"Springtime for BOB"

Springtime indeed!

I went to see Greg Tunstall at the weekend after speaking to him about getting hold of some uprated springs for the big trip to Perth. I really wanted some Chris Witor springs, but the postage cost is prohibitive (more than the cost of the springs!) Greg very kindly gave me a selection of springs to try out.

I'm not particularly interested in changing the ride height, I just want to increase the load capacity so we can carry all we need to go EWE (East coast to West coast and back to East coast again) ... 9,000km. We're self-catering campers so there's a fair amount of equipment to carry, which increases the need for good springs, and we'll probably put a 50 litre fuel can and a large water carrier in too. Of course if these springs improve the handling when unladen I won't complain, although BOB had fairly new looking KYB gas shockers on front and back when I bought it and the ride quality has been very good.

After a late Saturday night out I spent Sunday morning messing around taking measurements and fitting a set of the different springs... it was all a bit like a school experiment but with a hangover (i'm glad the car is parked underground out of the sun).
Here's the line-up of my 5 sets of springs to try out, with one of the originals that was on the car already shown on the left (sorry about the shadows)

I selected the big fat short ones with the least coils but the thickest coil diameter to try first. Here's what one looks like compared to the original spring (black):

Once I'd fitted them I did some measurements to compare them. Then took the car for a bit of a drive. They're definitely an improvement - far firmer but not exactly uncomfortable. Speed bumps were good at speed. This table shows the effect these springs have had:

SPRING	FREE LENGTH	# COILS	RIDE HEIGHT (REAR) UNLADEN	RIDE HEIGHT LADEN (95KG)	SPRING MOVEMENT (AS % OF UNLADEN HEIGHT)	RIDE HEIGHT FRONT
original	328mm	12	595mm	565mm	5%	640mm
#1	300mm	9	608mm	584mm	3.9%	636mm
#2	301mm	13	-	-	-	-
#3	304mm	9	-	-	-	-
#4	312mm	12	-	-	-	-
#5	315mm	10	-	-	-	-

Unladen B4 change

Unladen with Spring #1


B4 change + me (95kg)

Spring #1 + me

So that's the first set of springs tried out. The question now, though is whether I should try any of the other springs out. I'm not entirely sure how to make a judgment on what the qualities of the others are likely to be based on their characteristics... anyone else know?