stiffer springs?

i run an 88 accord LXI on a paved oval track, and am wondering where i can find a stiffer spring for the right front?

I don't know of any way to do it and keep the other springs stock.

I know how you could do it, but it would not be cheap.

1. buy ground control coilovers, purchase a set of stiffer springs to go with it and only install the one spring. This is totally possible since eibach makes stiffer spring options for the ground control coilovers.

But why just the right front? Wouldn't you want to do the right rear as well? Increasing the right front will be asking it to move more of the cornering workload to the front, where it is all ready taxed. It would understeer more.

What brings you to a oval track?

Ok, I get it, I went to your site. I'll be darned, interesting to say the least.;)

http://www.geocities.com/branzracing/homepage.html

Amazing, I never thought somebody would be doing with a 3rd gen accord what your doing, I.T. racing yes, but oval's wow! Look's like you have a blast doing it.

What if anything have you done to the car so far? Do you really run on oval tracks that are banked anywhere near as much as a nascar race would? The key would be in the banking . Otherwise conventional suspension improvements, driven towards reducing roll stiffness and getting the rear suspension to do more of the cornering load would likely net you faster lap time's and give you a car that lets you dig deeper into your own driving talent.

Curious, do you use your brakes much?

wow... I went there also... thats really cool... I never thought of a pure race car 3g... We always talk about 'sup'ing our cars up and racing them but that is definitly the real thing.... more power to ya!!!!
~Nathan~

well i havent done much to the car but gut it out, they started the class last year, i have the fastest car in the class. they changed the rules five times already to slow me down. the track has about 8 deg. of banking, which is relatively flat. a stiffer right front spring will help the car corner better, keeping the RR the same will help it pivot on the rear. i have sagged the left springs, and just put another bump stop in the right front, which helped. on the old (65 series) tires i was turning a 17.3 second lap. then they made me go to a 70 series, now a 75 series tire, and just this past week they want them all the same size. slowed me down around .7 seconds. i am spinnin her 6500-7000 down the straightaways, but sometimes it cuts out a bit. and yes its a blast!!!!!!!!!

oh yea, breaks.... use them to enter in the corner, have to, i carry way too much speed in, not a whole lot of break tho, just get on them to slow and set the car in the corner. it acts totally different than a rear wheel drive car, but i am getting used to it. i won 5 times last year, and missed a week, and let two others race it 4 weeks, still had a shot at the championship. but some of the more jelouse guys kept takin me out.

Heh, unique :D

Why don't you try some of those spring expanders?

the springs are so close to the strut its hard to use them, plus they frown on them because when you lose one it can get thrown up into another car, so i would just rather be safe. i have the camber kits installed also, but this year they wont let the fronts be cambered noticeably. they just want to slow me down, hteres only two or three cars that can run the speeds i am, but its the fastest overall out there.

theres a couple of places that make completely custom springs. u specify thr spring rate, length, and diameter and they get it for you. the thing is u gotta know exactly what u want. if u want a stiffer spring for just one side it will have to be a different length to be even with the other side. first thing i would do is upgrade the whole suspension system, and then go from there, and if ur gonna change springs, change both fronts, not just one. i'll try to find the website and phone numbers for those places. i know the place that we bought stiffer springs for the progress coilovers was called RACE CENTRAL. i dont think they have a website.

Fact: Increase your front roll stiffness, whether it be with stiffer springs or stiffer sway bars and you will increase your understeer and not be able to carry as much speed around the corner. Do you want to plow or go faster? That is not to say you can't increase the front spring rates, just make sure you increase the rears more.

In a car that is all ready understeering you would want to increase the rear roll stiffness, by stiffer springs or by stiffer rear sway bars. You will be pulling more of the cornering load off of the all ready overburdended front end and making the rear do more of the work. And the car will handle more neutral, less understeer

Car maker's just love understeer, it's so nice and safe. But not the fastest way around the track.

I put my money where my mouth is. I installed lowering springs that increased the front spring rates about 30% and the rears about 50% Plus I have struts that can handle that added stiffness,(koni's). Resulting in less understeer and higher cornering speeds around corners where I had established a previous benchmark, prior to modifying the suspension. And I do not have trailing throttle oversteer or drop throttle oversteer. But like anygood thing, I want more. More stiffer springs and more dampning power.

