16" 150 barrel spring

[phenom08]

should i run a take up spring or will it stay loaded?

[Matt49]

should i run a take up spring or will it stay loaded?

I assume you're talking LR. So you tell me...once you have the car scaled properly, what is the spring doing when the car is on jack stands? If that spring isn't loaded, I'd be checking some things.

[phenom08]

spring won't be here til tomorrow just wanted to make sure I put it on right. Thanks

[dirtdriver5]

It will have a bunch of preload when setup

[Matt49]

I recommend something like this also...
http://pitstopusa.com/i-5083383-alls...aring-kit.html

[7uptruckracer]

Just curious is that a set of 4? So that would cover all corners?

[RSS]

It says, 1 kit will do 1 shock

[Matt49]

One kit for one shock. The trick is to keep dirt and water out of them so we wrap it up with duct tape and still blast it with spray lube when we have the shocks off through the week. They will rust and gunk up in a hurry if you don't keep them covered and your regular shock cover won't keep all the dirt out or moisture when you wash.

[RSS]

I can't imagine how much preload will be needed for a 150 spring???

[Matt49]

I'm at 7 turns of preload when I run a 175 LR. Obviously a 150 would need more.
That soft on LR is not unheard of. I've seen a 400/200 stack on LR which makes 133. Never tried it myself.

[25drtrkr]

Matt, we ran a 350/150, which makes a 110, on a blue Rocket. It definitely made the car ALOT tighter in and off...and oh yes....was a pain to get the ride height set!

[RSS]

About 100lbs LR than at 7 turns?

[Matt49]

About 100lbs LR than at 7 turns?

Less than that. I don't run a shock in front of the LR. Trying to ween myself off that as I think it hurts forward drive (no such thing as 0 rebound no matter how much PSI you put in it).
Point being, I need more turns to get what most people might get if they have a high pressure gas shock in front of the cage. I realize a lot of top touring teams run a shock in front but I'm just trying to get away from it entirely and learn to keep attitude in the car with my feet instead of shocks. Still learning on that end.

[billetbirdcage]

Really difficult to compare preload when hanging, unless everything is exactly the same and I mean everything.

Take 2 cars exactly the same but one car has 1" more j-bar rake, the car with more j-bar will have less preload then the other car. Now that could be as little as 1 round to as many as 3 or 4 rounds or more, depending on the coilover angle that the car has.

Same 2 cars but one has more lower bar angle, thus will have less preload

Just saying it's hard to say you should have this amount with this spring, unless you comparing exact cars and set ups.

[RSS]

Billet, I'm not trying this unless you suggest it, I was just shocked at that light of a spring being used.

[rakracing]

Billet,,, I've run the 400/200 stack a lot on my grt even used it with the lock ring at 0 travel, any idea how that compares to the 16" barrel spring on a rocket, tighter ,looser , in middle and off

[billetbirdcage]

Billet,,, I've run the 400/200 stack a lot on my grt even used it with the lock ring at 0 travel, any idea how that compares to the 16" barrel spring on a rocket, tighter ,looser , in middle and off

To be honest anymore, I hate the LR spring. It's so driver or situation sensitive, you can't really give a general rule of thumb to it.

Case and point, I've softened/stiffened the LR spring on several drivers at different times and gotten different reactions a few months later, lol.

Just this last week one guy got a different reaction then he has in the past. Then on one of the other drivers I did the exact opposite as far as changing rate and he felt the same thing. Both got a tightening effect but from completely different directions on spring rates.

Personally, I ain't been a fan of the soft stuff for years now and typically don't recommend anything softer then a 225 for the most part. Not that is correct by any means, just seems like the stiffer stuff works better with my type of set-up or what ever.

Spring rate is spring rate so really don't matter whether it's a single spring or a stacked spring (assuming no stop nut or coil binding to change rate thru travel). Now granted some might be more linear then others.

For the most part, you will notice changes on entry or upon initial throttle and not so much off the corner with a LR spring change. However many will feel a change off corner, but you can argue that most of this comes from a change in the middle. Mess up the middle and most feel it all the way off the corner but most of the change IMO is from the middle handling changes.

Take that for what it's worth (nothing) and you get what you payed for that info, lol.

[rakracing]

i know what you mean, also not a fan of lr softer setups, I preferred a 275 on the lr and 225 on rr worked best for me, we do think the same on entry and middle, keep it free or it screws up from the middle off. thanks

[25drtrkr]

Thanks for clearing that up, billet! I did the same thing with the same driver but different car. He said it helped the drive on a Smack but hurt the drive on a blue Rocket. I chalked it up to a finicky driver! LOL

[Matt49]

On stuff like this, sometimes it is best to listen to the stopwatch and tell the driver to get used to it. The LR spring by itself isn't what is creating the different feel in forward bite...just saying...