There must be some optimal combination of spring, tophat weight, and spring "spacing" (which I assume is just adding washers to preload a spring) to get optimum performance from a springer. Is this arrived at by experimentation, or is there some engineering equations that expains all? What effect does varying the tophat weight have? Any benefits to prelaoding? Given all the springs that are available, how would you go about deciding which ones to experiment with? Any thoughts from the experts?