Spring Rates for track use

S

Spetz

Well-Known Member
Hi everyone,

I am looking at getting some MCA Red coilovers made up for my car.

It's a 6A12 equipped CE coupe that is only driven on the track.

Currently it has Tein SS coilovers in it which are fine for corners (with whiteline swaybars front and rear) but the main issue is the amount of dive there is under hard braking which adds delay between when I let go of the brakes to when I can start turning in.

What spring rates have people ran in their CEs and what do they recommend?
Currently at F5:R4kg/mm and thinking about going somewhere between 8-10kg on both front and rear but would like to hear from anyone with experience
 
You probably wont need the mca reds, with blues being suffice. MCA can advise on spring rates, but 8/9, 9/10, 11/12 all in that range should be good. 4/5 is closer to like "OEM sports/track suspension" than actual track. Fwiw, I run 7/8 as mine, but damper turned down for daily duties. I turn it up for spirited driving and it goes well
 
The MCA blues don't receive custom damper tuning and aren't dynoed etc so I think going so much stiffer on the spring may mean they aren't mated to the damper well enough.

Are you giving R/F spring rates?
For $90 extra MCA provides a full set of springs (which you can redeem within 12 months of purchasing the coilovers) so I am leaning towards 9kg all around and go stiffer/softer as need be.
I've spoken to Josh and they can setup the coilover so the front/rear springs are interchangeable that way I can have 9kg all round, a pair in 10kg and a pair in 8kg which will allow a bit of tuning for me to get it right.

I'm just not sure if I should be going stiffer still?

You have BCs right?
 
How often have you tracked the car? I'm running mca blue still with the spring rate it was setup for in my coupe and now running it in my evo, still very soft spring rates of 7/5kg. All depends on where you race too. Where I race the softer spring rate seems to be the go
 
I use yellow speed coil overs front spring 14kg rear 12 kg for track only application. This is a similar rate to a mates mirage cup car.
 
I would imagine slightly higher front to rear rate would be useful for your car spetz, with the little bit of extra weight from the V6. Like instead of a 10f/9r you might run an 11f/8r sort of split.

Maybe some of the understeer you were experiencing was down to not enough front spring vs rear spring.


Trail braking will also help with understeer, especially if the car is set up to make use of it (thats my next move, because right now trail braking just ends up with me backing the car in hahah)
 
MOR31 said:
How often have you tracked the car? I'm running mca blue still with the spring rate it was setup for in my coupe and now running it in my evo, still very soft spring rates of 7/5kg. All depends on where you race too. Where I race the softer spring rate seems to be the go
Click to expand...

I've only taken it to the track twice so far as it took a lot longer to put together than expected. I do hope to do 5 track days a year or so.
The car is not registered though so will only be seeing track time so the suspension doesn't need to be a compromise.
Also primarily it'll be at Winton which has a smooth surface. I would like to take it to Phillip Island and Wakefield at some stage though.

frosty7 said:
I use yellow speed coil overs front spring 14kg rear 12 kg for track only application. This is a similar rate to a mates mirage cup car.
Click to expand...
How do you find these springs rates?
I spoke to Josh from MCA and told him about other spring rates people run and he said that it's difficult to make actual comparisons since the valving is unknown etc.

Dutch said:
I would imagine slightly higher front to rear rate would be useful for your car spetz, with the little bit of extra weight from the V6. Like instead of a 10f/9r you might run an 11f/8r sort of split.

Maybe some of the understeer you were experiencing was down to not enough front spring vs rear spring.
Click to expand...

Considering that stiffening up the rear dampers had a drastic effect on understeer I'd say going stiffer front over rear by ratio won't get me where I want to be.
Realistically I need a starting point for spring rates so the valving can be set and then I can adjust +/-2kg or so in rates to dial it in. So if I go 10kg to start off with then I can run 8-12kg depending on how the car drives.



My main 2 issues were understeer and dive under braking. There wasn't much roll (courtesy to whiteline swaybars) but I do recall that from the day I fitted them the car tended to understeer a lot more. I've adjusted their settings but it still understeers more than i'd like on the track.
I think with the equal spring rates all round + go from toe in to toe out at the rear this should help out heaps at a tight track like Winton
 
Spetz said:
Considering that stiffening up the rear dampers had a drastic effect on understeer I'd say going stiffer front over rear by ratio won't get me where I want to be.
Realistically I need a starting point for spring rates so the valving can be set and then I can adjust +/-2kg or so in rates to dial it in. So if I go 10kg to start off with then I can run 8-12kg depending on how the car drives.
Click to expand...

