I know a lot of people say the driver determines how a car rides in the corners, but I still want to set my car up the best to prevent understeering. Right now my setup consists of a Cusco 24mm adj swaybay in the rear, Perrin rear endlinks, Tein S springs, and new wheels and tires. My alignment is 0 deg toe front and rear, 0 deg camber in rear, -1.2 deg camber in the front, usually the back tires are about 4 psi harder than the front, and the rest follows the manual. I am a big fan of the slide, so what’s the next thing I can do to hang it out a little more frequently. Shocks, fr sway bar, strut tower bars, new alignment….?
- camber plates - front swaybar - better alignment - Struts - Non All season tires - Anti Lift Kit (if you dont plan on autocrossing, otherwise use Whiteline ALK bushings in stock mounts) The camber plates will allow you to run more static neg camber in front, which will make a big difference. set up properly (switch LH and RH) you can add caster as well, which will allow the car to keep dynamic neg camber better in turns. The ALK does the same thing, all it does is increase you caster. A bigger front swaybar will balance out the twitchiness of the rear bar and help keep more wheel on the ground when turning up front and make the car handle more neutrally instead of the Big Rear Bar which will cuase the rear to dramatically step out on hard braking without a matching front bar. The pillowball joints in the camber plates will also eliminate tire deflection under load that causes them to drop camber severely. Stock tops can deflect into positive camber under moderate loads. better tires -> stiffer sidewalls -> stickier compounds -> higher cornering loads/skidpad numbers. You will probaly need new struts soon anyways running tein springs on them, and they'll help make sure you're not underdamped, which most aftermarket spirng/stock strut combos are. You can just get coilovers that will incorporate new struts, springs and pillowball camber adjustable top hats. That will knock out several prolems, and allow you to corner weight the car and adjust perhces for better balance. Put less air in the rear and more air int he front to keep from folding your front sidewalls. Seems like your car is currently setup for as much rear end motion as possible under your setup especially the 0 rear camber + big rear bar and stock front bar. Can be ticky to control, my RS was that way, and remember adding oversteering tendencies is not a good solution when all you really want is to eliminate understeer. Your alignment specs should be as much neg camber and pos caster as humanly possible on front (-3 camber is a bit extreme for non race use though) and about 1/2 -1 deg neg camber on back, slight toe out on back is optional (adjustible control arms allow you to add/remove this at the track so you dont have to drag your tires sideways drving around the street)
oh and i just realized after rereading, if you want to drift, yur specs are in the right direction, but keep in mind its not really drift your setting up, but unpredictable and annoying to control oversteer, which the car is unsuited to. if you really want to drift, set it up so everything is nice and neutral and take it on a dirt road. you'll be doing some dorifto mania in no time.
I think Zak hit it on the head.... add front traction, don't decrease rear. What you are setting yourself up for is mid corner snap-oversteer and that is nothing but trouble. You need to eliminate the understeer on turn-in, not add oversteer at mid-corner. There are several ways to do it and Zak listed many of them.... With my coilovers and setup, I can go from understeer to neutral to oversteer with two clicks of the rear or front struts (situation dependent). Good luck and don't drive near me.
Wow, you guys got me all wrong. I'm not looking for a drift car, I just hate understeer. Let's try this question... I come into a corner and get understeer right off the gun. What to do? Let off on the throttle, possibly feather the brakes, ...? I don't want to seem like I can't drive cause that's not me. I may not be mario andretti, but I know my way around. I feel like if my car is setup correctly I should be able to steer through a corner without acceleration or deceleration, hold a steady line , and the car should react neutral. Correct? I like the fact that I say I like to slide in corners for fun and people are acusing me murder and running for the hills. I just want to have some fun in my car, ease up a bit.
idont think they are accusing of murder, they perceived your question differently than you were trying to state.
Wasn't meaning to be harsh, but look at your post again.... Anyway, I think you misread the posts, with respect to the advice given. Zak listed several ways to improve front end grip. Corner entry understeer is inherent in AWD vehicles. I have been fighting it for years and at best, all you can do is compromise. A car that rotates in slow, tight corners will be a beast to handle in long sweepers. By adding front traction on entry, you will find the best you can do. How do you do that? F sway bar, springs, strut valving, tire pressures, alignment....depends on what you are doing with the car, how much $$ you are willing to spend, and what is already done to the car. I run lower tire pressures in the rear, not front. The ultimately will give you a similar effect, but as Zak mentioned you want to have as stiff a sidewall you can on the front to maximize the contact patch. I can't really suggest pressures for you as I am in a different situation (custom coilovers, big sways, race rubber, etc), but try experimenting with a 4-5psi ratio, front being higher. There has been a lot of discussion on the effects of a large sway bar on a Subaru, I haven't been close to those. However, as a reference point, I am going to a bigger bar next year as I think it will improve my turn-in (the only thing that is lacking in my RS). Alignment is going to give you a lot of bang for your buck. Increasing your front camber to ~-2 will help, but beyond that will cause tire wear issues. Adding rear toe-out will definitely help, but at the expense of twitchy-ness and instability at high speed. Moving up in $$ is strut/spring changes. I run lower valving on the front to aid in weight transition (under trail-braking or real-braking, situation dependent) and that aids in corner entry, but that involves adjustable struts and in my opinion you should go with springs, too. Also, softer valving has other implications that need to be considered, but I will not go into that as it depends on other mods. No need to go to the extreme setup I have, but it can improve your turn-in. My $49.95 EDIT: Clarification....
Along with the previous responders, I also found the idea of running higher tire pressures in the rear than the front a little odd...
