hankook Ventus Z214
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires....1OLD&tab=Sizes
These tires are a bit big for my 18x7.5 wheels but I couldn't resist the price.

Daily tires: BFGoodrich g-Force Rival
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires....7GFR&tab=Sizes
I think these should fit well on my 17x8 wheels.

As soon as I get the tires on I'll get a new alignment.

Why not pair those hankooks with the 17x8's? Probably not a huge difference but that's what I would run. For street driving I probably wouldn't mind a little less sidewall stiffness with the 225's on 7.5" wheels.

[MINOCIN]

Originally Posted by solidONE

Why not pair those hankooks with the 17x8's? Probably not a huge difference but that's what I would run. For street driving I probably wouldn't mind a little less sidewall stiffness with the 225's on 7.5" wheels.

Only the 18" Hankook tires were on sale. Otherwise if not for the closeout sale I either would have stuck with 17" NT01s or RS3s.

Basically, my track wheels will now become my dailys and the daily wheels will become my track shoes.

[solidONE]

Originally Posted by MINOCIN

Only the 18" Hankook tires were on sale. Otherwise if not for the closeout sale I either would have stuck with 17" NT01s or RS3s.

Basically, my track wheels will now become my dailys and the daily wheels will become my track shoes.

IC IC... Nice setup BTW.

[car_roll]

Originally Posted by car_roll

Couple questions. Are stock top hats interchangeable left to right? and does the position when reinstalling matter? IOW, does the position of the red dot on the top hats matter?

Anyone?

[NissanGuy]

Originally Posted by Racecomp Engineering

Short of that, the Konis are pretty darn good too and what I run on my personal car (MINI).

- Andy

Sorry for OT: What kind of MINI, and how would you say the shocks compare to stock? I work on the things for a living so I've more than a passing familiarity. I love most of MINI stock suspension, way better than my Scion haha.

I rode in a Miata the other day with bilstein coils, spring rates 500lb/350lb. What is that in metric? It rode much better than I expected.

[Racecomp Engineering]

Originally Posted by NissanGuy

Sorry for OT: What kind of MINI, and how would you say the shocks compare to stock? I work on the things for a living so I've more than a passing familiarity. I love most of MINI stock suspension, way better than my Scion haha.

I rode in a Miata the other day with bilstein coils, spring rates 500lb/350lb. What is that in metric? It rode much better than I expected.

It's a 2005 MCS. I mostly like the suspension but don't like the stock shocks. Not a lot of low speed damping and too much high speed damping. Designed to "feel" sporty but not actually be any good. The MINI suspension is interesting...a lot of it seems designed to feel that way up to about 6 or 7/10ths, but after that it kind of all falls apart. The chassis itself is quite good IMO, but the stock valving, the lack of bump travel, and the lack of camber are serious issues. The Konis are better in every way than stock.

500 lbs/in is about 9 kg/mm, 350 lbs/in is about 6.25 kg/mm.

Remember though to compare across different cars you need the wheel rates. So you need to multiply by the square of the Miata's motion ratios, which are 0.69 front and 0.77 rear. So 9 kg/mm * 0.69^2 = 4.3 kg/mm up front. Firm for a light car, but different than 9 kg/mm on a FRS/BRZ. A better comparison would be suspension frequencies, but I'm not doing that right now.

In comparison the front motion ratio for an FRS/BRZ is close to 1, so there's a BIG difference when comparing spring rates between cars. You have to look at the wheel rates.

- Andy

[NissanGuy]

Originally Posted by Racecomp Engineering

It's a 2005 MCS. I mostly like the suspension but don't like the stock shocks. Not a lot of low speed damping and too much high speed damping. Designed to "feel" sporty but not actually be any good. The MINI suspension is interesting...a lot of it seems designed to feel that way up to about 6 or 7/10ths, but after that it kind of all falls apart. The chassis itself is quite good IMO, but the stock valving, the lack of bump travel, and the lack of camber are serious issues. The Konis are better in every way than stock.

500 lbs/in is about 9 kg/mm, 350 lbs/in is about 6.25 kg/mm.

Remember though to compare across different cars you need the wheel rates. So you need to multiply by the square of the Miata's motion ratios, which are 0.69 front and 0.77 rear. So 9 kg/mm * 0.69^2 = 4.3 kg/mm up front. Firm for a light car, but different than 9 kg/mm on a FRS/BRZ. A better comparison would be suspension frequencies, but I'm not doing that right now.

In comparison the front motion ratio for an FRS/BRZ is close to 1, so there's a BIG difference when comparing spring rates between cars. You have to look at the wheel rates.

- Andy

ahhh, good call on the motion ratios, I forgot to consider that. So once you account for the Miata's lightness, the spring rates are something on the order of 50% stiffer than an FRS. Still, I was pretty impressed.

Ah, a 2005 MINI: I see the issue. Stock shocks rode so much nicer on that year than the pre-2005s. Most of my admiration TBH is reserved for the newer cars. But with some firmer control arm bushing the R53 can be good too, as you may have noticed. Cool. Also I read that only the heaviest MINI wheels have '-lite' in their names. Go figure.

[gramicci101]

Installed my RCE Yellows and Whiteline camber bolts, then got an alignment. How does this look for a daily driver?

[troek]

I wish my rear camber was that even

[fstlane]

Originally Posted by gramicci101

Installed my RCE Yellows and Whiteline camber bolts, then got an alignment. How does this look for a daily driver?

Looks good! Where did you have your alignment done at?

[gramicci101]

Firestone on N. Durango in the top left corner of the city. Ask for Alex. He's apparently the guy that does the alignments for the exotic racing experience at LVMS, and he's very comfortable aligning to given specifications instead of OEM spec. Since I got the lifetime alignment package, he said come in before an event, he'll tweak it for that event, then come in afterwards and he'll reset it back to daily driver spec.