Chassis tuning is not the same for RWD and FWD. Weight distubution plays a large roll.

ok, i am used to making rear drive cars go around, understand that well, your saying i need to increase the right rear more than the right front for the FWD? i can sure try it, it does however corner better now that i added the extra bump stop in the right front. i tried cambering the right rear, all that did was make it push lots. i took it out in a hurry. i am still playing around with it, tonight is another night, but no time to change anything as i go to the track around 3, its all loaded already. that little swaybar thats on there dont do much, this is a budget deal too, i am not rich by any means, but i do have a whole new 88 accord i just picked up that i can get parts from. i think i need to concentrate in the suspension area right now, i already have the fastest car down the sraights, just need it to corner better. thanks for all your help guys..... steve

Boy, Im sorry I missed the interaction on this thread from the get go... I checked your website and I can tell you that I never thought about a 3rd gen as a circle track racer either.

Jim... Very good suggestions. I couldnt have said it better than your last post. You are very correct in your statement that it chassis tuning for front and rear wheel drive cars is totally different. Ive had to go 2 totally different routes to tune the suspension on my Accord versus what I had to do for my BMW.

I would be very curious to find out exactly what modifications you can do to your car in your class? Can you lower the car or must you maintain stock ride height?

It looks like you have all of the glass out of your car except for the windshield. You have probably lost a lot of the top end weight transfer associated in cornering. (You lowered your center of gravity in english.) Unfortunately, you have lost rear end weight in your car too when you removed the rear glass. This will increase the understeer that your car has because the 60/40 weight distribution you once had being stock is now probably closer to 65/35. Somehow, you need to make the car rotate better by stiffening up the rear end more than the front.

Here's my suggestion. If you can change your springs. Get a set of 4th Generation Accord Ractive Coilovers. (I run these personally.) These springs are made for a car that is 400lbs heavier than ours since they are for 4th generation Accords. The springs themselves are also much shorter than stock but are made to be able to maintain stock ride height or go WAY LOWER. (About 4" at the extreme.) You do sacrifice some ride comfort but hey, it doesnt look like you are going for a ride in the countryside anyways.

You can either lower your car or set it up however you want to with these springs and have a MUCH higher spring rate. You might also consider using a stiffer shock like Jim said. ( I personally run Tokicos on the front of my car and KYB's on the back.) You might also invest in a rear strut bar. One of the guys on the board makes them. I also run the stock front and rear anti roll bars on the front and back from an LX-i with eurethane bushings that I custom carved from Roller skate wheels with a dremel. My car is a little stiff but you'd be hard pressed to catch me if I had a little more horsepower.

I know that with my suspension setup, I can whip.. no trample many stock Miata's and 4 cylinder BMW's in the twisties as long as I can keep my revs up.

You might also check out some of our websites. Many of us have done all of the trial and error for you and can help you out by showing detailed pics and instructions on what we have done to make our cars handle better. A couple of us run modified front suspensions with 2nd gen Prelude upper A arms. These allow us to avoid using aftermarket camber kits because the A arms are adjustable.

Anyways, stick around a while. I'd be very interested in taliking to you throughout the season.
:D :D :D :D

Well, I just checked your website and see that you run the Fab 4 division and half the rules were made to keep YOU from going fast. (The cam & a half rule, the 12 valve rule, the aluminum wheel rule etc.) The only route I can see to getting you stiffer springs on a budget and look stock would be to put a set of 4th generation Accord springs on your car. These are also stiffer than our stock springs. Im not sure how this would affect your ride height thought. It looks like they don't even want you to run camber kits on the car and want you to run everything totally stock.

i already have the camber kits, but this year they said no camber in the right front, my R/F spindle was so bent the tire and rim were rubbing it, so i took it off and put it in the press and straightened it.

ok 4th gen..... which years? i'm new to this, and would i use the springs, or the whole strut assy?

and this adjustable A-arm stuff looks appealing........ i'll look into that.

i thought of putting a stiffiner across the back strut towers, i have a friend that wil fab anything i need, so i think i will make one, use it till they tell me to take it off.... i have the aluminum wheels back this year, so thats a dead issue, i have taken a torch to my left side springs and sagged them, so the car leans on the left side, i moved the battery to the trunk, left side of course, i run just about empty on fuel, not sure if the extra weight there would help or hurt me. its low, but will shift to the right thru the corner. let me know what you guys think.

if you want to see the website for our track, its www.norwayspeedway.com

they at least have a pic of my car on the main page :)

You can use some sleave type coilover assemblies ment for 4th gen accords, but not 4th gen coil springs. They are taller in the front, then the springs for our cars. Here is a list of springs for the 3rd gen accord and their spring rates.

