What is front spring rate and length?

[Bruce Crowthorne]

The car is a standard S4.
After the rebuild the front is riding too high, so time for some dampers and springs......
I'll use Gaz dampers as they give adjustable ride height and damping, are a good price and they will rebuild them at a reasonable cost.

So what is the "standard" spring rate (I want to use tha standard rate - nothing "uprated") and what is the normal free length (this doesn't really matter so much as I can adjust the ride height with the platform) but I need a starting point.

Thanks
Bruce

[bcmc33]

Talk to Tony Thompson (TTR). I used his springs and it gave me the correct ride height. The original springs made the front end too high which never looked good - and the car drives better, too.


Brian Clarke
(1972 Sprint)

[RobL7/Elan]

Bruce,

I replaced the springs and inserts on my S2, 3 months ago with a pair from Dave Bean. Perfect ride height, great handling, they even compressed the springs and mounted them on the struts for me.

Rob

[cabc26b]

standard rate is 75lbs -
later cars ran a free lenght or 16.75 inches ( 1.9 ID)

On my adjustable I think I am running 8 or 9 inche springs -

You may want to reconsider running the stock rates -

[Bruce Crowthorne]

Thanks cabc26, 75 lbs/in sounds really light. I guess it must run loads of pre load.

For comparison, the front of an Elise runs 142 lb/in and it is mid engined! I geuss the newer cars run much stiffer!

When you say you run 8 or 9 inch springs that seems a lot shorter than the standard 16.75 inch! Are you running much stiffer springs?

[RotoFlexible]

Thanks cabc26, 75 lbs/in sounds really light. I guess it must run loads of pre load.

For comparison, the front of an Elise runs 142 lb/in and it is mid engined! I geuss the newer cars run much stiffer!

Bruce,

It's not just the spring rate that determines the stiffness, it's also how it's mounted, that is, the ratio of wheel travel to spring movement. Comparing the Elan to another car based on spring rates is comparing apples to oranges.

[cabc26b]

Andy,

Good point. There are other factors.

Bruce -

My cars are lowered and are fitted with tires (tyres) that are wider than the 145-13 bias plys that came with the car originally. I also run a stiffer ( thicker) bar, LSD, solid shafts with the diff moved up . So yes I run stiffer and shorter springs makes sense for what i do with the car.

In the past I have run stock springs with a stock anti-roll-bar and 155/80/13 radials on 13x5 panasports. Makes for a nice ride, leans and slides like you would expect. it will also touch down if you are hustleing the card down the secondary roads ( especialy if you have two or more undulations). There was also more dive than I like under hard braking.

By preference and or chioice , I don't ever see my self running the stock set up. Your set up should be tailored to what you want or have in/out of the car.

[Bruce Crowthorne]

Thanks cabc, so what spring rates and free lengths are you running?

[cabc26b]

12.00 x2.5 150lbs in the rear
8.5x1.9 250lbs in the front