a freind of mine told me that the GXL has 4WS
just wondering if its true,
or should I kick his ***?

 

Yes they do in a sense however it's not active and you they only allow a degree or two of turn out as far as I know.

 

Are you guys retarded. DTSS. It's passive four wheel steering.

 

Dynamic Tracking System: the rear wheels, under hard cornering load, become an active part of the steering system, changing from toe out during low G cornering to toe in under high G acceleration cornering.

So, yes, they had 4 wheel steering... only the rear steering was not controlled by the steering wheel, it was activated by cornering load.



Should I count the people in this thread (DAG aside) who should be punching themselves in the face?

 

its not technically steering though.

and yes, there was more than just the GMC Denali that had 4 wheel steering.

 

just think about it though: at least DTSS doesn't cause snap oversteer on throttle lift like the MR2s rear steer

DTSS blows when your car is 19 years old, and you're in the middle of a nice carousel during Autocross. The eliminator bushings are a worthy investment.

 

There were MANY Japanese cars that had it. Hell even Honda took a crack at it with the Accord 4WS.

 

but most of those were tied into the steering wheel, which ours is not. So technically dag and scathcart are right. If any rx7 had aws we'd be screwed just like the 240's were. It's kinda like adjustable suspension if you think about it, just controlled by driving variables.

 

audio quattros maybe?

and I'd say DTSS qualifies for 4ws

 

i am under the impression that all FC's have the rear weel steering and that it really only kicks in when accelerating ( going from toe in to toe out or some thing like that )

The rear suspension was more unique. As all the Japanese automotive manufactures were playing with rear steering in the mid -eighties, the RX-7 followed suite with an independent, Dynamic Tracking Suspension System with trailing arms, Triaxial floating hubs, camber control links, coil springs, and a 12 mm anti-roll bar (14 mm with the Heavy Duty suspension). Mazda claims to have applied for more than 100 patents on their Dynamic Tracking Suspension System independent rear suspension. With DTSS, the rear wheels become an active component of the steering system, changing from toe-out during low lateral force cornering to toe-in for extra stability during high lateral acceleration cornering situations and to reduce lift throttle over steer which had been a problem on the 1st generation. Similar systems were soon found on Porsche and other German manufactures vehicles.

i got that from http://www.mazdamark.com/about_the_fc.htm

 

The rear wheels will move under hard corning like someone else said here. It is the stupidest thing because if you lose control it ***** you up. I buddy of mine put his in the ditch trying to fight it. Dont get me wrong the wheels dont really turn like new trucks they have out do. its not noticable.

 

ya i bifed it on an on ramp doing 60 lucaly i got it to wip around and slide in the not so deep ditch on the left side of the ramp instead of the right side witch goes down about 7-10 feed on a 45 degre angel

and it sucks when its snowing or icy out because if one weel looses traction all the power goes to that wees and it wobbles back and forith because it thinks its accelerating

cant wait untill i can get the LSD thats sitting in my basement in it got her out of a 86 GXL car had only 90XXX miles on it and it seams to be in exclent condition

oh and note the on ramp that i slid off of i normaly take at 55 with no problem

any one here ever use the locking bushings and if so whats the difrence in handaling i would think them to only be usefull for drifting

 

The rear wheels change their toe under circumstances that were planned on by the designers, ceasing to point ( approx) straight ahead in an effort to alter the course of the rear of the car. That sure sounds like "steering" to me whether the steering wheel controls it or not.
It is the point where the change occcurs that can screw you up, if you are not ready for it.
Basically all roadgoing passenger vehicles have soft enough suspension bushings ( for ride compliance and vibration isolation purposes ) that there are unintended geometry changes while driving, but most non-sports cars are never driven hard enough for it to matter. At least Mazda tried to make the changes beneficial. However, for a track only car ride quality isn't important at all and the car is almost always driven at the limit, so mosst people would benefit from a change to harrder bushings, not just those but the whole suspension.
My opinion is that if you are regularly at that point on the street you are certainly breaking the speed limit by a large margin and if you wind up in the bushes its silly to blame the car for it. Any car can be driven beyond its limits.

 

MazdaTrix.com sells a replacement bushing that's hard and eliminates the 'steering'. It's a pain to replace - you basically have to remove the entire wheel assembly. But my R.rear bearing was bad, so we had it apart anyway...(and NO, this is not a paid advert!)

 

The 3rd and 4th gen Preludes have 4ws. Works great until your back shocks and struts go bad and your bouncing all over the road and the 4ws is tryin to turn and your car starts going the opposite way you want it to........

 

corksport.com has replacements i think

 

People really dont understand how dtss works...

Our cars have semi trailing arm rear suspensions, which when under compression like in a corner, naturally toe out (the outside wheel that is). This lets the car rotate somewhat, but a high cornering G's can cause snap oversteer. If you've driven an older BMW or porsche 911 hard you probably know what im refering too.

The FC's dtss lets the outside wheel start to toe in under hard cornering getting rid of this negative aspect of semi trailing arm suspension. The porsche 928 had a system almost exactly liek ours.

When you install DTSS eliminator bushings,.. you get rid of this feature,.. and while toe out in hard cornering may be good for autocross, or "drifitng" it is not good for keeping you out of the ditch on your favorite mountain road. (especially with the surface irregularities present on non-racetrack type roads)

What we really need are replacment DTSS bushings from mazda,.. but i think you have to buy the entire hub to get them,.. $$$

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one more thing i'd like to add,.. while DTSS bushings may increase grip on a reacetrack thats perfectly smooth and has an attentive experienced driver who can deal with the oversteer,.. on the streets they are going to reduce your usable grip because surface irregularies are going to upset the car much more and most people dont drive at the edge of oversteer on the streets.(and thoose that do dont for very long)

The problem is people see that there is an upgrade avaliable fo some part of there car,.. see that its on race cars,.. and they want it without even knowing how it works or what its going to do to the handling of their car...

 

at leats it aint as bad as Nissan's HICAS system