Audi R8 Coilovers

Audi R8 - what spring rates?

The Audi R8 - made from 2006 to the present day, is built by Audi AG's private subsidiary company manufacturing high performance automotive parts, Audi Sport GmbH. It's a bonafide supercar based on the Lamborghini Gallardo and presently the Huracán platform.

On some models the Audi R8 comes with a factory fitted electronically adjustable Suspension system. The costs of this system are high and some owners want to replace it with an aftermarket coilover suspension system. These come in a number of different designs and price ranges.

Check out our range of R8 Coilovers

Spring rates

We recently had a conversation with an engineering firm that was installing one of BC Racing Audi R8 Coilover kits the we had supplied. The key point of the conversation was, had I heard that people were suggesting to swap the front springs to the back and the back springs to the front. Apparently I would know the answer. At this point there was quite a lot of laughter between us. Generally speaking most cars will have quite different front and rear suspension, and the rates will also be different depending on the motion ratios and the sprung and unsprung weight. However when we looked into this further it turns out it's not as mad as it sounds. 

We've researched the kits out on the market and found the following:

Now it's possible to see where the discussions come from. The stock spring rates are higher on the front than the rear. This is because the front motion ratio causes the wheel rate to be lower.

So who's right? As a standard set up, running some basic numbers based on a published motion ratio (we need to get an R8 in the workshop to check this) of 0.575:1 front and 0.875:1 rear, the car is not pitch optimised.

This is similar to a 911 where I've yet to see companies attempting to pitch optimise, largely due to the location of the engine. The suspicion is the OEM set up was designed to be more like a 911 and that having a softer rear end would make it more forgiving.

However when you run the numbers for some of the kits out there, you see that they do optimise for pitch.

based on R8 V10, front MR 0.575, rear 0.875, 42%/58% split, 45kg unsprung weight estimate.

In the case of switching the BC springs around to 14 front and 10 rear - this would increase the front stiffness too far and make the pitch speed too high. Also bear in mind the rear springs are longer than the front so buying the stock 10/14 kit and switching springs front to rear, would not be my recommendation.

For my money if choosing to go with the BC kit, I'd probably go for the 12 front 10 rear option or the 14 front and 12 rear option.

Remember as well as supply - we can install, corner weight and set up coilovers and geometry for you.