MCS Settings

[MoparMap]

So hopefully my new MCS single adjustables will show up this week, but in the meantime I got to thinking and reading up on suspension settings and wondered what suggestions people had out there for where to start. I know the MCS singles are pretty much brand new and there aren't too many out there to compare to, but maybe the Moton users could chime in since they're supposed to be similar in nature. The car is a stock 04 aside from exhaust/intake/tune. Currently running PSS tires, but no idea where the alignment is set. Did the factory alignment settings vary between gen 3 and 4 with the removal of the runflats? Was thinking about dropping the height just a tad, maybe 1/2" to an 1". I daily drive the car, so I don't want to go too low and will probably fiddle with it some based on how it handles my usual roads. Hope to start doing some autocross and road course stuff as I find events near me, but I'll always drive the car, so it will still see lots of street time. Any suggestions for alignment settings, shock settings, ride height, etc.?

 

[mjorgensen Woodhouse]

Fronts should be 7-8 clicks from full soft and the rears should be 9-10.

BTW they all shipped today!

 

[MoparMap]

Awesome! Hoping they'll make it by Friday so I can break them in over the weekend

 

[MoparMap]

Even better they showed up yesterday. Got them all installed and had the first real test drive on the way to work this morning. I'm not really sure how to describe the ride. It's not what I would call soft, just more planted and stable. Little bumps like transitions on bridges and stuff are now non-existant. There was one in particular that used to really upset my car and shake the steering wheel and make it dance around. Now I just hear the noise of the tires hitting and that's about it. I definitely still feel the larger bumps, but they don't upset the car anymore so I'm not dealing with a steering wheel shaking around in my hands. I haven't done any fine tuning yet, just more or less set them in the middle of the range as Mark suggested. I might try a few clicks either way to see how it changes the car for reference. Overall I would still call the ride sporty (which some may still consider slightly uncomfortable, but I'm used to it and really don't care since I've driven rough riding cars most of my life), but significantly more stable.

On a side note, does anyone have stock gen 3 wheels on their car still that could tell me what their factory ride height is (ground to bottom of fender at wheel centerline would be nice)? I forgot to measure mine before I jacked the car up to have for a reference. I checked it after changing just one corner out, but don't know how accurate it was. My numbers just seemed really staggered, 26.5" on the front and 29.5" on the back. Have it set now to 26" on the front and 28.5" on the back. I don't have much adjustment left on the shocks though to level it out more, so I'm assuming the springs will probably settle a little and I may have to tweak them again.

 

[Sonoman]

On a side note, does anyone have stock gen 3 wheels on their car still that could tell me what their factory ride height is (ground to bottom of fender at wheel centerline would be nice)? I forgot to measure mine before I jacked the car up to have for a reference. I checked it after changing just one corner out, but don't know how accurate it was. My numbers just seemed really staggered, 26.5" on the front and 29.5" on the back. Have it set now to 26" on the front and 28.5" on the back. I don't have much adjustment left on the shocks though to level it out more, so I'm assuming the springs will probably settle a little and I may have to tweak them again.

On my '05, the stock ride height at centerline of the fenders was 27.1" on the fronts and 29.35" at the rear. I'm running lowered at 26.3"/front and 28.2"/rear with stock wheels and stock sized PS2 tires. Ride quality degrades as you lower the ride height, IMO, so I'm not willing to slam the car-- just found a good compromise between appearance and driveability.

 

[mjorgensen Woodhouse]

You really need to be measuring the ride height at the frame to insure you are not affecting the handling in a negative way. The MCS WILL allow you to slam the Viper more then ANY other setup available and still maintain good ride characteristics. If this is your intention though you will need to switch to a 7" long main spring and probably increase rates a little for anything less then perfect roads.

 

[MoparMap]

Nah, I wasn't really planning to take it all the way down, was just curious where I was compared to stock since I forgot to measure before jacking the first corner up. I have about 1/2"-3/4" of thread left on the shocks to lower with the current spring setup you got for me. I'm pretty happy where it's at right now, so far no scraping on my commute and I like the looks and ride of it. The one thing that caught me was more the rake of the car. I thought I remember seeing that the ACR manual recommended only 3/4"-1.5" or something of rake front to back and I was all the way up at 2"+. Didn't have much room left on the rear to drop it any more to try to level it out.