Springbound Weitecs see the grim truth

[d4v1d sm4rt]

As I am still not happy about the suspension setup I thought i would just take a look at the springs when the were loaded and here is what i found. It does not look like the top 3 coils are doing anything at all! No wonder the car still feels bad. It was noticable how the Weitecs had more actual windings than the originals, and they were physically softer to push down on but this does not look good to me. Any comments are welcome.

My ride height is 335 front
312 rear from wheel centres to top of wheel arch

 

[Schnelletrecker]

It does not look like the top 3 coils are doing anything at all!

Hi,

it is not uncommon that one end of a progressive type wound spring is partly compressed under load – even statically.

The main reason for that kind of spring design is to always apply preload by using relatively small amount of spring force.

For instance the preload spring of my FK front coilovers is separated from the main spring (see pic 1). This small helper preload spring is always fully bound, both statically and dynamically. So it works only as a spacer at regular (recommended) lowerings between 30 and 50 mm (equals 325 to 305 mm distance). However at lowering settings below approx 70 mm this helper spring comes alive (during unloading driving situations) and does expand to provide the needed preload.

At the rear however I don’t have a two-spring system, because this time the „helper“ is integrated to the main spring (see pic 2). At first glance this kind of spring looks like a progressive type, but in many cases it is in fact a pure linear spring operation due to the always compressed (inactive) integrated helper.

So your Weitecs do also feature the integrated preload “device“.

Cheers

P.S. Both pics were taken with the car jacked-up. Brand new coilovers.