Rating your springs

[talclipse]

When you check your spring rates do you just measure the first inch of compression or do you check to ensure that the spring is relatively linear?

Thanks,

[claybuster]

Compress 1", zero scale and then compress another 1" that should get yah what you need. This is the way I do it and works good, found that you can drag out a 10 year old spring and they aint all that bad after all.

[billetbirdcage]

You should do like clay said and compress 1" then take the reading from the next inch of travel. All spring manufactures differ slightly on how they rate their springs, but once you get past the first inch of travel most springs stay more linear after that.

If you have several different brands of springs (linearness will differ), the best way would to be to test them in the compressed rate they are working. Example RF spring: Say you normal set-up has a wheel wieght of 500#, test the springs so that they are roughly compressed that amount. So If you testing what you think is a 350, compress it (500/350 = 1.43) roughly 1.34" and take a reading. This will insure if you can springs/brand with another you are getting the actual rate you wish in the operating range you are using it in.