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Date:         Mon, 14 Aug 2000 10:42:44 -0400
Reply-To:     "Carrington, Tom" <TCarrington@ReliTech.com>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         "Carrington, Tom" <TCarrington@ReliTech.com>
Subject:      FW: [Syncro] Radical Spring Calculations
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Please send comments to Steve, not me!

-----Original Message----- From: Steven X. Schwenk [mailto:steve@syncro.org] Sent: Monday, August 14, 2000 1:54 AM To: Derek Drew Cc: Syncro@egroups.com; vANAGON@GERRY.VANAGON.COM Subject: Re: [Syncro] Radical Spring Calculations

One other point I should have noted is that spring preferences are subjective to some extent. I think back when David first speced out his springs, people were talking in the abstract about springs 20% stiffer as being ideal. David's are considerably less than that. And they are considerably less stiff than the Siekel springs, which many people appear to like. So I am not saying David's springs are objectively too stiff, i am advocating that softer is better...as soft as you can go without the obvious effects/symptoms of undersprung suspension, which you get with the stock springs on a westy.

The springs you want Derek are a sort of hybred of the betts and the marshall springs. You are after lift because of the heavy loads you carry. You want the ride height of the Betts when you are fully loaded, which may require the ride height of the Marshall spriings when empty. Still, spring rate still has to be part of the equation, and, the damping limitations of the stock shock put a limit on how much stiffer you can go before encountering unintended effects of under-damped suspension. (Unless you buy the stiffer M or N shocks. Peter Seikel advises use of the N shock with his springs.) How much stiffer do you want? It's hard to tell without actually trying different springs. 10% sound good, but it's just a guess until you actually try it. And if you are going to increase the front spring rate considerably, then you should increase the rear spring rate as well, at least based on what we've seen with the last run of betts springs. The ride is better and the suspension works better when you use the betts rear with the betts fronts, as opposed to the stock rear.

The point? This spring stuff is complicated. There is no one size fits all. steve p.s. what's this about Winkler having a variety of springs and sitffness....really? Where?


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