Rough ride
- Thread starter LJtheunicorn
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No. The heavier springs will sit a bit taller than the lighter springs, as they are designed to carry more weight. Depending on the application, we'd need maybe 1/2" to 3/4" spacer to get the same ride height with the softer spring.
You don't "tune" an existing spring in terms of changing the rate. You can add leveling spacers to alter stance or ride height if desired.
We know that. How does one choose a spring to tune the ride?
It's a thousand dollars bruh. I'm not joking. We'll put our firmer OME coils on a stock TJ and drive it. Then, we'll install a lighter set along with the spacers needed to equal the ride height of the heavier coils to eliminate your shock travel bias argument and let the chips fall where they may.
This is an open invite to any who really believe that coils make no difference in ride quality. If you REALLY believe what you keep on saying, take the bet!
They can choose spring rates from our website, but most of our customers call to talk through their individual applications and we can determine spring rates based on multiple factors. They do this because they actually haven't installed hundreds of OME lifts and need some help choosing.
Haven't you have been advocating that we can choose a spring that has an affect on the ride quality? How does one do that?
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I'm not interested in your $1000. What I am interested in is how to choose a spring for the purposes of affecting the ride quality.
Huckster
TJ Enthusiast
What OME spring would add about 2” of height to my current ride height of 7”. In the rear. My stock springs have sagged. Maybe a 2933/2941 or 2942 OME. Might as well do the front too to even it out.
dang that’s a lot of words.
why do we keep bringing up shocks in this discussion? it's because they are the component that will affect ride feel the most. there's nothing disingenuous about bringing shocks into a discussion that is literally titled "rough ride". the only disingenuous thing is you pushing this spring rate thing like it makes as significant of an impact as shocks do in ride feel. that's just silly!
fwiw I’ve already done this experiment over a decade ago. wasn’t trying to win a bet, prove or disprove anything. i was simply chasing a better ride. didn’t like what i had and i drank the OME koolaid. even back then when i wasn’t as knowledgeable i still knew enough to keep one constant variable, the shocks. can’t remember what shocks they were but definitely remember paying for the OME springs.. twice. i still have the spacers i used back then in a box of old parts.
tried the ‘firmer’ springs first, couldn’t get the shock bias right so I added small spacers to get it dialed in. didn’t like the ride so I switched them for the ‘softer’ spring and tweaked the spacers to get the shock bias right again.
the results were this: the placebo effect is a real thing. i talked myself into thinking the ride was ‘better’ with the ‘softer’ spring. my butt dyno was off however as i had 3 roommates and a future ex-wife confirm that i was crazy to do all that work for pretty much the exact same ride feel. i gave it an honest shot and didn't need a $1000 bet to do the exercise. hell, i spent the $1000 happily to try to dial my ride in! i asked my ex-wife if she remembered me doing this last night when we were on the phone and she started laughing about how dumb i was.. and still am
fast forward to now, i’ve had 3 different sets of springs on my jeep this year alone while never changing the shock. none are OME since there isn’t an OME spring to fit the ride height i want, but all three springs ‘felt’ the same. why did i switch out springs twice in a 6 month period? it wasn't to get a better feeling spring that's for sure, i'm smarter than that. just wanted to set my ride height correctly which is exactly what a spring does under our tjs.
i'm not here to dispute the fact that you've been in magazines and have installed hundreds of OME lifts and i'm not disputing the fact that you've sold literally thousands of lifts.. good for you bud i'm glad you are doing well! i'm simply disputing the fact that changing springs alone can dramatically change the ride feel. you can't even make that argument since there's no two off the shelf OME springs that give the same ride height at my current sprung weight. there's too many other variables at play sir and the minimal effect of the spring can't realistically be measured. the $1000 bet would end up being a giant waste of time that would prove nothing.
hey, i used to sell shit that no one needed too.. i sold the exact same thing one could buy at a shop next door, yet i charged 200% more and sold more stock than the other shop. why? i was damn good at getting people to drink the koolaid. keep doing your thing selling whatever it is you need to sell to make your targets, doesn't really matter as long as you have happy repeat clients in the end. just don't come here and claim that you can change only the springs and dramatically affect the ride.. look at your statement here:
that's not changing springs only sir.. just sayin.
You’re asking for an OME spring that is the equivalent of 1” lift over stock (8”). It’s impossible for any of us to know because lift height is dependent on sprung weight of your rig. The manufacturers advertised lift is just an estimate. A spring advertised as 2” May give 1.5” on a heavier rig or 3” on a lighter rig. That’s why I suggested a spacer. It eliminates the guesswork.
For springs that advertise 1” over stock 8” (2” over your current 7”) you might go back to the spring resources page and look at spring specs.
EDIT: for the rear you might look at H&R 52107, but I don’t know the spring rate relative to stock. The front is hard to compare for the same reason. You can only ask others with those springs what they got, but it still won’t tell you what you’ll get. Thus the need for spacers.
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If you put a firmer OME coil on one side and a lighter coil along with the spacers needed to equal the ride height of the heavier coil on the other, would you be able to feel which corner has the softer spring?
Well said.
I would add that I've had many calls like that where a person is looking for just an inch of lift over stock height.
True enough, the lighter coils could provide an inch of lift if the jeep has enough weight added, but the issue there is that the extra weight that drops it to an inch is also the extra weight that makes that coil a mismatch for that application. That lighter coil is designed for a stock TJ at it's lighter weight, so it will bottom out easier with that much weight on it.
