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TUNING GUIDE: SUSPENSION: SPRINGS

Sport Springs: $160-250

Springs take on the entire weight of the car and are a major part of tuning the suspension correctly. Too low and the car will lose handling abilities. Too stiff and the car will hop too much in a street setting. You must decide what you want to get out of your springs. Either you are going for the low "super touring" look, or a subtle drop where you don't have to worry about taking your front bumper off when you pull in your driveway. Now you are probably saying to yourself, "if super touring cars are so low why doesn't low equal better handling?", well those super touring cars suspension systems are much different than that of a daily driven street car. The suspension system is designed to be that low to ground. Your suspension system has been designed to perform best at stock ride height, when you start changing the geometries by lowering the car drastically with shorter springs the other components attached to the suspension do not perform as well and decrease your handling ability.

ALWAYS replace the shocks when you install sport springs. Not only will this save you installation costs if you decide to install new shocks later but with the addition of sport springs to your stock oem shocks cannot handle the stiffer spring rate and will wear much faster. If you are replacing springs always replace the shocks at the same time.

NEVER cut the stock springs to lower a car. The picture above shows the results of cut springs. When you cut the springs, the front wheels end up with a negative camber. As you can see, the front wheel is not perpendicular to the ground. That is what negative camber looks like. Negative camber reduces handling capabilities of the vehicle and is also dangerous in inclement weather.

As well as lowering the ride height a sport springs stiffness is higher than a stock spring. Some springs are linear while others are progressive. That is a linear spring has the same stiffness at all deflections, while a progressive spring becomes stiffer as it is compressed more. Progressive springs will provide better ride quality under normal driving but will act stiffer when driven more aggressively. For better handling however a linear spring is the way to go if you don't mind the stiffer ride.

There are an endless number of spring manufacturers out there, some good and some bad, I would recommend the following, Neuspeed, H&R, and Eibach these are reputable companies that have been producing springs for quite some time.