Yeah fair call, and i think you're right about the rear toe, that should make a real difference.

Is your front sway adjustable? If so, what have you got them set to currently? Could go full soft front and full hard rear if it's not on that already.
 
The spring rates on my car are very hard. The car would be a very unhappy place to be on the road. On the track though the feedback through the car is great. I still run a standard front sway bar and a small swaybar on the rear. The balance for under/oversteer is amazingly good once temps in all four tyres comes up. MCA should be able to guide you to a pretty good outcome. If I was you I would buy 12 kg and 10 kg springs and then see how it goes then swap out one set softer or harder as required. In the end the springs are not the expensive part of this purchase and valving can be adjusted at a later date to. MCA seem to make a great quality product I have driven two mx5s with MCA gear and they are awesome.
 
@Dutch
I did set the rear swaybar to hardest setting though observed no difference in handling (even though according to whiteline this is equivalent to going from 20mm to 22mm at the rear).
The problem that I can see is that the droplinks are so short they go on an angle and hence when the car wants to roll the energy is transferred via the path of least resistance and that is flexing in all the swaybar mounts.
The front is on the softest setting (never tried it on the hardest) but from the design the droplinks are much longer so the angle is not as affected not to mention the swaybar mounts to the subframe which is solid and has little to no flex.

@frosty7
The spring set is only $90 if you buy them at the time of ordering the coilovers (you receive them later though after you've tested them).
The cost though adds up if they require a revalve as this in itself is closed to a grand I am pretty sure + shipping + $200 for a wheel alignment + permit to get to the suspension shop.
The aim of all this is fun as I am not competing.
As F5/R4 caused understeer I don't want to keep the same ratio... so going 10/10 means I am stiffening the rear by 20% when taking the ratio into consideration.
If these are too soft I can go 12/12 which should really be enough I think for non-competitive track use.

Unfortunately though Josh was very helpful he did admit that he hasn't done these coilovers for a Lancer before and hence everything will be very theoretical
 
If you give them the the corner weights they should be able to give you a very good educated guess at spring rates and valving. Are you Melbourne based???
 
I know the front/rear weight balance but not corner weights.
And yes I am Melbourne based.
So far the alignments have been done by TruTrack (www.trutrack.com.au) who can corner weigh it too
 
I run Mirage Cup shocks and springs on my Mirage track car and it handles great. The front springs are 550lbs and the rears are 500lbs (sorry I don't know what that is in kg's).
There is a number of factors to consider when it comes to shock settings, like tires, track abrasiveness, track conditions and how you drive.
Your car is under steering but is it entry, mid corner or exit? the set up is all different to were it's happening.
The one rule to follow is if a tire is slipping then there isn't enough weight on it so you need to transfer weight to that slipping tire by making the shock move slower or faster in both bump (shock up)and rebound (shock down), most cheap shocks wont give you that flexibility, your average shock will adjust both at the same time.
Another thing to consider is droop or shock travel. the Mirage cup shocks have about 40mm to 50mm of droop which stops the car from diving under breaks.
I also run a CE Lancer in the cheap car challenge at Marulan, it has stock shocks and heavy duty lowered springs, it under steers if pushed but overall it still handle great.
 
pelican said:
did you end up getting these yet?
Click to expand...

Yes, I ended up getting 9kg springs all round but also pre-paid for an extra set of springs.
I haven't spent much time on the track as of yet sadly with the MCA reds but there was still a tendency to understeer with them quite a bit.

I have since went stock Lancer 18mm front swaybar and have also removed castor from the wheel alignment.
Reason being that I noticed that the outside 1/3rd of the tread patch was not getting any wear at all so the alignment wasn't working (it was -2.5 camber and +5.5 castor at the front).

I am hoping that back to stock swaybar + less aggressive alignment will help. If all goes well I'll be at the track this Sunday and I can report back.

@Zipper,
550lbs/in is 10kg and 500lb/in is 9kg springs.
I assume the Mirage cup cars are a fair bit lighter than my car. I have no weight reduction and have some heavy items in the car (eg, 2 Recaro seats at 21kg each, dynamat on doors and around the car etc.).

9kg springs didn't feel too stiff at all for me at the track and I am contemplating what rate my other set of springs should be.
Depending on how I get the handling balance I am thinking somewhere between 10 and 12 kg.

The dampers are one way adjustable, the 2 way adjustable are just way too much money and I can't justify spending it on this car. The reds were already close to $3,500 including alignment and it just isn't a good enough car/chassis to warrant spending more money than that (even that in my opinion was too much but you know how scope creep happens).
 
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