Dave and Ivan,
Should i set a date for this meet or just wait for our next spring Bay area meet?

 

Well, a date is only 1/2 of a plan- the other half is the location.

 

Thanks to Bernard we have main spring players in the game!
Anybody with Tein's?
Tyler, I am good anytime!

I agree with Dave. We need location with a lot of space. Smooth asphalt as well as more realistic, rough one. Some with concrete paved areas with joints like FWY's to simulate FWY bouncing.
Alameda Point comes to my mind. I hope it does not cost an arm and a leg to book!
Anybody with better idea?

It should be on a weekend so it does not interfere with working folks! I am not working so any day is good for me! LOL!
Holiday's are approaching. Are you guys open on weekends?

Is this getting to big for us? Should we contact any magazine to assist? They have much greater pull than we do. We might come across as silly teenagers! Until they see some of us like Dave and myself! No punt intended Dave! ROFL!
Problem is I think that all are located in Souther Cali.

 

Well i kinda am a silly teenager so that may happen lol, untill you and dave show up,,JK JK!
Uhh im open as usual, maybe after christmas would be best im thinking.
How do we see how much Alammeda point costs, i know nothing about that place..

 

I'd be down for anywhere within about an hour to an hour and a half drive from Livermore. Maybe the parking lot for the Pleasanton Fairgrounds( although I don't think they have the cement portions) Once upon a time, they used to hold autocrosses there. That stopped after some of the more powerful vehicles actually ripped up the pavement while cornering/accelerating. So I'm not sure that they would let people do tests there, but I don't think any of our fits would be a threat to the asphalt.

 

Unless we all pay through the nose for time on an organized track, we will probably be asked to leave any big parking lot by the owner or the cops, because the owner will be afraid of liability issues if one of the "toy car show" members crashes on his property.

We could pay for time at Sears Point, or Monterey, or any other track that comes to mind, but for the purpose of this meet, that seems to be rather wasteful and more involved than necessary.

This is not as self-serving as it sounds, but Vasona Park in San Jose/Los Gatos has a huge parking lot, and it is right on Hwy. 880/17. Test drives could be South on Hwy. 17, off at Summit Road, loop around to Bear Creek Road, back onto North Hwy. 17 and back to Vasona Park. About 10 miles total, with freeway expansion joints and twisty mountain roads all in one loop. We can either cook "macbuddy's" sausages in the park parking lot, or go to any one of a dozen restaurants/pubs/sandwich shops in Los Gatos.

Sorry about this being in my back yard and all, but I just tell you about the areas that I know. If there is anything free like this in Livermore, Dublin, San Ramon, etc., I am certainly willing to drive there! but expect the cops to show us the way out of any large parking lot unless we have paid some kind of use fee and signed liability waivers.

Dave

 

I vote for a track day! I am willing to pay some money if its not too much.
We would need some people to lock there spot in though, like at least 10 people who will pay to have it be reasonable.

Vasona sounds cool aswell, i love that park i had my 5 and 6 b days there. Its kick ass lol. And yeah that freeway is right there, ohh and of course daves great bear creek road!

 

As much as I'd like to try the Fit on a track, this is about ride quality /handling trade offs in the real world.(Or at least that's what I'm looking for) So some rough, normal street driving is more what I'm looking for. I'd be down to go out Dave's way. Heck, he came out ours for a couple meets. It seems fair. and if there's a good test place there, all the better.

 

Hey ciburri, I am not 100% certain, but I faintly recall that one of our photographers is riding on Tein S springs.

 

Jeff's point about testing real world feel of after-market suspension was my reason for suggesting a park with big parking lot, just a few feet away from freeway and mountain road access.

Another benefit of this location, besides being free, is we could go to Tool's aunt's BBQ Ribs restaurant (Bruno's) in Scotts Valley for lunch. That would give everybody the chance to drive Hwy. 17 over the Santa Cruz Mountains, and it's only about a 10 mile trip from Vasona Park. It won't be "spirited" driving though. The speed limit is 50 mph, and on weekends, EVERYBODY who cannot drive is plugging up Hwy. 17.

Or, we could leave Vasona Park after the road testing is done, and head west to caravan over all of Hwy. 9 down to Scotts Valley for lunch with Tool's auntie.

 

Oh yeah lunch at Brunos after the meet sounds like a killer plan!
The Vasona idea sounds great, im more then willing to drive down there as long as everyone else around here is.

