Originally Posted by
BenFenner
No one with a high-end race setup has ever complained about it being "stiff" or "horrible" on the road. Every single person I've heard with a high-end race setup raves on and on about how good it is everywhere including the street where it is compliant and almost OEM smooth.
I'll give you a real good example.
Talk to any 2009 Nissan GTR owners, and you will find that the standard Bilstein damper on them "stiff" and "horrible".
I know, I got one myself.
It was so bad to the point that many 2009 GTR owners sold their GTR and bought a Porsche 911, because they couldn't live with it on a daily basis.
Now, is the Bilstein Damper cheap? No.
Would Bilstein lack any resource to produce quality damper? No.
Would Nissan lack any resource to produce quality damper? No.
Then why is it stiff and horrible?
One of the most common answer is because the valving are design for track use (Or all the Nurburg willy waving time they are marketing with now).
This mean the suspension run a very square setup with high cracking pressure on their valving (something Bilstein have been doing for years).
What that mean is the shock don't actually move until it hit a bump hard enough to over come the cracking pressure.
Its great when you have flat surfaces or when you hit a curb, because the suspension will work.
However, it is horrible when you are driving down the freeway with just small bumps, because the suspension don't work at all under that situation.
Now, high end depends on what you classify as high end, and race setup depends on what you classify as race setup.
Some people classify Japanese coilovers as high end, and I had many owners swapping out Apexi N1, HKS HyperMax, etc to the MeisterR Zeta-R because the JDM brands are again too stiff for road use.
The likes of Ohlins DFV / Bilstein PSS are much better, but those are high end road suspensions.
For example, if you have a real "race" suspensions design to run around 3Hz wheel frequency with a very high cracking pressure (very typical of what you would see of race car on slicks), I can guarantee you that it won't be comfortable, and it will be classify as down right dangerous on the road with road tyres in the rain.
In case you need to put it down to a figure you can understand, that would be an Mitsubishi EVO9 race car running WTCC spec slick, using 1000lb/in front springs and 1200lb/in rear springs, and about 80 - 100% critical damping.
YOU DO NOT WANT TO RUN THAT ON THE ROAD!
As far as Dyno goes, we will probably have some.
Our setup are design for road / track use but it got to retain road suspension feature.
That mean you got to keep wheel frequency around the 2Hz area max, you got to have a sensible cracking pressure and a progressive bump curve to make sure you load the "road" tyres progressively, etc.
I had a chat with my engineering and I do think we do need to provide some info (we have plenty, so not a problem).
So we will be finishing up all the loose end first but will have dyno available (at least generic one) when we officially launch the GT1 coilovers.
Jerrick