Quote:
Originally Posted by IamFODI
Short answer: Yes, but not enough to actually try it.
Long answer:
AFAICT, if I were to try this, I'd be among the first. For various reasons, I'm not the guy for that, and this isn't the car for that.
If I went with softer front springs to get flat ride, they'd have to be MUCH softer than the stock Öhlins rates I'm running. If my experience is any indication, I'd be in the bump stops constantly without a much different bump stop (something along the lines of the very long and progressive stock one) and/or a LOT more damper stroke (ideally with a longer damper body). Basically I'd need new damper bodies and bump stops, likely custom.
I didn't want to try much stiffer rears because they'd have to be well over 800 lbs/in and/or true coilovers, which for some reason almost no one ever seems to run on the street. I don't understand why, but I've learned that if everyone or no one is doing something, there's probably a reason. That doesn't mean the reason is good, but it did mean I had to anticipate more challenges than I'm currently willing to address.
I also saw some evidence from Obioban's experience that was not encouraging for me. For the record, he went flat ride on his E46 M3 and was blown away by how good it was. To call him satisfied is an understatement. He calls it the best mod he's ever done, which is really saying something given the number of mods under his belt and how great his car is in every way right now. With that in mind, two things gave me pause:
1. By the time he settled on an anti-roll bar setup that got him to a relatively neutral handling balance, he ended up with a much higher calculated FRC% than stock. In other words, if he had just matched stock FRC% with his stiffer-than-stock springs, he'd have ended up with a ton of oversteer. This made me not want to try flat ride with stiffer-than-stock springs unless I knew there was a front ARB out there that could get my FRC% much higher than stock if needed. When I ran calcs on 228f/799r springs, the stiffest front bar I could find for the E9x M3 (Dinan on position 3) was barely enough to get stock FRC%. And with stiffer springs than those, the front ARB would have to be even stiffer. Either way, I needed to see a front ARB that was much stiffer than the Dinan one, and I couldn't.
2. His front ARB -- again, the one he needed to neutralize his car's handling -- was apparently big enough to rip out one of the mounting brackets. So, I thought, even if I could find a front ARB big enough for my purposes, it might require parts of the car to be reinforced, and I didn't feel like jumping into that pool.
I am not saying any of this is authoritative. It's all the hypothesizing of an amateur, and I'm probably wrong about a lot of it. I'm not saying flat ride can't work on this platform or is a bad idea or anything. The point here is that, with the tools I have, I don't see good enough odds of success that I'd want to bet on it. I'm sure it could work; someone better than me just has to figure it out.
If you're interested in my extended opinions on my setup, I wrote a big post here. |
Thanks for that. Interesting as when I use a 32mm Hollow Dinan, my FRC was well over 80% with some of the flat ride combos I was looking at.
What numbers are you getting for stock FRC? Do they match what I wrote?
Reference Stock:
Front 160lbs/in || Rear 550 lbs/in , 1.3Hz || 1.45Hz , 1.11 Flat Ride
26.5mm tubular front , FRC = 75.6%
My current setup:
Front 600lbs/in || Rear 900lbs/in , 2.52Hz || 1.85Hz , 0.73 Pitch
26.5mm tubular front , FRC = 76.6%
Proposed attempt setup:
Front 325lbs/in || Rear 900lbs/in , 1.86Hz || 1.85Hz , 0.99 Pitch
29mm Eibach tubular front , FRC = 76.2%