Dino Coil overs
 

Hi
I am looking for coil overs for my Dino project.

The previous builder has fitted Avo coil overs to the front with a 6 inch long spring rated at 100lbs. The problem is that this has 12 coils and is fully compressed and binds when the weight of the car is on the spring so it is the wrong spring for the car.

There are no coil overs on the back as yet. My car has the Alfa V6 engine.

I have determined the corner weights of the car and the angles of the coil overs along with the distances between the fixing points of the suspension but I can’t find any formulae on the web which give me reasonable results for the calculation of the spring rates.

I have contacted a couple of coil over manufacturers for help but they all require me to specify exactly what I need in terms of spring rates so I am a bit stuck.

I was wondering what other Dino owners have on their cars so as to give me some sort of starting point for mine.

Alternatively does anyone know of any reliable ways of calculating the spring rates required?

Cheers
Neil

coilovers
 

Hi Neil

What dino kit is it you have? If it's a deon/jhc I may be able to help.

ian

Hi Ian
Its a Classic Replicas kit.
I know that the chassis is modified from that of the Deon but as a starting point for coil over spring rates I think that it's close enough.
Many thanks
Neil

coilovers
 

Hi Neil

There was a lot of debate about the spring rates on the deon/jhc in the Italian Replica Car Club's magazine. Deon/jhc specified a spring rate of 300lbs for the rear and 450lbs for the fronts. Not sure without digging out the mags but I remember owners found 450lbs for the fronts were too stiff,as the cars were light at the front and resulted in brake lock ups. I have a spare set of front springs so I'll dig them out and measure them.

ian

Thanks Ian I would really appreciate that.:icon_smile:

Neil

coilovers
 

Hi

These are a spare set of front springs I seem to have acquired!! If I remember correctly these are the standard deon front springs as they are the same colour as the springs fitted to the back of my deon.I seem to recall buying some lower lbs springs through the club mag.
Not sure of lbs spring rate but they measure 8 inches tall, 2-3/4 inches diameter and have 11 coils in total. I think they are a standard type spring length/diameter available from most spring suppliers.
When the weather gets a little warmer I'll crawl under the car and measure the rear springs but if memory serves me right they use the same type of damper /spring on the front and rear??

ian

Looking through the deon build manual and cross referencing deon's parts list they have a couple of codes for the springs they specified-
Front USS-450-Spring supplier- Scania springs
Rear USS-300-Spring supplier- Scania springs
May be a deon code but wondered if the number may refer to spring rate. Strange the front is a higher number? But add's up to the discussion in the club mag. Maybe deon got them the wrong way round on the parts list? Possibly should be 450lbs rear 300lbs front??
I've measured the rear springs and they are identical in size to the front ones.

ian

The springs I have on the front at the moment are 1.9" ID and 6" tall so it looks as if there were some suspension changes from the Deon to the Classic replicas car.

My corner weight measurements show that the rear of the car is heavier than the front which would suggest that I need the greater poundage springs on the rear.

Many thanks for all your help Ian

spring rates
 

Hi there! This might help you some. http://www.ridetech.com/tech/spring-rate-calculator/.

It was! Thanks very much for the info Jon.

When I put my figures in for the front it came up with a spring rate of 300lbs.

I had to modify the calculation for the rear as it assumed a lever ration of 1 whereas it is 0.5 for my car. The result I got was 450 lbs.

I think that these are the figures I will go with as I think that Ian may be correct about the Deon figures which when reversed agree with my calculations.

Cheers guys.