Should the front struts be adjusted softer or harder than the rear shocks?

Question

I put adjustable Koni's on my '96 T-bird which is lowered with 2" Eibach Pro Kit springs. Aside from it being my own preference, what would be the scientific method of adjusting my front struts and rear shocks to get the "correct" balance going in my favor? Softer/harder in front or the back? I like it on the firm side and have all 4 set identical as of now at a half or 1 turn from the firmest setting. Common sense tells me I should have the struts in front set at least a 1 or maybe a half turn softer than in the rear. Am I right or should it be the other way around?

Answer 1

Here's the deal. You installed higher rate per inch of spring travel coil springs in your car therefore your front struts must be adjusted to a tighter - stiffer setting to prohibit excess bouncing of the higher rate coils in the front. The rears can be adjusted a touch softer because the rear coils are not nearly as high rate as the front.

You are extremely lucky that you've selected struts and shocks with adjustability in the valving.

You'll know when you've hit the correct balance. The car should bounce once only at each end if the shocks are adjusted correctly. Concentrate on the rear end first as you're setting closer to the rear springs and shocks.

Short choppy bouncing is a tip-off that the shocks and struts are adjusted too soft. Keep in mind that the ride is going to be much stiffer because of the high spring rates.

You should think about adding a strut tower brace to tie the towers together. The uni-body is not strong enough to handle the twist of the high rate springs.

Struts and shocks have absolutely nothing to do with body roll in corners. The springs and sway bars control body roll

Answer 2

Be very careful about adjusting the front and rear suspensions differently because this can seriously affect the car's stability while driving through a turn at high speed as well as avoiding accidents and handling in wet road conditions. When I had adjustable strutts on my car I always set all of them the same.

If you insist on adjusting them differently first observe how the car handles with all struts adjusted the same. When you drive into a curve observe if the frontend tends to drift towards the outer edge of the turn (called understeer) or towards the inner edge of the turn (called oversteer). The perfect balance of achieved when you can acelerate or decelerate in a curve without having to adjust the steering wheel to compensate for drifting to either side of the road.

Answer 3

How To Adjust Struts

Answer 4

Factory setting would be the same firmness all the way around. I used to firm up the back end to help handling way back in the 60s and 70s when most domestic cars had way too much body roll. So I would go with what feels best to you by the old seat of the pants test. Personally, it sounds to me as if you have the settings right about where they belong.