Every fast road, track-day and race car driver we ever met drives their car in a different way to the rest of the grid and prefer a set up suited to them. Some drivers like the safety of understeer whist others find oversteer the fastest way around a track for them. Even the type of racing and the track surface has a significant bearing on the ideal suspension set up. Tarmac race and drift cars tend to be lower and stiffer than their tarmac rally counterparts as the surfaces are often quite different with tarmac rallies often run on rougher roads. Gravel rally cars tend to run still higher ride heights with much softer spring rates to compensate for the surface these cars run on. In drag racing the focus is on traction, moving the weight over the driven wheels on launch to maximise speed away from the line. The cars drive configuration also plays a huge part in specifying the correct set up.
In a front wheel drive race car ideally you want to reduce understeer, in a rear wheel drive car you may want to reduce some oversteer. In either case you may wish to build a car that has a more neutral balance with more predicable handling so you can drive the car at the limit of grip and achieve faster lap times and make the car more stable under hard braking to pull off those heroic late brake overtakes. Having the right basic setup of your cars suspension with the ability to fine tune the ride height and damping front to rear ratios is key to setting faster laps or winning more races.
Every Gaz Coilover suspension system we supply is tailored to our customers needs in terms of spring rates, damper valving and ride height range. Once ordered, we email you asking you what your car is used for such as fast road, tarmac race, rally, drift, drag, sprinting, hill climbing, gravel rally etc. We also ask for the changes made to the car that affect the parameters we work within, usually modifications and changes that change the weight of the car such as engine swaps, interior removal, roll cage fitment, metal parts replaced by fiberglass or carbon fibre. We then also ask you what tyres you run be they road, semi slick track day tyres or full slicks. The more information you can give us the better, if you know your cars corner weights, tell us and we can factor those in.
In this way we are able to build up a picture of the car in terms of front to rear weight and lever ratios and how the car will transfer its weight during acceleration, braking and cornering and how this will affect tyre grip. With this information we can specify the ideal spring rates, damper valving and ride height range for your cars use, build specification and your driving style.
And the cost for this vitally important service. Nothing. We would rather do a good job of understanding your car and your needs so you can go out and do a good job of spanking your competitors on the race track with a Gaz Coilover suspension kit that was built to do that one job!
