After a few months of driving with the kings they have settled in nicely and needed to be cranked down a bit more since settling in. I know from my measurements I'm now back at 10" of lift, but the ride has gotten bad.. It's not even close to what it was before. It has very little travel (stiffness) in the front end, is pretty harsh over bumps in the road. They are valved for mostly on road use, and I have noticed no leaks anywhere.

I want to change out the coils to obtain a ride similar to what i had before, smooth as butter. I have yet to get a straight answer from several places I called, and some completely did not understand, so I'm coming to all my knowledgable guys here

I currently have 16x700 coil springs (16", 700lb rating) in a 3.0 dia for the king 2.5 series shocks. what length/rating will provide the smoothest ride?

Here is Kings coil spring chart

Here is Downsouth Motorsports selection

 

No one? i figured someone would know a little more on the subject than i do

 

You and I have talked about this before but I've done a little bit of thinking about it since then. Here's the thing that's got me at a quandry right now...

Obviously the lower the spring rate the softer the ride. That's when the spring is not compressed due to cranking though. When you crank them down, doesn't it in effect take some of the spring out of the coil and reduce it's bounce back?

Also, doesn't the additional lift when cranking coilovers come from the resistance of the spring itself? Like if you had a rate of 700# and had to crank it 1" to get 2" of lift, wouldn't you have to crank it much more than 1" in order to get that same 2" of lift with a lower rate spring? That would reduce the amount of adjustability you have with your coilovers for one but also, since you have to crank them down more, it would just stiffen them up to nearly the same ride quality as the higher rate.

I have no answers for you Matt but I wanted to throw my thoughts out there in hopes that they would help you find one. I can tell you that since I took my Kings off the front(16"x600#) and installed the oem spring/strut assemblies w/ the Rize mounts, the ride has softened up slightly. Nothing major though.

I'm thinking that a longer spring with a lower rate might get you to where you want to be. Like the 18"x500# or 600#. That would give you a little more length in spring to work with so that you wouldn't have to crank them as much and the spring would have more effective area to work with since they aren't cranked as much. I'd call King and talk to one of their experts about it if you haven't already but that's my train of thought.

Good luck dude! Keep us(me) informed of what you figure out

 

Yea, I have been pondering the dual-rate setup we talked about, but dont think we have enough shock/valve body to get two springs on there, They would be short if you did.

What I'm really wanting to know more about is like you mentioned length vs rating. Will a longer-lower rate coil get me back to a soft ride, or would a spring of the same length but a lower rate get me a better ride. I'm with you though, I'm thinking the longer spring with a lower rate is the way to go. I'll do some calling and get back at ya.

 

I was able to catch Sonny from Down South Motorsports last night before they left, and luckily he is going to King today He is going to ask about running an 18" spring and about that lenght with a lower weight rating.

He also said the 18" spring would require next to no cranking and would provide 2" of lift, and should smooth out the ride in theory. It's cool that I caught him because he was actually going for a meeting and to ask about using different springs instead of cranking coilovers.

He recommended for the time being going with an 18" spring @ the same 700# rating, but he said to wait till he got back from king to pass judgement.

 

Sweet...... I can't see running an 18" spring at 700# being smoother than an 18" spring at 500# or 600# though.

I had thought of putting my 2" billet spacer on top of the Kings and not cranking them to begin with but decided against it at the last minute. The idea was to get the 2" of extra lift I wanted w/out creating a harsh ride from the cranked coils. The guy that did all the work decided to call King on his own and ask about the idea and they told him to NEVER put a spacer on top of the coilover and to just crank them. I don't think my guy explained to them why I was considering it in the first place though.

My curiosity has peeked even though I'm not running them anymore. Stuff like this interests me.

 

I would definetly go down in weight rating like you said, we will see what king has to say to him on the subject.

 

Matt sorry I didn't read your full post but the longer the spring the better the ride. I remember from the mustang world on my coil-overs the guys at griggs racing said for a given spring of the same weight, the shorter the spring was cut the stiffer it felt.

I'd throw the longest spring on there you can fit and keep the same #700 weight.