legacycentral bbs

any ideas of how it'll be? i was kinda worried that it would be steeply raked foward but the front looks a little high stock because of the whole fender thing, so it shouldnt be too bad right? it says it only lowers the front about an inch and the rear 1.5. soone inch should be okay right? and since the rear wagon springs are already at 179lbs they should be fine as they are. especially since i took out the carpet and plastic panels in the back. i wish the whiteline springs were a little more uprated because at 176lbs for the front, they are still less than the rear. but the front carries so much more weight than the rear. but i already got them. any things to watch out for when just running the front set of whitelines?

Lower and stiffer in the front means you'll have more understeer and less overall grip,

oh... didnt think of that. is that just because the rate of the front springs compared to the rear springs has changed? or what? cuz when people put on the full kit, wouldnt that also do some damage?

yeah exactly. Car balance (whether it oversteers or understeers) is mostly determined by the weight distribution and the front to rear roll stiffness distribution. So, for example, if you had a car with a 50/50 distribution you would want equal front and rear roll stiffnesses for neutral handling.

The end of the car with more roll stiffness will transfer more weight to that outside tire in a corner and lose traction first. So, in your 50/50 car, if you made the front stiffer it would understeer.

Now, because of the way the suspension geometry on our cars work, as the suspension is compressed past a certain point grip is decreased. That's because the tire starts to camber outward. Lowering the car compounds that problem because the camber goes positive sooner, and also because of how the roll center moves down as the suspension is compressed.

So if, for example, you lowered the car 1" and changed nothing else, there would be more body roll and the car would handle worse.

The full kit is fine because it stiffens both the front and the rear. It might actually stiffen the rear more, which can reduce understeer.

so what really happens is that stiffening the springs decreases grip on that end. but when you stiffen the springs on both front and back, you decrease the grip on both sides so that you can maintain the same oversteer/understeer characteristics. so in effect, you decrease grip on both ends? isnt that bad? and when you lower it, because of our suspension geometry, it makes the camber worse. so having the stock springs on my wagon at stock height is actually better?

no no, you're just transferring more of the overall grip to the rear when you stiffen front, because the end with more roll stiffness transfers more weight to the outside wheel and that one will lose traction first. What you end up with is an uneven distribution of grip between the front and rear.

But if you stiffen up the front AND the rear equally, you're not changing the amount or distribution of weight transfer. So then you just have less body roll and a more responsive car.

When you lower a car, the springs have to get stiffer to compensate for the added body roll. I don't have the exact numbers, but the stiffness has to increase at a higher proportion to drop to keep the body roll in check. So with tein S-techs, for example, they lower the car too much without getting as stiff as they need to be. That would actually increase body roll if not for the bumpstops.

oh okay. that makes more sense. thanks! the thing that keeps me from getting the rears is the fact that its a progressive going from 131-218. i dont know exactly how fast it makes that progression to 218 but i'd feel alot more comfortable if they just kept it at 218. but since the awd wagon and the turbo wagon have 190 rears as opposed to my 179, they seem like a decent upgrade. and because they are stock height, i dont have to deal the the cons of lowering and its effects on body roll.

Jacked up in back! <grin> AW

recently did a awd convert to my 92 2wd. got a wagon cheep,used the trans,tank,and complete rear assembly including struts from the wagon. deffinately stiffer in the rear. also got rid of the sagging look (even with new 2wd springs) in the rear doesn't looke jacked-up though. soon i'll be swapping out the front strut assemblies because with my 2wd front springs(123 rate), the car feels a little like its nosediving too much. i think the wagon fronts(134 rate) will cure this and make the car look more level.