Car Tuning Calendar

• Suspension tuning
Suspension tuning involves modifying the springs, shock absorbers, swaybars, and other related components of a vehicle. Shorter springs offer greater stiffness and a lower center of gravity at the cost of proper suspension geometry. Stiffer shock absorbers improve the dynamic weight shifting during cornering and normally have shorter internals to stop them from bottoming out when shorter springs are used. Stiffer sway bars reduce body roll during cornering, thus improving the grip that the tires have on the surface by reducing suspension geometry changes caused by roll; this also improves handling response due to faster weight shifting (similar to stiffer springs.) The danger with overly stiff swaybars is the lifing of the inner wheel, which reduces its traction. Loss of traction less likely with softer bars. Other components that are sometimes added are strut bars, which improve the body stiffness and help better maintain the proper suspension geometry during cornering. On some cars certain braces, anti-roll bars, etc., can be retrofitted to base model cars from sports models.
For offroad vehicles, the emphasis is on lengthening the suspension travel and installing larger tires to increase ground clearance.
These suspension modifications are in contrast to Lowriders with hydraulic or pneumatic suspensions. Lowriders use another type of suspension tuning in which the height of each individual wheel can be rapidly adjusted by a system of rams which, in some cases, makes it possible to "bounce" the wheels completely clear of the ground.