2 races in and looking for some suspension help

On our Nissan Sentra rally car I wanted to beef up the suspension for cheap, so I bought a set of $50 eBay coilover sleeves/springs and mounted them inside the larger springs that were on the stock struts. It still has the stock springs, and I can move the perches up and down on the coilover sleeves to modify the overall spring rate. It's on a rally car, so I keep them at the top of the sleeve to maximize ground clearance and prevent bottoming out, but I could see doing the same thing on a road course car.

My happy place seems to be to cut around 1.5 coils, bigger swaybars and slot the strut towers inward and back.  I'm sure there are more gains to be had by going stiffer but I also found that controlling high rate springs can require more shock than is in my budget.  Plus curbs start to beat the hell out of the car when you go super stiff.  Don't have anything FWD but it looks to me like they lock down the rear with spring/swaybar to get them to rotate better.  If you do go stiffer on springs, there is a lot of used generic eibach, etc stuff available on ebay.  If you search for Geo Performance, you probably find something for hundreds of dollars.  If you measure what you have and look for 5 x 8" 300lb springs or whatever, you often can find them for near shipping cost.  Since you can fab stuff, you can alter the strut perches easier than someone like me and get you exactly where you want.  I'll often lurk on forums looking to see if I can figure out what the spring rate/bar size is that XYZ High Dollar racing puts into their "Racing Suspension" pkg for my hooptie and then buy the used eBay eibach/H&R/AFCO/etc stuff to match those rates.

+1 on fixing any rubber bushings that are shot. Some folks will tell you poly bushings bind too much and they may be right for bushings that pivot and squish often on a race track. Replacing with new stock or harder rubber replicas will be a huge improvement over worn out stock bushings. Also check the play in the tie rods and ball joints and strut tops. While you're at it check the engine mounts and trans mounts and replace them if they're allowing lots of rocking back and forth of the drivetrain. if the suspension is hunting around for it's settled place on any of those parts its hard to make the whole thing stick very well.

Once all of this is done go as wide as you can on your wheels and tires without rubbing anything or poking out beyond the fenders. Also finding the lowest profile tire (if you can fit a 15" wheel on a Metro your tire options will go way up) will lower your ultimate gear ratio, lower the car a bit, and stiffen the overall spring rate a bit with a stiffer sidewall. I'd do all of that stuff before messing with spring rates, sway bars, or dampers.

Of course on a Macpherson strut FWD car, getting max negative camber up front and as much caster as you can is usually a no-brainer, but I'd just zero out the toe as a starting point. I'm not any sort of authority but 30+ Lemons races later this is where I'd start with a new-to-me car.

Here is an article on the MetroGnome, which used a bike-engine drivetrain but they were still using metro suspension stuff in the early goings. Not sure what it's using now. But page 2 starts the section of "How to make it handle".

http://www.motoiq.com/MagazineArticles/ … Gnome.aspx

This is fantastic!  I can't believe I haven't seen this before.  Have you used Moog springs?  With what success?

Yes it is and they made it a lot more user friendly than the old spreadsheet.
MOOG springs are fine and can be brought new for around $50 a piece of just use this to find your junkyard donor car.

The first thing you should be doing is buying this book. How to Make your Car Handle.
http://www.amazon.com/How-Make-Your-Car … 0912656468

Then do some math.
1. Build a spring rate calculator so you can go to the JY and find stiffer/lower springs.
2. calculate the roll centers for your car and understand how that effects your car.

Similarly Monroe Shocks has a catalog of shocks. get the downloaded list. Look up the correct part for your car, then find the top and bottom connection TYPE, find the min and max length. Adjust your min and max length for lowering the car, and then go through the list and highlight shocks with acceptable mounting TYPEs and similar lengths.