RobAp1

I won't bore you with details but this stems from quite a long discussion with a couple of guys the other night about spring rates and other factors for track days etc.

One of them has an ep3 CTR and has just bought a set of coilovers with 10kg/mm front & 16kg/mm rear springs. He insists that the lack of dynamic camber change offered by the front McPherson struts apparently causes understeer. Because of this you apparently need to run a very high rear spring rate (some people running up to 20kg/mm! ) to introduce oversteer in an attempt to cancel it out. Surely, if these new coilovers are offering camber adjustable top mounts on the front, the apparent understeer issue can be helped by setting higher static camber from the outset?

I may well be wrong, but in a car with a weight bias towards the front I would feel inclined to run a softer rear spring compared to the front and combine it with a stiffer rear anti-roll bar to induce a bit of oversteer in that way? Taking into account forward weight transfer going into corners, i just don't see how such a stiff rear spring will have any benefit? Am I cracking up or is my theory on the right lines?


I'm not in this to prove any points, I just wanted to get some points of view from others to see if i'm going totally mad or not?!

Dembo

Surely stiffer rear springs will also reduce the rear roll and so reduce the rear grip in the same way as an ARB. It's just that the ARB is a better way of reducing roll without affecting the ability to absorb bumps as much.

I think you're right about static camber, except then you'll be running with high static camber all the time.

In GT86 land there's talk of lowering springs and coilovers being better with stiffer springs at the front because otherwise you get understeer caused by the different way the McPherson fronts react than the proper double wishbones at the rear. No I don't quite get it either. But at least the GT86 has proper weight distribution, which a Civic never will.