I just had my hotchkis sways installed by dru at street image. (thank you and always a pleasure)

had a question to others.
The body roll is significantly reduced, which is good. But as others have reported, my backend slips from beneath me when im accelerating in a turn.. How can i push the car further without this happening.
In my mind im thinking lowering the car, to lower the center of gravity, and thereby reducing how much lateral force there is on my tires..?
and/or should i get stickier tires? (i need new tires anyway)

anyone? help?

 

The sway bars have already lowered the center of gravity in turns.

Lowering the car will help cornering only because it'll camber out your rears.
Getting bigger/newer tires will help as well.

But mainly, all you really need is to re-learn how to throw your car around turns.

The car comes out of the factory with understeer bias.
With the addition of the Hotchkis sway bars you're promoting slightly more oversteer vs stock.

New tires will help, but like i said, just learn and adjust to the new sway bars.

-DRU

 

thanks for the advice dru!
i'll be relearning then, as u say..

interestingly, before my sway bars, when i used to lose control of my back end, i would correct and my car would feel like it just bounced side to side.
NOW, the bouncing side to side feeling is much reduced, and it feels like i have even more control, even tho im really OUT of control. funny feeling =)

 

Why?

 

^because the body roll is eliminated.

 

i dont think the center of gravity really shifted that much. because thats dependant on weight only. I'd say the moment of inertia has changed, to a greater number, and making the body stiffer.

but by lowering the center of gravity, the moment developed and shear at the wheels should be reduced.

(spoken like a true civil engineer) =)

 

Understeer and oversteer...

If the front is too stiff then you get oversteer where the back will break out first and cause the rear to kick out (aka SPIN OUT if you do not correct)

If the rear is too stiff then you get understeer where the front breaks out first (so no traction on the front) causing you to NOT be able to turn and smack into that sidewalk

What causes this:
1. Stuffness of sway bars
2. Struts (underbody, trunk, tower)
3. Coilovers/Spring (Dampening, rebound, stiffness, etc..)
4. Alignment
5. Tires & Tire Pressure
6. Weight/Balance

1. Sways (covered above).. how to determin what "stiffness level" you need.. take your car to an empty parking lot.. turn the wheel to one direction and start driving.. faster & faster.. you feel the rear or front slide out first.. (please keep in mind your not going full throttle or else u'll be going in circles no matter what).. if the back slides out you can either loosen the front or stiffen the rear.. do that until you get a good feel for what you want.. (i'd recommend oversteer then understeer.. better to spin out then to run into something)

2. Strut bars.. if you have a trunk strut.. then keep in mind that you probably wont need to get some monsterous rear sways.. that stock might even do..

3. Coilovers are very usefull especially adjustable ones.. Coilover allows you to balance your cars.. by controling the height you can shift the weight of your car to 50/50 left and right.. to do this you'll need to go to someone with a scale.. scale is 4 scales that your car drives over (one for each wheel) and measures the weight... also coilovers with adjustable dampers is useful to adjust to road condition.. when theres alot of bumps you probably want that softer ride.. why? if your car is TOO stiff then your not going to recover from those bumps.. your just going to be fighting the car for traction.. you'll want the car to squat down with the bumps.. kinda like jumping off a 4ft ramp.. you want to bend your legs to absorb the shock rather then keep it stiff

4. Alginment is very important.. the 3 angles are camber, caster, toe.. to sum it up (you guys can google this for more info i'm sure there are tons of sites).

Camber.. Negative helps you turn better, Positive.. you dont want that.. Too much Negative camber will cause a poorer launch as you're no longer using 100% of the tires when your NOT turning..

Caster.. how much your front struts point towards the front of the car.. the more caster you have the better turning radius you have and the better grip you have while turning... (if anyones seen a mercedes with the wheel cranked all the way it looks very aggressive and tilts the car) this allows better traction on the front wheels while turning.. downside to alot of caster is that it makes it harder to physically turn the wheel and more stress on your power steering

Toe.. if you toe out you have slightly better recovery when turning.. as your wheels point out wards and want to keep you straight.. toe does cause feathering of your tires if incorrect.. toe will also cause your steering wheel to be off if the front are not aligned

5. Tires.. to make this short more air = more stiffness.. less air = more rolling.. so why do people lower their tire pressure? when they come out of a dig (launching theiir cars) they want more of their tires.. so they lower the tire pressure so you'll use more surface area of the tire = more traction = better launch.. too much tire pressure will cause you to be too stiff when going over bumps..

6. Read "Coilovers" when you have adjustable coil overs you now hold the power to balance your cars left and right.. how? by adjusting the vehicle height and shifting the weight so that your car is 50/50 left to right.. you can probably try to do 50/50 to the front and rear but your car will look a little silly.. lol.. anyways drivers generally want 50/50 to the front and 45/55 to the back.. why? people usually want to put more weight (traction) onto the wheel thats getting most of the torque.. while your LSD tries its best to balance both left and right rear wheels.. due to physics your passenger rear wheel will recieve more torque then the driver side.. so you'll want more weight on the wheel recieving the torque


Sorry for the typos and poor grammer.. etc.. its 12:13am right now and i just got back from HIN after hours of non-stop bass basting against my ears and exhaust and tire smoke from the drift show and all the sexy gogo dancer and models everywhere... eh yeah

anyways hope i can help.. some one reply to this message and clean my mess up haha

 

anyways back to the point.. Startbutton99 you might want to stiffen the rear.. if your sways are not adjustable or they're already on the stiffest settings.. then you might want to

1. loosen the front
2. get a trunk strut
3. check your tires

 

thanks klumzyee, for the advice and the tutorial =)

I think im going to get a trunk strut bar now. i hope my snowboard still fits hehe..

 

lol sorry if theres alot of typos and stuff.. I dont even want to read it through lol..

Anyways I presonally have the Stillen trunk strut powder coated blue.. great quality

- Eric