What brand of street shocks do you have?

[Red]

Ivan-
"Basically what your saying is people should stick to stock rideheight."
Not for everyone, and not for every purpose, but for *most* owners, if they are using the car for *street* driving, stock is a good place to be.

The original suspension was damn good for a riceburner. Probably most of the owners today have never driven a car with the stock suspension, unless it was totally shot by the time they first drove it, so they have no idea how good it was to start with. I know that if you lower the car another inch or two, that's all the difference it takes to rip things out on manhole covers and other normal street hazards--I've seen that happen on cars that were just a little lower than the GTS. Then again, I've seen lots of people driving the huge SUVs that have taken over the streets in the US, nearly stopping to creep over small pavement changes that their beasts could run right over without a burp.<G>

In the Hummer H3 (which is an extensively modified Chevy pickup truck at heart) I have gone over large speed bump and laughed because I barely felt it. The same speed bump that kicks my car up and disrupts even a Cadillac. Well, the H3 has a lot of suspension travel, because it is designed for off road use and you need the travel to absorb "off" roads.<G>

If someone wants to set up the AE8x for track use, and they really don't worry about normal street hazards, by all means put in a lower and tighter suspension! I'm all for it. But I did start the thread asking about STREET shocks, for STREET driving. A lot of highly paid guys in white jackets got paid good salaries to design the stock suspension. Some overpaid guys in marketing probably said "that's nice but what can we grab from stock to make it cheaper" too.<G> Still, a lot of professional planning went into designing a competition grade suspension for the GTS, which is not the same as the SR5 or base Corolla. All the parts--roll bars, chassis bushings, etc.--are designed as a system. That doesn't mean you can't do better, or make the system work better at different purposes.

It just means they did a pretty good job, stock, and it is just as easy to make it WORSE as it is to make it better. Probably easier to make it worse, ever see a car break the suspension?<G>

If I were going to change it for track, I'd get a matched set of shocks and springs from TRD or Koni or someone else--who has, again, spent a lot of money professionally analyzing the way they work together, and designing them to work together.

Just one man's opinion, not calling anyone "wrong"-- unless they take a torch and cut the springs down and claim that's going to improve anything. (But I still thank them for trashing another GTS, that just makes mine more valuable. <G&gt