My last Autox













WAY too much body roll

Running Racing Beat Springs Kyb Agx struts and RB front sway bar and 235/40/17 Falken Azenis 615s up front and 255s out back DTSS eliminators and about 1-1.5 degrees negative camber out back. Car has terrible understeer. I was having a very hard time pushing the car. If I tried to go harder into corners it would just understeer and the rear end never approached the limits of grip unless I gunned it and rotated the back with throttle.

I had to trail brake a lot to get it to turn in at all but I really wasnt getting the most from all 4 tires and the suspension because it felt like the fronts gave way, way too soon. I let an instructor drive the car at the end of the day who usually drives a miata and he was even more frustrated than me and barely any faster. THen handed the car to another instuctor who has been to nationals and won I believe a few times in his Dstock civic SI and he somehow jabbed the brakes much harder before hitting the corner but not enough to lock up the front tires and the car just turned in MUCH harder. He was about 8 seconds faster than either me or the other instructor his first time ever driving the car. You can expect that the car was rolling much harder when he was driving it.

I found out that I need camber adjustment out front and I need to reduce body roll a TON. I'm looking into setups. Hoping to spend less than 1k and sell of the current setup. I really want a Koni/GC setup or ISCs setup with custom valved bilsteins but when you can get megan and BC coilovers for like 800-900$ new they are hard to beat I just dont know how bad the valving is on those cheap coilovers. I know its bad I just dont know how bad or how much it really matters to guy whos not competitive to begin with.

Wanted to get input on what you guys recommend. I hate the body roll but I also take this car to the drag strip and put 27" slicks under it when there so some weight transfer would be nice. I also drive it to and from the autox an hour or so as well as on the weekends.

 

Hood pins?

 

the hood pins are awsome.. way too much roll in the corners

 

Wow, that's a lot of roll. I ran almost an identical setup (but with 16's all around), and didn't have nearly that much roll. I was running the old Azenis tires and would usually push on entry into moderate oversteer as I rolled through. It took some serious fiddling around with the damper settings. I think I was running 3 or 4 up front and the rear at 7 or 8. It was about the only setup I could get where the car would even remotely want to be free, it wanted to push through everything (though I didn't have nearly the roll you're having). I played with tire pressures a bit and was able to get a pretty decent compromise, but still not much to my liking. How many miles d you have on the hardware? Stock sways/etc?

At first I was about to say your hood was what's wrong with the pic, it's the wrong color!

 

Get coil overs. RB is a really good brand but there is no replacement for coil overs.

 

You only have a front sway bar correct? Get one for the rear as the front sway bar will induce more understeer.

 

Rear bar gives the car less than desirable charachteristics. It likes to push and then snap oversteer with the rear bar at least without it the car pushes and then breaks the back end out much more progressivly with power.

 

That and running 235 up front and 255 in the back can have a tendeance to create understeer cause the front tires break soon than what the back can get close to. Or something like that. Coilovers and front and rear sway bars

 

Yeah, don't run staggered tire sizes. Go 255 front and rear.

 

RB front bar is too much to be running without anything in back. I've tried it (on stiffer springs admittedly) and had the same understeer issues you ran into. STaggered tires only make it worse.

If you insist on no rear bar, up your spring rates to a 9/7 split and run a stock bar front w/ nothing in back.

 

Make sure your sway bar end links are in good shape. If the rubber bushings are shot or God forbid the links/bolts are broken or missing then that would explain a lot. If they're not in bad shape but still stock you could always upgrade the links. I built my own out of spherical bearings so there's pretty much no give to my links.

 

The Bottom of your 9 is missing Im almost sure that's what it could be

 

Kinda tippy like a boat. Ha ha!

 

I have just installed Tokico Blues and RB springs and like them a lot but wish I had (coilovers). I heard a lot of bad things about the KYB AGX adjustables. I have base KYB on my lowered Explorer and that thing handles like a champ with some Saleens on 255/55/18's. I think your body roll looks worst than my 80K 22 year old oem set-up, all 4 shocks were blown but I had strut bars at the same time. Strut bars are like anti-understeer bars.

 

Now that I've thought about it, here's a pic of my '7 during an AutoX. I believe I had my KYB AGX adjustables and Intrax progressive rate lowering springs installed, plus my spherical bearing sway bar end links on all four corners. And a dude in the passenger seat. Note the cant of the pavement, I don't think I'm rolling quite as much. Oh and I was running stock size tires, probably my Bridgestone Potenzas (I want wider and grippier, those came with the car, but tires are ******* expensive and I'm ******* broke).

 

LOL

Pics really capture how much body roll there is but in motion it doesnt look as bad. That being said I cant stand it at all. Even my daily driver is dropped so I want my sports car to really handle like a sports car.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTfgkm7V-8s
(instructor driving)
I wish I had pics of the body roll with him driving. He was hitting the corners SOOO much harder than I was able to. I wish I had pics of the body roll with him driving.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GtO9JGkCoY
(me driving, slow but still rolly polly

 

try some poly bushings and crank the AGX's down on the dampening.

 

Check your sway bar end links! One may have broken or come loose. I had this happen to me once shortly after I installed my RB front bar and I got a lot of body roll and it didn't handle well.

 

The AGXs were full stiff and they work perfect. But struts dont really control body roll, the springs and sways do.

Sway bar endlinks are fine, its always been a rolly polly.

Poly bushings are good and I am replacing them slowly, but again dont really play anthing but an extreamly minor roll in understeer and body roll

 

Are you or have you ever used strut bars?

 

Do you meen strut tower braces? I'm guessing your joking around but I'm not getting it. but no I dont have them and they wouldent help with body roll

 

Short of coilovers, to fix your problem you will need camber plates, eliminate your tire stagger, and put a rear sway bar on the car. Try an OEM Turbo rear bar to start. You need close to -3 degrees of camber up front to get any grip and keep you from running on the shoulders of the front tires.

All that is in addition to making sure all your bushings, endlinks and mounts are in good shape. Short of that, most of your problems are caused by your alignment, tire stagger and sway bar choices.

 

^what black91 and orangefont said

I personally would go back to the stock front bar.

Get camber plates and bump them in as far as you can. These cars need a ton of camber to work well.

Get a square tire setup. When I first started auto-x I had a 205/225 stagger and it seemed like the car would never bite. Switched to 225s all around and *poof* much more balanced handling.

The body roll isn't causing the handling issues, the alignment probably is. Look at stock class cars. I'm sure there are many a S2000 on stock springs that are running much faster than you with just as much body roll.

edit: is that at Devens?

 

Yup and devens is a fast course. on a tight course I'de have even more issues.

 

if you think poly bushings dont play in body roll then you haven't seen old bushings at work... mine felt like i added new suspension to the car when i installed them and the cornering was much more crisp with less roll.