handling

www.aircooled.net/gnrlsite/resource/articles/handling.htm

Earlier King George mentioned a very good article re handling. I noticed it is now posted the aircooled.net technical article section.

King George...lol...that was a good one...:)

I noted in the article that Greg recommends stiff shocks. I have seen a number of references here to using worn out shocks for better handling. Can someone explain why the difference?

Ron - I'll take a shot at it strictly from a laymans viewpoint. Mine had KYB gas shocks on the font when I bought it. They were really stiff, as such the front suspension didn't work much at all. It understeered like a...well... old Buick. Was going through the fence nose first like it or not. Replaced them with garden variety KYB's (soft) and it handles pretty neutral now, no more push.

Shocks absorb or retard transient suspension loading. I feel that if you use stiff shocks, the front of our cars is so light that the shocks essentially don't work. Kinda like trying to corner a little red wagon. For my purposes, I'm happy with soft shocks and a front sway bar. Haven't read the article, but it would seem the suspension would have to be setup to compensate for the lack of compliance. My thinker is getting a little rusty so I'm not gonna try to figger that one out.
HTH at bit
bill

Here we go again, caster, camber, toe-in, tire size, tire pressure, sway bars, spring rates, chassis stiffness, tire compound, tread width, bump steer, suspension bushing compounds, shocks, road surface, how much does your wife weigh . . . (did I miss anything?) All you have to do is optimize each one of these dependent variables and you have a winner. If you start with the wife, you'll have lots more garage time to think about this subject. See you next semester.