STOCK FRONT @211lbs REAR @117lbs

Tokico lowering springs 350 190 H&R ??? ???
Neuspeed 265 165 $159(where?)
Eibach pro-ki 308 to742 97 to 200 $199$194optauto.
Eibach sport line 342 80 to 142 (lowest!)
Progress group 2" drop 360 240 $129 $129optauto
sprint 2.25"drop 350 to 425. 225 to 300. $???

Suspension Techniques regular 1"drop 341 125 to180
speed-tech 2.0"drop 365 230 $97

B&G suspension 1.6" drop 350 240 $169

Ground Control coilovers
softest option 340 250 $339

does anyone know if a spring from some other model can be adapted to fit the strut?

like i said, this is a budjet operation, but i have some friends in the right places tthat i can get some used parts from, one is my sponsor who gave me the car in the first place.

Jim is right about the height of the front springs from a 4th Gen accord. They are taller for sure but I think that if you sag them like you did with the springs you have already, you might not have a problem. This would be the "budget" thing to do IMHO.

I know that when I got my coilovers, there were a strut & a shock from a 1991 4th gen Accord in the box. (Don't ask me why, I didnt ask for either from the guy who shipped them.) I compared the struts and the rear shocks of each car and they are the same circumference. I measured them with a caliper at 5 different points and they were almost exactly the same. The length of the struts and shocks were slightly different. The 4th gen accords were slightly longer. This confirms what Jim said.

I think that it is Justin who makes the rear strut bars here on the board and he charges like $75 for them. You might check Market Place forum for one or just email him.

As for the upper A arm conversion the best bet to get info on this would be to check out POS Carbs website here.

He has complete instructions on how do the upper A arm conversion. I acutally printed off the pages and took them out with me when I did my car. His instructions were perfect.

As for spring assemblies from other cars, I would only guess that 2nd gen Preludes have anything even close to what you would call interchangeable. That car is lighter than our cars anyways and I think that it would be a waste of time to try it.

I wander around junkyards a lot. (It's my hobby, dont ask.. and no, I haven't seen a doctor for this problem....yet) and have checked out many other cars in detail to see what might be a good swap and what wont work. I haven't come across much that will work suspension wise as direct fit.

As for your questions about gas in the car, this is what I would do. This may sound really crazy but I know some guy who did this. He had a problem with the rear end of his race car being too light. To help out his problem, he put a fuel cell in the back of his car. He then took off his stock gas tank, stood it on it's side and filled the left side of the tank with Quickcrete mixed with ball bearings. He improved his weight distribution back to about 50/50 with 60% of the weight being on the left side of the car. Since they never weigh the cars at the Columbus Motor Speedway here in town in his division, he never got caught.

The car would turn left really well but wouldn't turn right worth a crap. If you guys never race backwards, you would be fine too. As for acceleration issues, I dont know how long your straighaways are on the track itself so I don't know what the tradeoff would be.

well thats a hell of an idea, but i think lead would be just fine if i need more left side weight. they dont weigh us either, but as any racer, i am weight conciouse.

so if the struts and springs from a gen 4 are almost the same, and will bolt up, it would be my best bet to just get a set off a junker and try them and see how it goes...... maybe i will check on that tomorrow. which year/model would be the best choice do you guys think?

Well check out the 90-93 cars. But someone all ready checked this out and came to the conclusion that a adaptor bracket would have to be make. And he did not feel that said bracket could be made by average joe mechanic. Thing is this was a post from AF, and I can't get to it to research it to tell you who it was. And I'll add that I've checked out 4th gens in the junk yards and just looking at them I have my doubt's. But if your willing to go to a junk yard to prove or disprove if you can use 4th gen springs and struts, you have my blessing. I will only accept hearing that installed them and drove the car, no well it looks like it will work. Frankly if they do I will be over joyed. I'll just chose a shortend strut like the Bilstein sports or Koni sports to get around the extra height issue. But I'm not holding out much hope that it's possible. Yet I want them to work. Let us know, upersleder.

Hmmm, I called Bilstein yesterday and had them pull the technical diagrams for the 3rd gen strut and the 4th gen sturts. He noticed right away that the 4th gen was allot taller. He converted the measurements from metric to inches and it was a whopping 2" 6/7" I asked about their shorter sport struts and he said it would only be about 10mm lower or what 1" 1/2". I told him that I was hoping to buy some 4th gen sport sturts if they would fit. We both came to the conclusion that it's not possible.
I'll run the same thing past a tech at koni tomarrow.