Suspension Settings?

[tesna]

Hi,

Last sunday I just took my car for a spin in the race track. It's a my first time experience and it was fun!! Being my first time I managed to experience an oversteer and spins to almost opposite direction on one of the corners on the track. I was entering the corner too fast hence the oversteer. Thank God I didn't hit anything though. I thought I will get understeer than oversteer on the track, boy I was so wrong.

I want to improve the car's handling, I already got koni yellows (adjustable damper), and H&R springs to match it. On the front I set the damper on the stiffest setting (maximum) and at the back I set to medium. With this combination the car is quite stiff, but yet also comfortable for use in the regular road. I tried to set the dampening rate stiffest on the back, but oh man it feels quite uncomfortable in the regular road. The back feels so much stiffer than the front (maybe because the front has the engine's weight?) For the wheels and tires I got enkei 18x7.5 with 225/40 tires on it.

The question is, is my suspension setting wrong? Should I set dampening rate on at the back suspension at the same rate (maximum) to get good handling?

Btw, friend of mine took some pics of my car on the corner, is it too much body roll?

[bradc]

You could get some larger sway bars made up with multiple positions on them so you can adjust their stiffness at either end.

[miller]

Thats nowhere near enough body roll. You must try harder!

Looks quite planted to me

[elnevio]

If you haven't already, you should put a VR-4 front strut brace on.

[tesna]

bradc, hmm, swaybar. I think its quite hard to find aftermarket uprated swaybar in here, unless its custom made. Do you have sample design?

miller, I will next time

elnevio, I've got cheap aftermarket strut bar installed, hard to find the VR4 one in here. But at least its better than nothing. I'll replace it once I find VR4 strut bar

[bradc]

There are larger sway bars for 4wd Legnums but they won't fit a 2wd sorry!

[Gowf]

Its not just your damper settings, its your springs as well. They should be matched to each other.... I take it you only have 1 way adjustable damper?

In an ideal world you'd take your corner weights and work out your required spring rate and height from there, can also then calculate your CoG and try and do something with that. But, you use your car for the road so its a bit impractical. However, with regards to whats better, more or less damping on the rear, it is all dependant on your driving style. With more damping you will find that you should get a lot more lift off oversteer, which isnt a bad thing, just means dont lift off at all when cornering. Which then means that you then need to sort the front end out, the best way being to use camber (or caster to create artifical camber when cornering. Again, this can all be worked out mathematicaly to give you the required slip angle to suite your driving style. There is no substitute for the 'suck it and see' approach though. If you can get (and im not sure you can, but you could get something fabricated) some camber and caster adjustment from the lower arms and the strut top mount, then you can have yourself a really well handling car. It will pull like mad over bumps and the like, and make the driving experience slightly less friendly, but you would really notice the difference on the track.

Out of interest..... Is the track of the V6 the same as the VR4?

[psbarham]

Out of interest..... Is the track of the V6 the same as the VR4?

yup

[Dom B]

Get some mileage in on the edge. 4wd has some unnatural traits that are not as intuitive as normal road cars, but if you can get the feel of it so you respond correctly when the car gets out of shape.

[bradc]

His car is fwd