Replacement Shocks /Ride Height ?

[Grey 65]

Originally Posted by cbreez

I have tracked my car hard on a full race course several times for several hours and found the car to be pretty good and about right. Funny, it's one of the few compliments that I have about a Backdraft. I checked suspension travel, front and rear, and it was at an acceptable range.

Many folks think that they automatically have to stiffen everything up and it just isn't true. There is a science to it. You say they are way too soft...please tell us what you mean by that and how you determined this...

Suspension 101 is that you determine a proper spring rate and match the shock to the spring, not the other way around. The first tweaking one might do is with the anti-roll bars...which is more difficult with this car...all depends on how serious you want to be. BTW, check your ride heights with the driver in the car or the appropriate number of cinder blocks in the front seat and floor.

Check my gallery for a pic of some fat Goodyear stock car tires in my rear wheel wells under load...stock springs and shocks and no rub. A stiffer anti-roll bar would be the first thing I work on if I were still doing this.

I'm not going to argue with you. If you think you know more about suspensions and racing than me lets meet at a road racing track that neither of us have been to and race for titles. Granted you will have to add cash as my car is worth quite a bit more than yours.

I race my car, the shock and spring rates on my car were determined by actual racing engineers. I have JRi racing shocks that were built for MY car, not a BDR, they were valved for MY exact car. I don't have a pair of front struts and a pair of rear shocks, each one is valved for a specific corner of MY car, the left is not interchangeable with the right. What shocks are you running $30 KYB's? Go to the JRi website and see how much their shocks cost.. They don't list the price, why because they are expense custom built for YOUR car racing shocks. You can adjust spring rates at a track via racing rubbers inserted into the springs.. aka NASCAR, road racers have nitrogen filled shocks where you can add and subtract nitrogen to the shocks at the track to effect small spring rate changes to suit the track surface. Cinder blocks? Seriously? My car gets corner balanced on a $4,000 Longacre machine. As a matter of fact I re-corner balanced it yesterday.
My entire suspension is either heim joints or poly, I have adjustable front and rear sway bars, I have adjustable caster lollypops on my car.

The springs rates that come on the BDR are for comfortable cruising only. The car as sold by Backdraft is NOT setup for racing, it is setup for people like you.

BTW: I have been racing in the SCCA since 1996 and I am an aircraft engineer.

This conversation is over. I will not respond to anymore of your posts as you talk like you are an expert on racing and suspensions and you are not.

Kevin.....