Yeah, sorry for the confusion.

 

No confusion, Just seeing if you were speaking of the Alien, haha. Honestly though, it seems like more than one way to tune works for evos, and its to suit the driver style more than anything. Paul Gerrard used to tell me the car should never lift a wheel, ever.

 

What you are saying is true, unless you're wide and stiff enough to keep all that front weight in check.

On my car for example (an XP work in progress that is still 500lbs overweight) your statement about "either lifting a rear wheel or understeering" remained true until I finally stiffened the front with 14k spring and a bigger bar, widened the front track with 25mm spacers and started running 315s. I think most don't go stiff enough in the front because the car becomes horribly stiff and is pretty much a dedicated track car a that point.

 

^ Or low enough with some droop. But then you're compromising geometry and need to run stiffer rates (or alter geometry somehow).

- Andrew

 

While he is absolutely correct, even the suspension system he designed for the EVO lifted the inside rear wheel. As can be seen from Warrtalon running the Gerrard-Vishnu Ohlins.



Don't you mean a rear wing to smash the rear wheels to the ground? Since the problem is the rear lifting not the front

 

I agree with the fwd comparison. They appear to do the same things, except for corner exit.

If you look back at some older threads, I've seen incredibly heavy spring rates in the rear, which I think is the way to go. That is similiar to many competitive FWD cars.

 

Like with taller ball joints and tie rod ends? Check!

Or custom 1" drop spindles/uprights? Still working on this. You can buy these for your Chevy S10 or C1500 for less than $300 . . .

Anyone want to run a group buy with a machine shop to build a few sets of custom uprights??

 

I love that picture. In order to put "significant" weight on the inside rear wheel he would need to go up about 50% in the front. Then he may complain of the front washing out - so you add front downforce. . .

Responding to your comment on the rear wing - I don't think that is the correct line of thought. If you added a wing big enough to push both tires down - you would have FAR too much rear grip and your car would not want to turn. . . you need to maximize grip in the front first and foremost - then you balance the rear. Who cares what the tires are doing as long as you have the most front grip as well as a balanced rear??

We've been talking ALOT about the rear wheel coming off the ground but the ONLY time it is a problem is on corner exit - and VERY FEW Evos have this problem. . . .

 

Yea, Clay's car did pick up the tire (hes in my region) but only right at turn in. And I honestly think he could go up in rates a bit since that car just has stoopid amounts of grip. Unfortunately he hasnt been around lately

 

The amount of front roll at turn in on this picture is a clear indication that if the front end was stiffer and stayed flatter the inside rear would not go up like it is.

Keeping that front end from rolling over itself will cure most, if not all of the rear lift. The right combination of spring/bar however is key to not have the front pushing like crazy. Go to stiff with the spring rates and the natural frequency at that end becomes too high to effectively keep the front tires stuck to the ground. A combination of a bigger bar and springs keep the natural frequency to acceptable level and reduce roll and camber loss but also stop the tripod effect.

 

IIRC Warrtalon was using high spring rates and stock sway bars. A slightly bigger front bar may help to combat some of the roll.

 

I really don't understand why you would want to do that. You would end up with a car that has significant understeer in slow turns and then transitions into oversteer as the speeds increase. Completely backwards from what you need as a driver. Sure you could hang a big wing off the back to balance the front downforce but then you'd just be left with a car that understeers at high speed too.

In short, aero can't fix a bad mechanical setup.

 

Nor does it erase the fact that a mega stiff front end and the resulting understeer (regardless of aero) will be terrible in the wet or cold.

The setup on Clay's car is a good all around setup (very similar to mine), but there are times when it isn't optimal.

 

good stuff, subscribed.

Keep in mind this as well

http://farnorthracing.com/autocross_secrets.html

 

While what you say is true, what handling benefit would result from keeping the inside rear on the ground?