OK, so I've replaced the sways, springs, shocks & tires on my 3 month old '05 Sedan with Stillens, 350Z H-Techs, Tokico D-Specs and ContiSportContact2's (235/45/18) respectively. Stillens are set soft/medium (f/r) and D-Specs are 4/3.5 (f/r) from full hard. (Wheels are OEM Sport 18's.)

So now I'm going in for alignment tomorrow and need some advice. It's already driving like an entirely diffent car. The constant understeer is gone and the car has a much tighter (albeit smooth) feel. However, with your help, we can get her perfect!

Here's how it drives now with mods above. In cornering under no (or light) throttle, there is still a sensation of understeer/pushing. However, a little throttle now quickly gets the rear coming around. A lot of throttle will loose the rear every time (VDC ). It also still feels like turn-in is pretty slow - no matter how hard I crank the wheel when turning, it still tends to cut a pretty wide swath.

What alignment setup will help tighten up cornering while not leading to snap oversteer? (With VDC off, I've had to seriously countersteer a couple of times! )

Thanks!

-T

 

toe out the front tires a little bit, that should help with understeering on deceleration. when the rear comes loose, just countersteer. It's just natural dynamics for the car's back end to swing out on when you're on the throttle.

 

Your not setup to work the tires to extract the most possible from the tires entire contact patch IMO. These car's are camber ****** for a reason. With your front bar set on soft your allowing too much front roll where your going to see greater inside tire wear as a result. I highly recommend that you invest in a tire pyrometer to know where your carrying your cornering loads. I'll bet the front's will show cold on the outside and hot on the inside edges. More front roll stiffness is NOT always a guaranteed wat to increase understeer, the goal is to make the front tires work the contact patch so that the pryometer show's the temps are reading evenly across the entire contact patch.
http://www.trackhaus.com/product-exec/product_id/307

Toe out will increase turn in and feel, but in this case the greater inside tire wear you will also get cannot be afforded. I would set to 1mm front toe in and the rear to the minimum amount of recommended toe in.

 

Are you also suggesting a stiffer front sway bar setup? And if so, should I also stiffen the rear (medium/firm f/r)?

 

^^^ wat gsedan35 said.

i don't know how differently the sedans perform vs the coupes, but i were you, teeter, i would stiffen the front strut a half notch while you soften the
rear a notch. set the bar at soft front med rear for now and see where it
take you. you're going to have to make a compromise somewhere but
in order to find that you'll need to let the struts break in a little bit more
and play around with the setting after you get the alignment done (per
gsedan35's recommendations).

 

what's your tire's treadwear vs your older tire's treadwear? treadwear also reflect the tires ability to grip. the pyro method works well...you might wanna mark your tires side wall too, with white out or chalk to see how much your tire's sidewall is flexing. too much flex reflects the amount of understeering you're getting. the tire wall flexing scrubs off the marking...just makes some changes (adding/decreasing psi and or camber adjustment) according to how much has been scrubbed off, and in compliance with tire heat according to gsedan35.

of course there's other variables like asphalt temperature too.