Well, seeing as the cost of air these days is so low, I am going to change tht tonight. All this advice is good, thanks for the quick replies.
Maybe I misread your intent, but running higher pressures in the rear of a Subaru, while not unheard of, is not common procedure. Being that there are some people that run that way and are competitive, it obviously is a result of some personal preferences.
For suspension, I am running: KYB AGX shocks with stock springs. Shocks are set on full soft all around, Cusco 21MM front swaybar with Whiteline heavy duty swaybar endlinks, Whiteline 18 - 22MM rear swaybar with Whiteline Heavy Duty mounts and endlinks. Rear sway is set on full soft (18 ), Front and rear strut tower braces, 205 55 16 Blizzak Revo 1 snowtires on stock rims, stock pressure (32 29 F/R), Alignment is zero toe all around, -1 camber front and rear (rear camber through camber bolts). If I take a corner on a slippery road at high speed the rear end will gradually step out. If I give it gas I can make perfect sideway drifts. Using the brakes mid corner does not cause excessive oversteer though. I would say this is the closest to neutral with a slight tendency to oversteer I've had. And with the stock springs and struts on full soft the ride height and confort is just perfect. I am thrilled with the setup. In summer I run 215 45 17 Kuhmo Ecsta MXs, drop the car down 1.1 inches with H&R springs, set the front to full hard (4), the rear to 6 (medium hard), the rear swaybar for 22, and front camber at -1.5 (still -1 on back, zero toe all around) and run 40PSI front, 35PSI rear and the car's tendency to go into terminal understeer all the time is eliminated. What is happening here is that as more traction is made available through tires and road conditions you will be able to put more load on your suspension, so the suspension geometry as a whole will change; swaybar stiffness can't be too large in winter because you are not going to load the swaybar on the first place, and the stiff back will want to step out unpredictably. Same goes for stiffening the suspension to combat body roll; not an issue in snow, though suspension travel for absorving bumps is. As loads increase in summer with stickier tires you start to need more camber and stiffer shocks/springs to keep the tires planted flat on the ground during cornering... What works in winter will understeer like MAD in summer. What works in summer will be horribly dangerous in winter... And what works on all season tires will be disappointing with maximum performance tires or race compounds... Finally, let me echo everyone else's comment that the one largest improvement you can make to the way your car handles is to align it more agressively.
Powerlabs made a good point that goes a little beyond the scope of the original post, but worth highlighting... Conditions dictate very different settings to maximize grip. I have different camber, strut and swaybar settings for cold weather (it snowed a little at the 1st AutoX last year!), pavement, concrete, rain, etc... As a matter of fact, I turn down the struts by 3-4 clicks when it is cold and rainy (remember that I can change the attitude of the car with one click)! Ok, so now I am up to $59.95.....
I would on occasion run higher rear tire pressures if I thought the surface was good and sliding the rear end around would be to my advantage (it seldom was, although at Tresure Island Corvette autox it saved my times) somewhere in the region of 45 front 51 rear... but this is on Falken Azenis 215's on a hot day on a slick surface and those were the hot pressures of the tires, so your mileage of course may vary. When i go home on the tires i'd lower them to 38psi all around. I think the big rear bar (what my old car still currently has on it) turns in really well, but is twitchier in transitions and definitely prone to back end going on a vacation somewhere unpredictable under hard braking entering a turn (I believe Christian can vouch for that, as he was in it once when it exhibited this behavior, and its somewhat scary) and overall it was streetable, but only in the city. I never drove it much on the highway and mostly in the city and it was amazing how you can flip it aound the right hand turns, but at the same time scary because you know the car can snap oversteer in all sorts of situations. I spun that car 3 times with the big rear bar and STi RA suspension and I never did with eibach springs, stock struts and nothing else. I had people drive it in buck runs and almost spin it around several turns. I wouldn't recommend running an adjustable bar on stiff or halfway without using a front swaybar at least 19-21mm to compensate.
try changing your driving style. my roomate has a WRX and the way he drives its all understeer all the time, but when I drive it its just fine.
A small, but quick steer in the opposite direction of turn, just before your turn will help. Something about shifting the center of gravity. Vila
hummm......here's my setup. 1* negative front .9* negative rear .36* toe out front and rear 20mm rear bar coilover sleeves on 2.5RS struts The car turns well. It's a lot more neutral than when I had my custom rear sway bar. Then I put in a welded rear diff and it's POWER OVERSTEER! well...I just play with suspension stuff a bunch. The alignment really helps. Gave it some toe out for corner entry response and also mid-corner oversteer characteristics. It really helps with making the rear step out when the car's weight fully shifts to the outside tires. ALSO, you can't expect it to turn-in well if you come into a corner agressive. Depending what you want and how you want the car to feel. Sometimes in track racing, you want it to be somewhat stable coming into a corner. in an autocross, you want it to change directions faster. The setup is totally different in track and autocross/gymkhana. To really make the car handle well for an AWD car, you'll want LSD front and rear as well as alignment and suspension tuning. Everything works in harmony. Adjust one thing, do another elsewhere to counteract or balance it.
too much good info in one place. i will need to came back with popcorn and finsh reading it all. keep up the good info guys!
Its called feinting, and that just changes your yaw rate. It can also lead to snap oversteer at high speeds and can be very dangerous over 50mph, especially if you have stock swaybars and stock suspension. basically you roll it one way to use the reciprocating force to push it harder the other way. I wouldn't recommend this technique at all unles you're trying to initiate a feint drift, which should really only be done on gravel or on ice with a subaru, and even then only by someone who is practiced at countersteering very smoothly.
