Andrew (BMW F31 Elite Stage 2) on 'Jerk' | "Very impressed!" with Stage 3 KBO

#jerk #FlatRide #FCMElite

NOTE: TRANSCRIPT of Andrew's comments below! Background noise gets high at a few points and I really appreciate what he had to say so it's worth capturing here.
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For some background, Andrew has a BMW F31 328d xDrive turbo-diesel all-wheel drive wagon that he drives HARD on track AND also takes off-roading for camping! Before we started working on his FCM Elite Stage 2 build using Bilstein HD struts and some combination of F30/F80 springs, he'd been using the factory suspension (Tenneco semi-active) and had already experimented with different springs to get better roll control and handling. He was very methodical in his approach (no surprise - he's a design engineer, after all!) and I really appreciated his willingness to understand my approach and to see if and how the 3 Keys to Ride Harmony could apply to meet his wide-range of goals! We did a bit over an hour of consulting since he had some specific goals and we did some dyno tests of the factory shocks, measured the various springs he had, and discussed what new springs and bump stops would make sense (along with damping profiles) to get good handling and also a nice ride - ideally with both being at least as good if not better than the factory semi-active suspension. In another video Andrew will share some info on the many combos of springs he's tried which will save other F31 owners time to get his results!

I'm transcribing most of his comments below as the background noise was a bit high but I like filming outdoors vs. indoors.

===Andrew===
On theory and practice, applying ideas from Suspension Truth videos:

"It's been fantastic, with the amount of knowledge that Shaikh has been able to share with me and to with his Youtube channel.... and just being able to take what he says, you know, take that theory and try it out with the actual hardware and get all that different feeling and saying 'oh, ah-ha, this is why I'm feeling the ride is this way.' And I can relate it to what I've learned from those videos; it's just a really cool phenomenon going from the theory and practice then seeing that strong link between the two."

Stage 2 vs. Stage 3
"So, one of the things I wanted to talk about today is I just went for a ride in Shaikh's Stage 3 car, Christina. I have a Stage 2 build so I was really wonderful, it was nagging at me, what's the difference between Stage 2, Stage 3, what does KBO (Kerb Blow-Off) offer? What is really the pinnacle of what Shaikh has to offer? I was actually very impressed - there was a much larger delta than what I was originally expecting.

I know Shaikh likes to talk about, you know you're in a sports car but it's a very smooth ride and that's exactly what you've achieved. I found myself hunkering or puckering down for some impacts and you hit it and 'oh, that's it!' So that was really fantastic to feel. One of the things you notice is 'wow, you get going pretty quickly, you have a sporty ride and stay very smooth.'

When you think about it a little bit more, what it comes down to is what is the change in acceleration that our bodies are feeling? Because you know you drive through the steering wheel, the back of your seat, and the base pan of the seat. So it's really that feeling. And one of the things we were kind of talking about, right, is 'maybe it has to do with the jerk or the derivative of the acceleration?'

That got me thinking because recently I had one engine tune and moved to another engine tune. One of the things I noticed is that . even though it made more power, it felt a little slower. I didn't have a surge of power as I got on the pedal because the power delivery was a lot more linear and more smooth, smooth same as the suspension. What it came down to is, the rate of change of acceleration or that jerk. So on of the ah-ha or Eureka! moments was 'oh, more jerk is actually more fun-feeling even if it's wasn't practically as fast.'

So I think that's kind of what's going on with your setup here. I'm NOT feeling quite as much jerk or not feeling as much 'sportiness' but in actuality the car has more overall grip and overall speeds are higher. So maybe what the manufacturers are doing is billing themselves as the 'ultimate driving experience' and they're giving you that experience but it may be taking away capability from the ultimate grip..."

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