FWIW

I currently run -2.8 camber, 0 toe in front, and -1.2, 0 toe in back.

I have tried as much as -3 in front, but that will make the car corner on rails, but also more than a little twitchy on the street.

 

Most recently, about -3 degrees front camber, -2 degrees rear camber, and zero toe all around.

 

Why are you all not using any toe?

 

Well, adding any non-zero toe always increases tire wear; if the car is street-driven, that is a strong incentive to go with zero toe.

As far as non-zero toe...

Front toe-in: makes the steering less responsive.
Front toe-out: makes the steering more responsive.
Rear toe-in: makes the car understeer.
Rear toe-out: makes the car oversteer.

On Hoosiers, the steering is responsive enough; you turn the wheel and the car turns now... On street tires, I might be tempted to go with just a touch of toe out, but you would give up some streetability in terms of tire wear and driving comfort.

As for rear toe adjustments, I can get the car perfectly neutral (or I can dial in understeer or oversteer) with shock adjustments. No need to play with rear toe.

 

Well I just got back from work training and WOW, I wasnt expecting this much response! A good set of coil-overs have always been on the agenda and there is no way I'd skimp on that. I wont even consider getting some KYB's and springs, only full coil overs will do. However, those are expensive lol. I havent registered my season number yet, but now I'm kinda thinking I might just go ahead and do ESP on street tires. I never expected to be killing any class I run for quite some time, so I guess its no big deal if I'm not leading the local pack. My local tuner just hooked up a new shop with an AWD and some ECU company, so I think a reflash is gonna be coming pretty soon. What I've been thinking over for the last week is the reflash, SS brake lines, better brake fluid and some better pads. Possibly might get a DP, but that kinda seems to be about it until the middle of the season when I can afford the coil overs. A lot of people seem to really like the JIC's, but they dont do well here in Colorado, many guys have had problems with rusting and such. Probably go with ZEAL/Work or Teins most likely. I started the post thinking I wanted to have most of this years stuff done before the season starts, but now I'm like screw it, I'll just add parts as I can afford them. Thanks for all your help everyone!

 

Could somebody help me understand why coilovers are so great? Why arent a really good set of adjustable struts and springs as good or better?

Also, if your race car also happens to be your daily driver do you really want coil overs? If you wife happens to be prone to getting car sick are coil overs going to make things even worse? So far my experience has been just adding a rear sway bar was enough to turn my wife a very attractive purple shade while driving around town.

 

Purple isn't all that bad of a color .

As far as why coilovers.... less sprung weight, they are tuned to work together, and they are adjustable.

As far as the ride goes it will depend on how aggressive you go and the settings that you leave them on. You can always offset the harsh ride by going with a less aggressive tire, such as the Kuhmo ASX (much smoother ride over stock). At the end of the day, the Evo is still going to be an Evo not a Caddi so she is just going to have to get used to it.

 

you got something aginst the color purple

When I got the coil overs installed with the recommended spring rates for the street, the ride was very plush. Not that great for an autocross car, but great for your significant other.

 

Its not so much the color as the whining that goes along with it.

So based on what I'm learning the coilover bring the following features to the party:
1) Lower unsprung weight (which is mucho importante)
2) finer adjustability

But how big a difference are we talking about? Consider my setup for this year:
*adjustable rear sway bar - set to stiffest setting for events
*rear struct tower bar
*underbody bar (cusco v2)
*Downpipe, Cat-back, XEDE w/o boost controller running a stock stage 0+ map
*autocross specific alignment (lots of neg camber)

pretend that you are driving the above car on a course and are able to consistantly deliver an exact 60 second run. Pretend that your trunk monkey jumps out between your first set of runs adds a set of perfectly tuned coil overs to the above setup. How much faster would you expect the times to be?

If we are only talking about 1 - 2 seconds right now I would say that I'm better of spending the money on more schooling (I am having to make up for life time of not racing). When the difference between me a the #1 guy is in the 3second range then I would absolutely say adding coilovers is a no brainer.

The next question I have is: Would the Tien Flex coil overs w/ the computer allow me to have 2 configurations? One for autocross (deeper color of purple for any passengers) and one for the street (hopefully only a pale shade of green).

BTW: I really apperciate the help everybody on EVOM has given me over the past year. It really is apperciated.

 

Oh, one other question: when you buy & install coilovers do you keep the springs on the car? Or are you losing the springs & struts?

 

1-2 seconds faster on a 60-second run is a lot! If you are well over that much behind the leaders, then definitely spend the money on autocross schools and events instead.

I don't know about Tein Flexes, but my RAs don't ride that much better on softer shock settings, things just get bouncier, but the Flexes are softer so maybe that would work better for you.

Coilovers do replace both the struts and springs.

 

By the way, what class are you in? The Cusco underbrace and the cockpit adjustable coilovers are both illegal in stock, street prepared and street modified.

CORRECTION: cockpit adjustable coillovers are illegal in stock and street prepared OK in SM

 

Cockpit adjustable coilovers are legal in SM. In SM, suspension is unrestricted as long as you don't move the attachment points. The Tein EDFC setup is definitely SM legal.

The Type 2 Cusco brace probably puts you into E Modified...

 

Try night and day. It's that big of a difference.
*adjustable rear sway bar - set to stiffest setting for events I have mine set to full stiff all the time. no real need or desire to change it.

*rear struct tower bar
Legal for STu, ESP as long as you don't use the V-brace design. If you do your in SM


*underbody bar (cusco v2)
The type II brace is not legal for STU or ESP. That kicks you to SM. The Cusco type I bar is legal becuase it does not have any diagonal bracing


*Downpipe, Cat-back, XEDE w/o boost controller running a stock stage 0+ map
*autocross specific alignment (lots of neg camber)
With STU or ESP you can use a high flow CAT in place of the stock unit. In ESP you can use the CAT delete.

I don't think the controller is legal because no in-cockpit adjustments are allowed unless the car came from the factory that way. Not sure about disconnecting the controller during events.

With my setup I set the rebound and leave it the same between autox and the street. I might tweak it a little depending on the surface i am running on, but beyond that, I just make sure the rebound is enough to compensate for the spring rate i am using.


I think I got on average a 2 seconds from the coil overs. But that is all subjective since we almost never run the same course twice. What I got the most out of the coilovers was an increase in the precision of the suspension and how the car responded to the extreme transitions we experiance during an autocross run. I can get my car to go anywhere it needs to be to navigate the course... The stock suspension just has too much "slop" to provide the feedback I was looking for.

 

The is great stuff.

This year I want to stay in STU. I may go up to ESP next year if I can improve my times enough to make competing outside DFW worthwhile (ie try my hand at nationals). So in order to stay legal in both STU and ESP I'll order the V1 brace instead. It is bound to be better than nothing.

Would mounting the EDFC in the trunk comply with the rules? I've got long arms but they are not that long. Further, it wouldn't be cockpit adjustable under those circumstances.

Based on all this I think I will budget the coil overs for next season. If you look at the Dallas region SCCA and ER results (look for something 2003 and silver) you'll see that I'm well off 2 seconds from the leader (our courses are '60 seconds' on average). So school time it is! I'm lucky there are a lot of oportunities this year.

Again, thanks for all the help.