Flat or Floppy: which cornering do you prefer?

[Machate-man]

I noticed, that when I put the springs on its lowest, softest setting, the car is much more controllable, despite being bouncy and a bit slower through the corners. The opposite happens with Hard springs; the cornering is sharp, faster, and responsive, but requires a good deal of skill to keep in control depending on the power, weight distribution, ect.

Which is better?

 

[Motor City Hami]

Did you change the shock damping at all in your spring test?

For me, depends on the car, the tires and sometimes the track. I am rarely at the extremes of full soft or full hard, so I cannot vote in your poll.

 

[oppositelock]

I used to tune on the soft side thinking it would be more controllable on rough tracks. After much experimenting I came to the unexpected conclusion that the opposite is often true. In particular, running hard dampers on tracks like Deep Forest resulted in a much more "planted" feeling, especially over the crests and jumps, which seems counterintuitive. Of course that doesn't mean crank everything up all the way, but I think it's probably preferable to error on the side of being too hard than too soft.

 

[abaxas]

All depends on surface and length of race.

No harm in a rock hard ride for 3 laps on a bumpy circuit. But 30 laps and your arms will drop off, or you'll make a mistake.

A tune is as much to do with the length of race as laptimes.

 

[87lc2]

Spring rates & ride height go hand in hand (along with dampers) and my feeling is that these are specific to each type of car. For example, on most of my older Muscle Cars I keep the RH around factory & the spring rates moderately soft. On most of the newer and exotic stuff they tend to like being low and hard sprung. There are always exceptions and its never good to go to one extreme or the other, but thats generally how I setup a car.

 

[RAZRr1275]

I like the springs to be hard. I like cars to be responsive because I find that I can go a lot faster in a car like that. Additionally I prefer to know immediately if a car is going to bite my head off and I can't really do that on too soft of a set up

 

[chuyler1]

Unless you add downforce, going too hard makes the car slick in turns. Even if the car feels balanced, you can be losing time. But in general, the spring rates need to be relative to ride height. I always tune street cars on Trial Mountain and as a result I usually end up with stock ride height but slightly stiffer springs. Dampers are relative to spring rates so I start low and increase until the car settles out for a given height/spring combo.

 

[oopssorryy]

I like mine a little on the tight side, but if you go too much your car will start to become uncontrollable and erratic. It's all about the balance of the car, between horsepower, weight, grip, and drive train abilities. If you can get the balance right you can beat cars way out of your PP value ( if your opponents are in untuned cars).

 

[budious]

Neither extreme, but spring rate is much dependent on the tire selection, among other things. Poll is too black/white in conclusion, consider the gray.

 

[Ronald6]

Once again budious is in first with with the same comment I was going to make.