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Spring Rate

yellowbronco

yellowbronco

Cuts Through Grease !!!
Location
Moab
I have been noticing lately a lot of people telling me that my rig seems like its sprung a little stiff. I have taken note of this and think it may be true. I have 16" travel Bilstein 9100 Rockcrawler coilovers, I think my springs are 150 over 250 front and rear (I will pull them off to verify soon), and my rig may be about 4,000lbs(maybe less?) I have them charged with about 180lbs of nitrogen, which I think is fine.

It rallies great, but when I get to crawling boulders it seems like I have tires in the air more than I should.

Discuss.
 
P

PJTPW

Project Power Wagon
Location
Moab, Utah
Tires in the air could be a number of things.

Spring rates too high? - need accurate sprung weight

Where is your dual rate stop set? (inches of travel)

Are shocks compressing all the way, or will rate not allow it?

Why the same rates front and rear? What is the difference in corner weights?

Basically we need more specific answers about your current set up.

Ryan
 
yellowbronco

yellowbronco

Cuts Through Grease !!!
Location
Moab
PJTPW said:
Tires in the air could be a number of things.

Spring rates too high? - need accurate sprung weight

Where is your dual rate stop set? (inches of travel)

Are shocks compressing all the way, or will rate not allow it?

Why the same rates front and rear? What is the difference in corner weights?

Basically we need more specific answers about your current set up.

Ryan
Click to expand...

Ok, I'll be out in the garage tommorrow. I will get some more info then.
 
yellowbronco

yellowbronco

Cuts Through Grease !!!
Location
Moab
timpanogos said:
How about just winching your front end down a bit on the climbs? Sounds like your happy with it on other
Click to expand...

It's not climbing thats the problem, it's a wheel travel thing. I think my springs are too stiff and not allowing the axle to drop as easily as I would like. I got sucked into another project yesterday and never got a chance to look at everything, so I guess I'll get to it this week.

BTW, great to see you up on PSM last weekend, how was the rest of your trip?
 
timpanogos

timpanogos

Push to the Peak
Location
Heber
It was good to meet you also, looking forward to meeting your wife sometime also ... I want to hookup with you guys for some co mountains this summer!

We had a great weekend! Was real tempted to meet up with you guys at bfe, but did Pritchett instead (and hells revenge after that)
 
yellowbronco

yellowbronco

Cuts Through Grease !!!
Location
Moab
notajeep said:
Any new news on the spring rate thing?
Click to expand...

Not yet, I've been jacking around with other stuff. I'm still thinking spring rate but also center limiting straps and some other crap might help. I always seem to have lots to do thats more important.:(

I'll try to refocus though.:)
 
notajeep

notajeep

Just me
Location
Logan
Well get on that would ya..... I just today picked up some 18" fox coilovers. I need to learn..... Most everything. :)
 
ROCKRUNNER

ROCKRUNNER

Active Member
Location
SLC
Well your spring rate sounds to be pretty close to what we would recomend. Does it ever max out the shock when boulder crawling? Do you have any sway bar? How much up travel are you setup for? How many inches before you dual rate spreader hits your tuner ring.
 
yellowbronco

yellowbronco

Cuts Through Grease !!!
Location
Moab
ROCKRUNNER said:
Well your spring rate sounds to be pretty close to what we would recomend. Does it ever max out the shock when boulder crawling? Do you have any sway bar? How much up travel are you setup for? How many inches before you dual rate spreader hits your tuner ring.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure I have maxed out the shock on boulders and stuff. I don't have a sway bar yet, but I am thinking about getting the Currie anti-rock. I am set up for about 4" of uptravel and 12" down. I'll need to check on the dual rate stuff.
 
Greg

Greg

I run a tight ship... wreck
Admin
Location
Grand Junction, CO
I'm no coilover guru, but here's what I understand.

I don't know that you need an antisway bar, at least not with the current spring rates... you don't suffer from excessive body roll. On the coils, theres a series of numbers on each coil, each separated by a period. Should look like this- 250.200.16

The first number is the spring rate (250 pounds to compress coil 1"), the 2nd number is the coil diameter (200 = 2" ID), and the 3rd number will be the free height of the coil (16 = 16").

Those numbers will tell you the spring rate, which is what you will need to go off of to help fix your problem. I know in the past you have said that the Bronco baja's quite well at speed... stable, soaks up the big bumps, etc. I'd say those are the attributes of a stiffly sprung setup. What I'd recommend would be to get 2 upper springs that had less spring rate than your current ones and swap them out, only in the front. Loose about 50 lbs and see what that feels like. At that point, if your getting good wheel travel and it feels a bit unstable, then it will be time to start thinking about an antisway bar.

Perhaps see if anyone on here has a set of springs that they're not using? Unless you have all the numbers, a scale and some accurate measurements matching coil springs can be a crap shoot.

Go look at your coils & lets see what rates your running!! :hickey:
 
yellowbronco

yellowbronco

Cuts Through Grease !!!
Location
Moab
Greg said:
I'm no coilover guru, but here's what I understand.

I don't know that you need an antisway bar, at least not with the current spring rates... you don't suffer from excessive body roll. On the coils, theres a series of numbers on each coil, each separated by a period. Should look like this- 250.200.16

The first number is the spring rate (250 pounds to compress coil 1"), the 2nd number is the coil diameter (200 = 2" ID), and the 3rd number will be the free height of the coil (16 = 16").

Those numbers will tell you the spring rate, which is what you will need to go off of to help fix your problem. I know in the past you have said that the Bronco baja's quite well at speed... stable, soaks up the big bumps, etc. I'd say those are the attributes of a stiffly sprung setup. What I'd recommend would be to get 2 upper springs that had less spring rate than your current ones and swap them out, only in the front. Loose about 50 lbs and see what that feels like. At that point, if your getting good wheel travel and it feels a bit unstable, then it will be time to start thinking about an antisway bar.
Perhaps see if anyone on here has a set of springs that they're not using? Unless you have all the numbers, a scale and some accurate measurements matching coil springs can be a crap shoot.

Go look at your coils & lets see what rates your running!! :hickey:
Click to expand...

You sound kind of Guru'y to me.:D I think I need to set up limiting straps as well. It unloads when i am going up steep stuff, as well as down:eek:. Plus it won't stay level, it unloads to one side real bad when I get into an offcamber situation. The shock will be fully extended, but instead of dropping the wheel down the body will lean in the opposite direction. Hard to explain, I know, but I have a pic that might be able to help( if I can find it).
 
ROCKRUNNER

ROCKRUNNER

Active Member
Location
SLC
Some coils have the specs stamped at the top of the coil wich would mean you would have to remove them to check them. (250.200.16) Would mean the ID of the coil is 2.5" and would fit on a 2.0 coilover and not the 2.5. The spring rate is 200lb and the spring is 16" long. Do you have a spool for lockers? A tender coil is a 6" spring to keep the slack out of the coils on full droop. Greg makes an excellent point to change the upper spring to a softer spring. I would check my tuner ring gap before anything. That will allow the upper coil to do as much of the compression as possible and the upper coil is softer so it would be softer.
 
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