Noob needs help (mostly street, some track)

Shoeshear

Hey guys, hope you guys don't think I've been cluttering up the forum too much.

Just needed some help on planning out/deciding what to do about suspension. I read the stickies and honestly came away more confused than before I started reading. From sport bikes, I'm somewhat familiar with the adjustable aspect of the dampers (in the sense that I vaguely know what the words mean lol), but when people started to throw shock dyno charts down, I got super lost. The response for true coilovers, non-"true" coilovers, springs, springs and dampers, seemed to be pretty varied and I don't know if the various OPs' question was too vague or just that it's more opinion than fact. I came away with a bunch of weird technical tid-bits, but no real recommendation on which way to proceed.

So this is basically what I understood:

1. For the absolute best, real track performance and lap time reductions, you need a set of really nice dampers with matching spring rate springs to complement the valving from a race-heavy brand (AST, Moton, Penske, etc.)

2. If you don't give a crap, cheaper is better to a degree.

My problem: What the hell do guys who want something in the middle do?
After my first track outing with the Z, a few things are very apparent:

1. The car is extremely capable out of the box and handles very nicely. Definitely beyond my current ability. There are better lap times to be had simply by improving myself.

2. Despite that, I found that the car still squatted and had more brake dive than I'd like, but it cornered pretty flat relative to the amount of front to back springiness. I love the way it takes the corner, less in love with the pitch on brakes and gas.

3. Tires are king.


So now, what do I do if I want to modify it a bit to get what I want performance-wise (a little bit firmer on the brakes and on the gas) but I also desire a slight drop for aesthetic purposes (.5-.75 inches max, don't want much)? I mostly drive on the street (DD), but it will see a couple track days/AutoX every year (as the wallet dictates).

I don't need anything mega adjustable, and something with a minor, but fixed performance benefit would suit me fine. I know that springs can be a reasonable change, but I also don't want the damper to blow out early. I have made this mistake on a previous car and the struts were leaking much sooner than anticipated.

I'd rather just take a little improvement and get better as a driver than get a fancy bit of kit and not be able to do anything with it. And I definitely, DEFINITELY, do not want to make the thing handle worse...

I have run into this situation on my motorcycle. After messing with it and doing all sorts of damping adjustments and getting a suspension guy to look at it, the real improvement just came from riding it.

TLDR: What suspension springs and dampers should I be looking at for reasonable performance improvement, without the need for 3-way adjustability? Is the answer to do nothing? Or just change spring rates?


Please help, you are my only hope.