Re: suspension and springs (long)

["Steve Rubano" <srubano@xxxx>]

This may offend some people and I appoligize if it does so in anyway, 
just venting in some parts of this post:

With all this talk about lowering, I found a good site that explains 
a good amount of technical aspects of suspensions. Most of it you 
guys may already know. 

http://www.findarticles.com/m0BUX/3_31/59457898/p1/article.jhtml

Take note on the bottom of page 4, it talks about cutting springs.

It comes down to this, if you want a high performance suspension than 
one has to be engineered from the ground up. You can't just simply 
replace springs and expect a miracle. You have to get springs and 
shocks that are matched (ex. stiffer springs, stiffer shocks). Also 
what would come into play is the Anti Roll bar for some good 
cornering. Rob at PJ Grady has designed excellent replacement shocks 
where they are adjustable. If your suspension setup requires a 
stiffer shock than you can "pump it up" so to speak. This allows you 
to adjust and fine tune your shocks to your vehicle, even if your 
springs are "worn". James makes a good point with that DMC Houston 
designed an entire shock/spring package to replace the front and 
rears so that it was matched. How much of the rear is lowered with 
the new shocks? I doubt that Lotus engineers just crammed larger 
crappier springs into the Delorean so it wouldn't outperform the 
Lotus..if that is true than I would think that they would have 
changed other things too. The reason why I say that is because 
springs and shocks are an easy to thing to change, especially in an 
engineering environment. It's not something that requires extreme 
modification to the chassis, trailing arms, ect. I think Lotus would 
have made other changes to insure that it wasn't that easy to modify 
the Delorean to "outperform" the Lotus. If Delorean engineers caught 
on they very well could have used the existing setup of the car as a 
standard one and offer a sport performance package with a different 
spring and shock setup (as other manufactures do).Rob and DMC Joe's 
lowering springs are VERY well made and are in sense a "sport" 
performance upgrade to the vehicle. They are allot stiffer than the 
stock ones (as Nick Pitello will tell you). I guess you can say that 
it is a preference. Yes ANY spring will deteriorate after time, 
especially ones that have been under load for over 20 years! Elements 
take affect on springs (or anything else metal) and do weaken it, as 
Walter noted finding that a part cracked off of one of his springs. 
It's not an item on the car that requires replacing after so many 
miles, but does require replacement at some time when they start 
showing their age. If the springs were so inferior as James pointed 
out then there would have been allot more failures sooner that after 
20 years. Every car is going to look different especially when you 
look at different ones from state to state. A New York Delorean (or 
any other car) with a Stock setup WILL generally look lower next to 
another Stock D from another state. Why? Because we have THE worst 
roads here, just full of pot holes that wreak havoc on any suspension 
on any car...causing them to wear out prematurely. I am certain that 
if someone in the NY area installs the upgrade suspension from DMC 
Houston and another D owner in another state with better roads 
installed the same package....after a given amount of years you put 
the two of them side by side you will see in fact that the NY D will 
sit slightly lower (that is given that they are daily driven D's). 
That's why you noticed that all of the "stock D's" that you were 
referring too at the show were all sitting at different heights and 
it looked "wavy". 

It has become evident to me that since I've owned my Delorean (over 
2.5 years now, still wet behind the ears on it) as the years go by, 
I've noticed that some Delorean vendors are starting to compete with 
one another instead of working with each other (hey Ed you reading 
this?). For one example, and I quote: "When we decided to do a 
suspension improvement kit, we wanted to do it the right way, and not 
make a "cheapie" set of front springs only kit." I wouldn't 
say "cheapie" set, they are very well made. If I want to only lower 
my front and improve the fronts handling and feel that the rear of my 
car is fine "as is" that is my decision. What you are saying is that 
I am "cheaping out" because I am not spending over $600 on a set of 
four springs? I don't cheap out when it comes to repairing my D (or 
any other car for that fact). If I want to replace something I do the 
research. If I feel that a part on the car is to flimsy I have it 
made. I have had allot of feedback from people who have replaced 
their front springs with the so called "cheapie" replacements and 
they rave about them...I have yet to come across someone who has said 
anything negative about them. If there is some negative feed back 
about them I would like to here from those people,DMCMAN73[at]
Hotmail.com. 

On another notes James, why is it when I emailed you about the pre-
cut lighted door keys you were quick (within the hour no less) to 
respond to me to sell me one, but when I emailed you back a few 
minutes later with a question about my locks, thinking someone 
changed them, you never emailed me back? I emailed you to more times 
after that, that was over 2 months ago. You don't have to worry about 
answering it now, I got the answer I needed from Rob, with a quick 
tutorial on them to. I figured you would get this question on this 
post since maybe your email isn't working or you just don't have the 
time to answer one simple question.

Steve (just venting his anger)
VIN# 003365 (in case any D "vendor" wants to blacklist it)