LCP

Goodbye high water; hello tight ride. Stasis are installed. Pics to follow later.

Steve Trac, Sec 303

what spring rates? touring valved right? what's your opinion so far?

AlanL

to answer frantic pleas for their reaction :}

Yes - it's that much more fun.......

PS - Mine is a Track Sport system with touring valving on 600F/700R springs and I still love it.

LCP

I had to come home so the dog wouldn't bark and the garage door wouldn't wake up our baby! ;-)

I got 550f/600r spring rates on the track sport system with touring valving. I'm also still running a 19mm Neuspeed rear anti-sway bar on soft, combined with taller and wider 235/40-18 S-03's (these are as wide as a 240 really) on 18x8 ET 35 wheels.

So far, the front seems a little underdamped, and the rear wants to jump off of (push you in the back if you will) moderate and large bumps in the road, but the rear reacts well to small bumps no more than about 1/2"-3/4" in height. I'm sure some adjustments to the rebound rates on the shocks will improve (but I know it will not eliminate) this problem. I can imagine it would have been even worse with a 550/650 setup and no sway bar.

As for handling, turns at intersections and other tight corners are just sublime now. I can turn, the front end grips and responds and the rear end just gets in place right where it should be. I was very impressed. The handling in 40-50mph corners felt perfectly neutral as well. Unfortunately there are so few high speed corners around where I live I never really got to try those out, although on the way home, on the first real corner I took with this suspension installed, the rear end seemed a little too happy, and I was not expecting it to behave the way I did at about 70mph in a corner I had taken at 80mph before. Maybe I just wasn't used to that neutral feeling, or maybe the car is too easy to get sideways now at higher speeds. It will take some more driving for me to know this. I bet a big huge rear wing would help this, but I don't think that's gonna happen.

I'm only at about 25.9" front and 26.0" rear, but those might settle a little bit. With my taller and wider tires, it looks pretty good there but by nowhere close to being slammed. I'd subtract about 0.15" from those fender heights to equate to normal height tires for an S4. I have detected a little rubbing though. The fronts will definitely rub *slightly* when loaded up in a corner and the tires are turned. Both will rub *slightly* if I hit a bump at too fast of a speed for civilized adult driving. So I'm gonna have to see about a little fender liner rolling.

Steve Trac, Sec 303

I REALLY wish they still made the fixed height kit you had first. I'd definitely buy that.

AlanL

The swaybar left me with too little rear end independence and any bump on one side of the rear made the other side jump off the pavement as well. I got a much better connection to the ground after I let the suspension do the work.

As always, your mileage may vary.... Happy explorations

LCP

Ryan thought at the spring rates I was running the rear bar would account for about a 50 lb. difference. If I drop the bar with only a 50 lb. difference, I'm afraid the car will understeer more than I want. And I don't want to increase my rear spring rate any due to how much the rear end jumps off of bumps -- that will only make that bad behavior worse. I do hear you about the independence issue of the rear with the sway bar.

AlanL

the Neuspeed mounts. Just yank the Neusped bar and use the stock bushings for the stock bar in the Neuspeed mounts - works fine and you can go back and forth to try out the resulting road feel.....

Paul originally thought my system would work better with the bar when I had the 450/500 system and I found it not to be true for rough roads.

Again, your mileage may vary.....