Koni / Bilstein Shock Help

[Skylarking]

20's look good and the steering response is slightly better, but I think a good 245/40 18 on stock SS/SV6 wheels feels the best with a bit of sidewall to soak up the bumps and road irregularities.

Can’t disagree and love the turn in of the 20’s but 18” would be ideal on our crappy roads...

Unfortunately 18” rims that fit over brembos are hard to find at a reasonable cost. And then there is a bit of a compliance issue going from a staggered wheel setup to same widths all around (for tyre rotation purposes)... But that’s a whole other story not related to suspension.

 

[MattSAU2XR8]

Koya SFO1s would fit over Brembos I think, about $1700 per set...

 

[[paradox]]

Running the same spring rates front and rear on a VF Commodore isn't a set up made with much intelligence or knowledge of the chassis dynamics of that particular vehicle. Holden and King/Monroe's approach is right for a road car and this 9/9, 10/10 stuff is wrong in my opinion.

interesting post.. id like to think they have an idea about what works, but cant say i have really dug into factory/aftermarket spring rates too much.
plenty of people seem to drink their koolaid

For me, the factory suspension tune is almost perfect though i would have liked the car to sit just a little lower

maybe the motorsport handles slightly different, but i have always said i find the FE3 a bit bouncy/floaty,
and higher speed cornering a bit light and twitchy but i think that is more to do with the electric power steering.

i ran pedders coilovers in my VE and as unimpressed as i was with those, the car felt far more predictable

 

[_R_J_K_]

Running the same spring rates front and rear on a VF Commodore isn't a set up made with much intelligence or knowledge of the chassis dynamics of that particular vehicle. Holden and King/Monroe's approach is right for a road car and this 9/9, 10/10 stuff is wrong in my opinion.

Their R&D capability is there, the MCA Hammerhead WTAC car has outright won WTAC for a couple of years and they also do the control suspension for a lot of one make series'. A lot of the emphasis of their product is also about the development and build quality of their valving (and not just focusing on spring rates) which falls by the wayside with a lot of other manufacturers, so much so that they don't recommend using aftermarket swaybars which is where I think they are dealing with their roll axis.

Like tyre pressures expressed in psi, spring rates are most commonly expressed in lb/in even Eibach coil over springs. It's pretty "oddball" for an aftermarket suspension specialist expressing spring rates in kg's although it's common for car manufacturers to do so.

It's super common for aftermarket Japanese suspension.

Just out of curiosity, where are you getting your info about all of these spring rates? Also, how do you see the VE/VF 50/50 weight distribution (or something less ideal in the case of older Commos) and a 1750kg(ish) street trim playing into this?

I always thought spring rates were measured in kg/cm or lb/in

kg/mm

 

[Banjo79]

Koya SFO1s would fit over Brembos I think, about $1700 per set...

Don't mind those wheels and like Cloonie Garage's VF build. I might add that for the track, MCA has specced 12f/13r for anyone who hasn't watch his vids.

 

[_R_J_K_]

I also feel like actual suspension design might not be taken into account here - the whole VE/VF suspension and geometry is also completely different from any other Commodore, particularly given where the spring sits and how much leverage on the rear spring the rear swing arm vs. live axle vs. the rear control arm on a VE/VF has, not to mention the major weight difference between those generations of Commodore. It's just not an apples to apples comparison. Even though they're both MacPherson strut fronts, the VE/VF front has a waaay different setup to anything that came before it.

 

[_R_J_K_]

Found some pretty good footage of the MCA construction process and their general design choices with component breakdown:

And apparently Shane Van Gisbergen has a ZB:

Also worth the watch for the wheel and tyre sizes on the 86.

 

[Nastas_VF]

Any update on how this turned out?