I was curious about this statement:

"If they're TOO stiff for the application, they will limit independence between the wheels and you'll lose traction by lifting tires (soft suspension with too stiff swaybars). "

I auto-x my car and people have told me that I do on occassion raise one wheel. My current setup is a hotchkis rear sway (medium stiffness) and Swift springs. So according to this I would need to soften up the rear sway bar?

 

that is correct.
i just had my car aligned and they set it to -1.2 front (i asked for max neg camber without flipping the bolts). i'm guessing they didn't flip the bolts into the -2 side and just pushed to as much neg camber as they could.
i had them set the toe to 0 all around to reduce wear. i think evo's suspension is tight enough to prevent too much play and the toe stays at about what it's set to. my guess would be that it would toe out a tiny bit as you're braking or coasting, and toe in as you accelerate (just a guess).
and ppl shouldn't worry about tire wear unless the camber is really high. just take some corners fast and it'll wear out evenly. i had -1.6f -1.2r camber on my teg and the tires wore rather evenly, even with toe out in front.

 

I run -1.9 front camber, -1.6 rear camber, 0 toe. I also have a Cusco V-brace and trunk bar, no sway bar. Made a noticeable improvement over stock. Still understeers, but not nearly as bad as it used to.

l8r)

 

i just did -1.6 front -1.0 rear 0 toe. To me it feels so much better..havent tried it at higher speeds yet..

 

What would be good spec for a dropped EVO on Teins? I don't plan on doing any autoxing or anything, just dragging and daily driving?

 

I would think that for maximum traction in a straight line, you would want very little/no camber, to keep the tire flat on the ground. Toe in or out would introduce drag also, so you probably don't want any of that either.

Not sure how that would drive on the street...hope you don't have to make any evasive maneuvers.

 

Not necessarily. My STi would lift the inside rear on hard corners (or steep driveways, lol) with just Prodrive springs and Cobb swaybars, so I had a similar setup and it handled GREAT around a track. Granted, my 04 STi was more prone to understeer than any Evo, but it's the same principle...

If you need the quicker rotation at low speed (common for auto-x) then you may need to reduce the rear traction so the fronts could pull you around. By lifting the rear tire you're putting ALL of the rear traction on the outside tire and it obviously won't grip as well as two tires. So, it's just one way to get the job done. The *proper* way would be a full suspension job on race bushings with a reinforced cage where you can adjust/manipulate tire compounds, pressures, damping rates, spring rates, alignment specs, and swaybar settings to dial the correct tractive limits to handle the course correctly in order to be faster while still keeping all four tires planted.. But that's unrealistic. Springs and a swaybar are moving in the right direction, but it's more of a bandaid if you know what I mean.

Imagine the extreme of front or rear traction balance, a front wheel drive car with a hard plastic pad for a rear end. It would rotate extremely well but it couldn't hold much lateral traction and would spin out. On the other hand, a car with nothing BUT rear traction (like a formula dragster) would have a difficult time turning. You are trying to find the proper traction balance for your driving style, that's why there's no "perfect" setup for everyone. Most of us end up with a car tthat doesn't ROCK at any ONE thing (in the grand scheme), but does most things very very well so we're satisfied. Usually it's a "jack of all trades, but master of none" kinda thing. For a street car, your best asset is smooth driving using heftier weight transfers (like WRC). If a racecar is sliding, it's getting very very little traction, which sounds like a bad idea... But, if they can whip around a hairpin to get lined up for the next straight twice as fast as they could if they'd kept all four tires gripping, then I say 20% traction is better than 100% traction in that case.

Another thing to consider:
Street tires have a greater slip angle than racing tires so you can get away with more pronounced tuning effects that would quickly throw off a racecar's balance very badly. Change tire pressure by 5psi and you might notice a slight difference. Do that on a Lemans 24hr car and the driver would likely complain the car is undriveable. It's all relative to the application.

 

it would be extremely forgiving and would feel very soft around the edges. The harder you'd push, the less contact patch you'd have. It'd be pretty easy to snap the car into a spin. You'd also increase the tire's rollover, and would have a more likely chance of catching the bead and rolling over.

 

i think my setting is still agressive... i did 0 toe for tire wear..i dont autox or tear up the moutains like you killboy..i like mine for straight driving..little drag racing...and if it still turns like a champ on big exit curves that enter on and off interstate highways i am satisfied for now..i have life time alignments with firestone for free now...so if i want to change i will for moutain carving like u

 

Sorry, you were right, I had it backwards. I just had this discussion before that post and got it confused. I edited my post to reflect this.

 

0 toe is pretty much the typical car setting?

 

yes, 0° is best for a street car.

 

What are you settings you went with? I'm looking for the best tire wear and nothing more than stock for handling.

 

much of that would depend on driving style. Why not just stick with OEM specs?

 

Sleet, I would try -1 camber all around, 0 toe. That shouldn't really affect tire wear any more than the stock settings (which seem to be all over the place from ) and it'll keep that nice, smooth stock understeer.

l8r)