arklie

iTrader: (2)

Does anyone know how to tell the difference between a beehive valve spring and a normal valve spring? Is a beehive the same as dual springs? (the ones wear there is a spring inside a spring). Thanks.

Also, does anyone have experience with AFR springs??

porksoda

iTrader: (39)

Beehive-Cone shaped
"normal"-just a normal shaped spring

seawolf06

iTrader: (8)

You'd have to call and ask AFR what the spring specs are. Probably something custom. Beehive describes the shape of the coil the spring is comprised of. It is a single spring which makes it much lighter than a dual spring. Google is your friend.

SShawn

iTrader: (6)

like they said, its the shape

Formula350

iTrader: (3)

So no real benefit going from a stock spring, to that style, on a stock cam? If you're just going to freshen up the valve terrain on a higher mileage engine.

Captainofiron

iTrader: (1)

you can go bigger with your cam with the beehive springs, because the way the spring compresses, the bind point is alot higher. Plus I heard you can run high seat loads with this design

97blkz

iTrader: (1)

Beehive valve springs have been known as having a lower mass at the retainer end thus allowing for better valve control.

arklie

iTrader: (2)

Is the comp 918 spring a beehive spring

porksoda

iTrader: (39)

yes it is

seawolf06

iTrader: (8)

Go to comp's website and look in their articles section. There are about 5 articles on the beehive springs.

theroad64

iTrader: (1)

Beehives kick ***. No use for them on a stock ride,however. JMO.

seawolf06

iTrader: (8)

If you're going to upgrade the rockers to 1.6 ratio and plan on doing a cam in the future, the 918's might be a good idea since you don't want to do the springs twice, especially with the motor in the car. If you don't plan on camming it, then the Crane kit would work nicely.

If you're not upgrading anything else and just want a fresh valvetrain, I would definitely get the Crane kit instead of wasting money on stock springs.

arklie

iTrader: (2)

which crane kit would that be? The 10308?

96capricemgr

iTrader: (1)

Might look into something from a stock LSx motor, should be cheap. The stock cam is not particularly demanding but with a little creativity I bet you can piece together an OEM beehive spring package you can make work on your motor for little more than new stock springs.
Cheapest thing to do though might be LT4 springs, better than stock but still very mild.

The light weight and therefore less pressure needed is the most often discussed benifit but things like the resistance to surge and stuff are quite interesting as well.
Normal springs can hit a frequency where they lose control of themselves and undulate like a slinky, the beehive does not have just one frequency so even if part of the spring starts to hit it's frequency the rest is not at that time and they still maintain control.

I am no valvetrain engineer just like to understand the hows and whys and search out articles to read. I also find it interesting that the beehive design is actually quite old supposedly the Wright brothers used them.