hey i have installed JIC FLT coilovers and i am taking it to the track here shortly to do time attack so what type of stiffness should i use to help the ass end of the car from sliding around??? Should i stiffen the back and soften the front or stiffen the front soften the back or set all the same? any input would be nice

 

Well...as a general rule, if you add compression damping on the rear, it will tend to oversteer. If you add compression damping on the front, it will tend to understeer. If your shocks adjust compression/rebound with only one adjustment, it's a little more difficult to find a happy medium.

Trial and error is the key. Drive the car. See how it behaves. There's no ONE awesome setting for every car. What works with MY car, MY driving style, MY setup, etc. may not work for YOU, and vice versa.

Drive it on a track and figure it out. Read the manual and see what the adjustments actually do. Shock tuning is difficult even if you know what you're doing. Leave that for last. Leave the shocks on either the factory setting or in the middle to start out with.

Tune your alignment first (based on prior experiences and things you know). It's all educated guesses as far as initial alignment settings go. Start out with something you think will work well. Then tweak from there to get it right.

You kind of have to sequentially tune your alignment/type of tires/springs/shocks, etc. together to make it all work....since it all has to work well together.

Put in some track time...you'll figure it out.

 

yea alright thanks i guess i was hopeing for some miracle setting but i have been playing with it on some back roads trying to find some happy medium getting a little bit better i think lol

 

It' very hard to tell without you driving the car first. The settings on the shock will depend on how your car behaves in each turn or part of the turn.

Mainly think of 5 different sections/turns.

1. Initial entry to a decreasing radius turn.
2. Trail braking
3. Flat out turns.
4. Quick direction change (chicane/slalom)
5. Exit

Where the car understeers or oversteers will guide to what adjustments you make. So forget about "soften the rear and sttifen the front to fix oversteer". That would apply only to #3.

If you have enough time to practice, start like this:

1. All soft. Drive around 2-3 consistent laps, pushing the car without overdriving it. To see where you have more/less traction.
2. Go up 3 clicks on compression front and rear and go out again and feel how the car improved.
3. Keep going up 3 clicks on each end with every 2-3 laps while you gain grip, until you start to feel the car "skatting" over bumpy surfaces. When one end start skatting, start turning that end one click down at at time until you get your sweet spot for each end. Remember, you will find one end to reach this point sooner than the other.
4. Then do the same for rebound, until the car turns in smoothly without excessive lean. Again, one end will probably reach this point faster than the other.

This would be a great point to start, no matter to what track you go. Then when changing tracks, you can just fine tune it depending on behaviour on each particular corner/segment.