Very true, I just could not install the RCA kit to fix the geometry issue, so for me raising the car back up helped. But yeah your correct.

 

Gotcha - I understand completely.

RSB @ stiff - I thought would increase oversteer too. But not in my last event and not in yours either! There's definitely a point where it's too much. I put my stock bar back on and was at VIR this weekend and it handled very well.

That's an option I've had suggested to. It's not a longterm fix, but it could be a quick fix. In essence you're reducing the amount of rear grip to try and force it to break loose.

 

It seems as though loosening up my RSB should help out a bit. What bothers me if that in order for me to get my car to oversteer I am essentially reducing grip in the rear. I feel like although this should do the trick,it is a stupid and silly solution to the problem. Unfortunately I am not aware of another way to get the car to rotate without essentially reducing grip in the rear.

 

im not really sure why you feel confused. Your at a point in your setup that your weak link is front end grip. You either need to increase front end grip or reduce rear end grip. Increasing grip are things like coilovers, tires and other supporting mods. But at the same notion you havent really maxed out the potential of your combo. you just need to tune it to work together meaning tuning your sway bar settings, tire pressure amongst other things.

Also, keep in mind that lowing the car changes the geometry of the front suspension. A fix to this is getting the whiteline roll center and bumpsteer kits. These are beneficial to any lowered car as it helps correct geometry changes.

Before going and upgrading the reardif maybe look into the gruppe-s acd flash(if you have an acd) This will help get the back end to rotate under power.

 

I would say the rear diff upgrade is the simplest fix - worked wonders for my '03. Rear trailing arm bushings won't hurt either. Also if they're legal in SM, then the Perrin PSRS bushings will help you get more dynamic camber by adding caster.

Personally I'm not sold on any specific direction in terms of swaybars yet, other than you should have an adjustable front and rear swaybar. I ran with a stiffer front bar and stock rear bar at my last track event, and it certainly wasn't worse than stock. I'll be running stiffer front and rear bars at my next event to see what the difference is.

l8r)

 

Im going to be more blunt.

Based on what you have told us this is what I have come up with for senerios:

1) You overdrive the brake zone so you trail into the corner, very common in slow AX course. When the suspension sets its sitting on the nose of the car and you have all the weight on the nose. Therefore your fronts are doing all the work, slowing down, turning, then you ask them to put power down. The car off throttle is nothing more than an overpowered MS3 or SRT4. 4WD will not help with this.

Now when you start to apply throttle, you start working the ACD and then 4WD will start working in your favor but its already too late cause the fronts have done all they could to stop and rotate the car pre-apex. So it keeps pushing and you cant get the nose of the car to transfer the weight to the rear and rotate center off.

2) The problem doesn't start at the entry but rather your application to throttle. If your making boost before apex, your asking to much from the tires.

BTW if you soften the rear bar you will have more rear grip. Sway bars limit the roll of the car therefore limit the amount of weight transfer and intern lose grip. Now too much roll is a different situation all together but you would have to take out the bar for that to happen. Another thing to think about is a sway bar compliments two things: 1) Springs Rate/Valving 2) Driving Style/Platform.

The more aggressive the suspension the less bar you can effectively run because the springs/valving prevent chassis roll.

The more aggressive the driver the more bar you have run because the driver demands more response from the car rather than grip.

Make sense I hope.

 

Thanks for the responses once again

The next event I will be attending is next weekend. Currently my gameplan is to put the RSB on the softest setting. I am also going to bump up my tire pressure 1-2psi.

So I understand that a rear swaybar helps the front with grip and vice versa. So in theory a really stiff RSB should produce oversteer as the front end is getting more grip than the rear.

But I suppose too much of one thing is never good. In this case the stiff rear bar is causing the inside back wheel to go up into the air thus I cannot put the power down. So although I have reduced rear grip I have also made it next to impossible for the rear wheels to do their job.

My ultimate goal is to get my car to run as neutral as possible yet be able to oversteer on command. Seat time is crucial and I am currently working on that. Even so I remember being able to force my car to oversteer. It could have been that fact that my advans were completely cooked though.

Now dont get me wrong the car handles incredible. The understeer isnt terrible but it is there and I would love to get rid of it.

Coilovers arent happening, nor a FSB at this time. R-comps also are a no no for a couple of reasons. One being I have heard countless times its best to learn on street tires.

So with that being said where do I go from here? The acd reflash and the upgraded diff both sound fantastic. The price difference isnt too much either so I could really go either way. If I did go that route it would either be one or the other.

Aside from that I really cannot think of anything else. The RCA sounds interesting although personally I would rather swap my springs to the GTworx.

Thanks once again for all the help.

 

have you gotten a good alignment on the car? That can actually make a difference as well

 

i honestly get power oversteer exiting corners at auto-x with my current set up - gruppe-s acd reflash and cusco 1.5 way in the rear - i've got some bushings upgraded etc and gtworx springs and bilstein struts but it wasnt until the rear diff that i started getting the oversteer. i haven't even touched my sway bars, and don't plan to.

it's a set up flaw on usdm evos - a slightly modified rear diff from an evo3 over the ayc or even the jdm RS mechanical rear diff. i havent seen a single person with a proper set up that's gotten a tre rear diff complain about understeer again

 

The car was aligned properly in the winter. Id image some plates would give me some more camber but I mean you can get close to two with the bolt flipped.

Kyooch-did did you get both the cusco and reflash at the same time? Which one did you feel had more of an impact on the car?

 

This is the ultimate problem in trying to make a car turn that has 60% of its weight over the front wheels. Ultimately there is a compromise somewhere but your focus should be on optimizing the grip of the front end in an attempt to equalize it with the excess of rear grip that the car already has. The rear diff works by shifting some of the power delivery more towards the rear tires allowing the front tires to use more of their available grip to turn the car. It doesn't increase or reduce grip at either end it simply allows the front wheels to not work so hard to accelerate the car.

 

How could the upgraded rear diff shift more of the power to the rear? The torque split remains constant at 50/50.

 

It doesn't it is just locks the rear diff faster. nothing to do with power distro between front and back.

I still don't necessarily agree with just tossing money at it. I am telling you, i have had my *** handed to me by some almost stock evos that knew how to carry speed better. Lets try to get to an even together and see what you, the driver, are doing before you make any decisions.

 

Fixed.

But I agree. With El Turco.

 

Turcs bro man- That makes more sense. You know I would love for you to come to an event with me. I would even let you drive the beast so you could show me whats up. There is an event next weekend in CT that I am going to although you are obviously not going to want to go...

PS: Can I stop by your place tomorrow and grab those pads?

Smike- 1st of all I would love to meet you at some point. I assume you go to Devans often? I am dying to make it to an event there so I can unleash the car on a more open track rather than the tight stuff I am used to in CT. When is the next event that you are attending? I know you are a champion behind the wheel so it would be an honor for me to get some pointers from you