I've got some friends who drag race and they go through springs a couple times per season due to huge valve lift, high rpm, large heavy valves, etc..

They all seem to love a nascar associated company called psi springs

http://www.cvproducts.com/cv/products/specItem.aspx?prodID=2245&brandID=61

They do some pretty cool heat treatments and 'air' tool winding, however i'm trying to find out ins and outs and contast to a pick up truck coil over spring for example.

i already found terms like 'beehive' vs. 'double pig tail' etc...filter

alloys? hardnesses? cold wound?

Ok now I understand your questions, I think.... if I am right in my assumption, since we are talking automotive racing, I will treat coil springs as suspension springs...

1. Yes, clean tempered wire is critical for valve springs, where as you want to go with a high tensile (slightly better than valve quality) wire for suspension of race vehicles.

2. Again, you are correct.  For suspension springs we try to not cold coil anything over 7/8" wire diameter.  Anything bigger and we have trouble keeping a consistant path which is critical to the performance.

3. Fatigue cycles are greater in the valve springs, this is because the suspension springs are designed for a much higher stress.  You really do not need a suspension spring to last more than 1 race.  But then again, a lot of teams change their valve springs after ever one as well.  But, the suspension spring is designed to compress to just about solid height so the car can get as close to the ground as possible when racing.  Because of this, the spring is in just about constant compression for the entire race.

4. From what I can gather with a brief search of the internet, "fuss" was used interchangeable with surge.  I have never heard of that term before, but the definition I came across seems to be the same as that of surge.  "The point when a spring becomes instable..."  And yes these are concerns for valve springs, but I have never heard of anyone really paying much attention to them in suspension spring design.

MORE NEWS