Very useful spring dimension site. Some spring tricks/tech.

[DavidB]

http://www.generalspringkc.com/

 

[DavidB]

I thought about this more later, and you could actually use it as a somewhat crude tool to "tune" your number of leaves= spring rate to your vehicle like you would if you had custom springs made at a spring shop. Since the site gives the load ratings and number of leaves for each of the various packs, you can weigh the front and rear of your truck and add/remove leaves accordingly. I'm going to try this on my truggy. A couple of the leaves I remove from the pack will be placed on top of the main leaf to help control wrap like the race springs are, esp since my rig is light on sprung weight, so I won't have many leaves to resist wrap, and heavy on unsprung weight, so it will have lots of traction to wrap up those few leaves.

EDIT: the calculating may be tricky since I don't know if they figure the overload into the load rating. I generally leave the overload in, but flip it upside down to act as a bumpstop.

Another trick is to place about 1/16" to 1/8" by about 4-6" long shims in the center of your spring pack with holes in them for the center bolt. This cuts down on friction between leaves, but also increases wrap a little. We haven't tried the springs on top of the main leaf to counter it yet.

Here's a good spring article.

http://www.trailslesstraveled.com/viewarticle.php?id=43

I will post the results of my efforts in my build thread. Should have posted this there...