Generally speaking, OME coils for the TJ's net in the 2" to 2.5" range over stock, assuming they are matched correctly to the application. Lighter springs on a heavy jeep will see less lift, while heavier springs on a lighter jeep will see more.
I've had countless people tell me they heard online that they should with the "HD" coils. This is a generalization that I believe is based more on testosterone and the idea that a rugged off-road rig must have "HD" stuff in it to be right. I think many see "light" springs as somehow being less durable or lower quality and that just doesn't compute. The result is that many OME kits end up sprung too heavy for the application.
Many also have a strong aversion to coil spacers. They want a spring that sits the way they want without having to add a spacer.
We choose coils based on ride, not on height or stance, because stance can be "tuned" with spacers. That's what they are for.
I'd much rather have a coil that rides nice and sits right with a 1/2" spacer than a coil that doesn't need a spacer and rides like cr@p!
Put the money aside for a second .. once you go there, it becomes me vs you, and the focus goes elsewhere. We are adults and we should be able to talk like adults instead of "What about you and me in the playground after 6? Are you man enough?" And FYI, you can add couple more (or how many ever) zeros to your $1000 and and my stance would still be the same.
Explain to me what is physically happening when you do what you wrote above and why you think the ride quality changes. Talk about damping, talk about sprung mass, talk about vehicular dynamics and explain the "why" of it with your understanding. Note that I am not a 16 year old kid with a lifted Jeep, I am well educated and I understand math and physics very well. If you prefer not to (or can not) explain, that is fine .. we will agree to disagree and move on.
Also - I am not being disingenuous in any way or form. Shocks are the ONLY thing that matter when it comes to perceived ride quality. One cannot tune ride quality with springs. Call up anyone you know that tunes coilovers and ask them if they care about the spring rates in the setup. They won't. The only function springs have is to set the correct/desired ride height for vehicle. The ride quality is all determined by the shock tune. You are welcome to vehemently disagree.
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i tried that and the answer is yes, but that's not a real world application. it's like only airing down one tire and keeping the others at the normal psi.
once all 4 springs are matched and your sway bars are connected, the perceived feel is minimal if it exists at all.
dang that’s a lot of words.
why do we keep bringing up shocks in this discussion? it's because they are the component that will affect ride feel the most. there's nothing disingenuous about bringing shocks into a discussion that is literally titled "rough ride". the only disingenuous thing is you pushing this spring rate thing like it makes as significant of an impact as shocks do in ride feel. that's just silly!
fwiw I’ve already done this experiment over a decade ago. wasn’t trying to win a bet, prove or disprove anything. i was simply chasing a better ride. didn’t like what i had and i drank the OME koolaid. even back then when i wasn’t as knowledgeable i still knew enough to keep one constant variable, the shocks. can’t remember what shocks they were but definitely remember paying for the OME springs.. twice. i still have the spacers i used back then in a box of old parts.
tried the ‘firmer’ springs first, couldn’t get the shock bias right so I added small spacers to get it dialed in. didn’t like the ride so I switched them for the ‘softer’ spring and tweaked the spacers to get the shock bias right again.
the results were this: the placebo effect is a real thing. i talked myself into thinking the ride was ‘better’ with the ‘softer’ spring. my butt dyno was off however as i had 3 roommates and a future ex-wife confirm that i was crazy to do all that work for pretty much the exact same ride feel. i gave it an honest shot and didn't need a $1000 bet to do the exercise. hell, i spent the $1000 happily to try to dial my ride in! i asked my ex-wife if she remembered me doing this last night when we were on the phone and she started laughing about how dumb i was.. and still am
fast forward to now, i’ve had 3 different sets of springs on my jeep this year alone while never changing the shock. none are OME since there isn’t an OME spring to fit the ride height i want, but all three springs ‘felt’ the same. why did i switch out springs twice in a 6 month period? it wasn't to get a better feeling spring that's for sure, i'm smarter than that. just wanted to set my ride height correctly which is exactly what a spring does under our tjs.
i'm not here to dispute the fact that you've been in magazines and have installed hundreds of OME lifts and i'm not disputing the fact that you've sold literally thousands of lifts.. good for you bud i'm glad you are doing well! i'm simply disputing the fact that changing springs alone can dramatically change the ride feel. you can't even make that argument since there's no two off the shelf OME springs that give the same ride height at my current sprung weight. there's too many other variables at play sir and the minimal effect of the spring can't realistically be measured. the $1000 bet would end up being a giant waste of time that would prove nothing.
hey, i used to sell shit that no one needed too.. i sold the exact same thing one could buy at a shop next door, yet i charged 200% more and sold more stock than the other shop. why? i was damn good at getting people to drink the koolaid. keep doing your thing selling whatever it is you need to sell to make your targets, doesn't really matter as long as you have happy repeat clients in the end. just don't come here and claim that you can change only the springs and dramatically affect the ride.. look at your statement here:
that's not changing springs only sir.. just sayin.
Lotta words there as well.
OME had nowhere near the number of coil options a decade ago that they have now, let alone the coils that were never designed for a TJ that work great in a TJ.
I will stand by my point AND my bet. I know for a fact that it is true. You say there are too many variables to prove the test? How can you make that statement? If you take the exact same jeep (same tires, air pressure, control arms, etc, etc) and switch NOTHING but the coils and enough spacer to equalize the ride heights, there are no other variables! It is actually the only way to test this concept conclusively.
you must have missed the point in my response then. already tried your experiment and it failed. i'll send you an invoice for the $1000.
i'm curious about this though:
why even switch the stock spring then? might as well just add a 3" spacer no?
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