Originally Posted by 1stGenCRXer

It's all about weight transfer and how you manage it.

A lighter spring is more willing to accept more weight transfer in a turn or under acceleration and braking by compressing than a stiffer spring is. The reason a lot of people think a stiffer rear spring means a loose handling car is because under braking more weight is transfered to the front, and off of the rear, causing the rear to feel light, so you get rotation. This isn't exactly ideal though because the stiffer rear springs mean that the car doesn't want to shift weight aft under acceleration mid-corner or on a quick corner exit. This is fine if you have a great tire setup, but anything less means that the fine line you toe as far as the limits of adhesion go, you just crossed over and the front just wants to plow.

I'm not saying a lighter spring in the rear is better, all I'm saying is that it is a driver comfort issue first. Personally, I've raced long enough to be very smooth in the braking zone, late braking and a smooth turn into the apex. Because of this I seem to do quite well in cars with heavier springs up front. The reason it rotates just fine also is that the front is more responsive on turn in because it doesn't transfer as much weight side to side. It also doesn't transfer as much weight forward under braking, but that's ok because the stiffer front springs bring cross weights more into play, and the outside front spring still ends up carrying a lot of weight, even though it doesn't compress much, which unloads the inside rear tire, and viola, rotation. The main difference with this setup is that coming out of a corner since the front is less prone to physically move in it's suspension travel, addition of throttle tends to transfer more weight aft, and settle the rotation. Of course, the danger here is on open diff cars or cars with a high amount of power, because any time you transfer weight off the front wheels you have the potential to induce understeer or break traction.

Both methods have their ups and downs, both methods work. :dunno: