Quote:
Originally Posted by Nezil
I'm wondering how the 'bad road package' actually achieves this lift. The stock suspension has no adjustment, so what exactly has been changed? Do you have different parts in your suspension from the rest of the world?
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The "bad road package" offered in some markets (and standard in some of those) has a 10mm longer front spring, but the rear spring is the same. The spring rate is the same as the normal height springs.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nezil
Those that drove the Dinan kit commented on improved comfort, despite the fact that the springs were actually stiffer. MSS now claims that lowering is possible with increased comfort and grip, and that's what OzWoz is finding. The comfort is not in the low suspension travel region, but more for bigger bumps where the bump stop would be engaged in the stock setup.
The trend I think we might be seeing is that it's possible to improve comfort by using more of the spring rather than the bump stop. If a system can be designed to allow more travel with the spring before the bump stop comes in to play, or a bump stop with a more progressive travel, comfort will improve.
The only thing I'm struggling with is the added grip. Softer suspension would achieve that, and that might be possible if the rear bump stop were changed to allow for more travel than stock before engagement, even with a higher spring rate, but without changing the bump stop, lowering reduces travel, a stiffer spring could slow bump stop engagement but in order to achieve that, the result would need to be stiffer than stock and therefore reduce grip.
One possibility is that MSS' trick multi-spring setup is creating a progressive system where a soft initial spring provides more grip with low excursion, and then the second spring is really very stiff preventing bump-stop engagement. If the weight transfer on acceleration of the M2 is relatively small, this small amount of soft spring rate travel might be enough to improve grip?!?
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One thing to remember is that springs in series (like MSS does) have an effective spring rate less than that of the individual springs themselves, k = (k1*k2)/(k1+k2). So even though they're using "stiffer" springs, we really don't know what the effective rate is.
Additionally, comfort can be achieved with a stiffer overall spring by reducing the damping factor. If you have a damper with a fixed damping curve, going to a higher spring rate will automatically reduce your damping factor. This is likely part of the reason why Dinan's kit feels more comfortable, because they've lowered the damping. Dampers are what transmit harshness.