help finding the perfect ride height

I had started tunning cars awhile ago and have a pretty good idea about good setups and there characteristics. However I cannot determine if my ride height is totaly utilizing my springs and or is as low as it should be can anyone tell me of a good method to determine these factors about ride height and apply it to a method for tunning in GT3. Any help would be greatly appreciated :crazy:

Nice guide ///M-spec
 
lower the car.. 90% of the time is a good thing

to low however, (you can tell when its to low) the car will ride awful, and it will seem like there are no shocks whatsoever, and wouldnt.. handle, but so far i havent had a problem lowering all of my cars all the way

your car will always be bumpy.. always, even driving down a road it will always be bumpy no matter how soft the shocks are, its just getting the right proportions

it should be bumpy, but not bounce off the track, if it is, either check that your spring rate isnt to high, or it could be low, OR.. bound and rebound..

overall i havent had problems with lowering all the way
 
Thank you for answering my question XCNuse for answering my question. So on a regular car such as a Honda civic, Toyota supra and or any other car that is not already really low like a Nissan r390 road or race car and the Castrol supra it is impossible for you to bottom out the car way if you drop the car all the way and put a positive rake of three clicks in the rear. That is good to know.

I also have another question for XCNuse or any one else that can help me. After dropping a car all of the way is there a point where you can soften the spring to much and the car will bottom out. If the car does not bottom out are there any drawbacks of a fully lowered ultra soft suspension spring rate for increaseed grip other than this spring rate setting potentially making the car bottom out or slower steering reaction for the car.

Thanks again XCNuse.

Please any one answer another probably obvious question for me.
 
Finding the "perfect" ride-height is rather subjective thing.
I lower race cars till they shoot sparks, then go back up 10mm.
When they no longer spark they are good for my driving style.
I also tend to run near max dampers but soft springs.
But I'm not as smooth as guys like Boombexus, and Der Alta. So, with my settings I don't find myself hanging the tail out in corners.
 
Thank you Gil for your reply but I have three more questions. I know that stiffer bound and rebound increases the speed of weight transfer in corners and a straight line. Stiffer damper setup will also help you with sluggish handling because of increased weight transfer speed making your car more responsive even with lower spring rates. One I was wondering if you could have a regular non racing car bottom out with the ride height completely dropped to minimum and have the spring rate at the lowest it will go and using any range damper setting in rebound and bound. Two also in a regular car I have read that softer spring rate improve handling and so does lowering the car but is there a limit or drawback other than the car being sluggish regardless of any other settings. Final question in a regular car for example say a Mazda Miata of any type fully moded turbo or NA. If I set the ride height at the lowest setting and do the same in the spring rate department and set TCS at 3 ASM 0 no other tuning. My car seems to grip the road pretty good and also is sluggish but I also feel that there is a weird feeling in the car that I cannot explain. I also know that I can fool with other setting to correct some of this feeling both the sluggish feeling and the weird but it is still present even if it is small amount. This phenomenon carries through any non racing car that I tune with the same specifications. This leads me to believe that there are better ride height and spring rate?

Sorry for the long reply and questions.

Can any help answer these questions please?
 
Actually, bostwick, if you lower the car you should increase the spring rate, or you run the risk of bottoming a lot. If you make the car low and soft it will roll as much as it can and then bottom out on the outside, at which point your tires are the only thing offering the suspension room to move. What happens when a given suspension member/wheel bottoms out is that suddenly the spring rate for that wheel is extremely high because the car is riding on the bump stop. This makes the car difficult to predict.

You don't want much lower spring rates than stock. Soft springs lead to floppy handling and slow transitions. The street cars are usually too soft in the interest of comfort, so they typically need to be stiffened a fair bit (but not too stiff, which creates other problems). For race cars I tend to leave them around the intial setting, which is usually MUCH stiffer than the street cars, with a slight adjustment for lowering as described below.

I start with the baseline numbers and go by ratios. If I drop the car 10% in ride height, I stiffen the springs by 10%, etc. This is just for a start. I usually stiffen the springs another 5%-10% or so above that if I find the car is slow in transitions. For a street car I may drop the ride height 10%-15% but increase the spring rates 20%-50%.

I'm not a big fan of rock bottom ride heights. I like to use the curbs a lot and the suspension needs some room to work. Too low a ride will also unsettle the car in tracks with a lot of fairly sharp elevation changes such as Deep Forest, etc.
 
Thank you very much Neon Duke you have answered my question quite well. So there is a limit to lowering ride heights and softening springs for more grip. Well back to the tuning drawing board for me.

Thanks again Neon Duke.
 
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