 

Tyler,
I didn't think that you would argue against this plan, but it is just a suggestion. This idea will fill all requirements for a suspension comparison, as long as all of the owners of the alternative springs can show up. It is within a 90 minute drive for everybody except "grouser" if he is coming from Redding.

 

i'm with Teins S tech spring and no sway bar.plus 1.3 camber if my remeber is right..

 

Alex that is great! Do you still have your stock wheels/tires to keep it equal with everybody else?

Anybody with Tanabe's? It would be great to have somebody with them since lot of members have them. I can't believe somebody in Bay Area does not have them!

Dave, I like your location for the shear versatility! It gives us everything: big parking lot for gathering, cooking, measuring heights, fwy next to us as well as some twisties!
Unless somebody can come up with something better, which I doubt, that is it!

Track sounds great too, but not for a Fit! I would take my CRX! LOL!
Also track would be an overkill for the purpose of our research.

I will put together some kind of evaluation criteria for us all to fill in. Something in Excel. If you guys have any ideas on composition feel free to shout!
I was thinking about classification under street, FWY & twisties. Under each we are looking for comfort impression, bounce/rebound, steering feedback, squatting under braking, cornering body roll, acceleration lift,......
We need to set our tires to the same PSI at the site, measure ride height at all four corners,...
It is not a beauty contest so do not worry about waxing your cars! The entire next week will be wet and chances are so will be around the day we eventually set on.
We need to be as unbiased as we can be toward our own cars. We are doing this to pick the best springs for each category. We all have different preferences for our daily drivers and how much we are ready to sacrifice other aspects for it. We might even end up swapping springs 3 or 4 ways among ourselves, who knows.
Bottom line, we will all benefit by finding out for ourselves what ultimately works the best for each one of us. By posting our preferences and impressions along with some hard data, individual members will be able to find which one of our personalities and preferences best matches themselves and help them in determining what to buy without wasting time and money!
This is going to be cool!

With Holidays approaching, January in general sounds good for you all?


Ivan

 

That sounds great Ivan!!!
Yeah how about mid january, that gives me time to get my xmas gifts on my car before the meet lol!

p.s-Ivan , my phone accidently called you yesterday and i saw it mid call and hung up. Sorry man, that damn touch screen on the iPhone can be a pain in the a$$ sometimes, i just didnt want you to think i prank callled you..

Tyler

 

This is sounding good guys. As previously posted, EXWRX, macbuddy and I will represent stock springs, along with anybody else who wants to get together. For even more entertainment, I will being a buddy in his Corvette V8 powered Pontiac Fiero GT. For Bay Area band freaks who know the "Danny Hanson Band", this is the "Danny" part of the name. In addition to a collection of cars, he owns 70 collectible guitars and 25 collectible amps (for the interest of Tool and kelsodeez) and any other musicians of the Bay Area fitfreaks. Oh, I forgot Tool, what they call a guy who hangs around with musicians is "a drummer". No offense.

 

Ivan, with the criteria, I think we should mention how we feel about the drop in ride height may affects the overall ease in daily driving for example angling at speed bumps and what not; however, I do not think most of us going to mind angling at drive ways and bumps.

Another thing I would like to point out is that we need to have more "controls" like keeping everyone with similar tire life, very similar mods, or alignment, so ideally we want everyone with stock with just different springs. But we cannot control everything, it almost impossible with weather.

There is one thing that is bothering me. Do we have permission from anyone to do this? The only reason I have to ask is because during the meet at Mt. Hamilton, the manager of OSH came out and told us (I don't remember who else the manager came up to) that we need to ask permission for using the parking spots. Granted we only used OSH to meet up. So my point is, I just want to lower headaches or problems.

 

Vasona Park in San Jose, by being open, is an invitation to anyone to come into the park, and park. That is suggested as the meeting location. The driving comparisons would be done on a loop South on Hwy. 17 to the Summit Road exit, a side road North to Bear Creek Road, and East on that about 2 miles back to Hwy. 17 North, and back to the park. No permission is needed, but adult behavior is still needed to keep from being invited to leave by park rangers.

From there, all routes to Scotts Valley are public streets & highways- no permission needed. Bruno's BarBQ is in a large shopping center.

I warned people to bring their food and only assemble at OSH- the meeting was to be at the park on Mt. Hamilton. By hanging around too long, the reaction of the manager was to be expected.

 

Ok thanks you, Dave for clearing everything up. I just wanted to make sure

 

It IS embarrassing to be thrown out-- you raised a valid concern.