Hardest Suspention for road use

[tom_dot_com]

Looking to spend £500ish on the suspention of a 3b. Looking for a hard good handling setup, not to bothered about ride comfort (within reason, when i was 17 I remember having a Vauxhall Nova that used to break stereos it basically didnt have suspention). Will be keeping the standard 16s so would like togo as low as possible without having arch rubbing problems or exhaust on speed bump problems (don't know if either of this are issues on the S2).

What would you guys recommend? Links would be very useful.
-is there anything other than the springs and shocks that I "NEED" to replace? (top mounts etc - are these essential?)

[Rusty]

H&R or Bilstein springs are going to be around £200 for a set of 4 new.

Dampers are about £125 each for Koni or Bilstein.

ARBs are £100 for an RS2 front and simillar for a Whiteline rear (Demon Tweeks / Ebay).

I'm running Konis on standard springs and am perfectly happy with it. Not any lower but rides well with good control when cornering hard.

Don't forget top mounts too, £10 ea for greens, £16 for Blues (RS2) and over £120 (pair) for the alloy dogs danglies ones.

HTH.

[Keeper of The Kitten]

Don't jump to the conclusion that really low and really hard suspension will yield the best results!

Go too low and the instantaneous roll centres will migrate below ground with some less than ideal results, the only solution to something like that being to raise the mounting points for the wishbones. Really low is only useful for lower CoG (good) and particularly if you had underbody aero parts which need to make use of ground effect (not necessary on most road cars).

Going really low will however demand harder springing because you don't want to have problems with arch rubbing or bottoming out the dampers. But too hard in this area can result in poorer traction even if it does result in a car that is more level in the corners. A really hard ride might feel more responsive to the point of being twitchy, but don't let that feeling fool your brain into believing that the car now handles better.

Some racers still don't get this! Back when Vento VR6 racing was popular one or two teams that were doing well had higher ride heights than some of the slower performers. Ground scraping ride height isn't the be-all-and-end-all.

I think a bit of compromise would be preferable, rather than taking things to extremes. Well controlled damping and arbs with slightly softer springs and not such extreme lowering can often provide superior results. The only way to really find out is to test it though, against a known baseline (eg standard setup in good condition).

__MDC__