Been playing around with my ride height recently and noted that in the manual for the shocks I am on, I am recommended to run my rear 0.2in lower than the front.

Stock ride height is supposed to be 14.25 F and 14.75 R. I'm on Tein SRC now with 16kg/mm springs but my ride height is 13.75~14 all around as opposed to recommended of 12.8 F and 12.6 R simply because I have huge humps to clear on the way into where I live for now. I think the 1 inch plus difference higher makes a big difference in the way the car feels around the corners; roll tends to be noticeably more.

I'm just curious how the change in rake to rear lower than front will change my cornering characteristics on the track.

 

higher rear = more oversteer

 

I guess if your spring rates are near equal, it makes a little sense to rake towards the rear to get a % weight distribution moved backwards. How much is too much though?

 

I've heard of people in STR doing a 1/4" lower in the rear. A local does that and does pretty well nationally. I try to stay at the same height all the way around but I'm going to corner balance within the next month. I might post up my finding in my build thread. Keep a eye out for it.

 

the rear ride height has everything to do with corner exit. Lower the rear until the car starts to corner exit understeer on power. If the rear ends up being too low, then there is something that needs to change (ie. rear camber) to make the rear stick. When i ran -2.5 degrees in the rear (with my setup) i could not get the car to corner exit understeer (rear got very low) so i bumped to -3.0 and my rear height is now slightly lower than level and is perfect on corner exit on both high grip concrete and slippery asphalt.

 

Thanks for all the constructive feedback. Will change and see how it feels.

Any difference to braking? I would have thought lowering the rear might help straight-line (rear doesn't lock up so easy) and trail braking (I can trail more aggressively/deeper without the tail coming out)

 

so you added negative camber rear to get the car to understeer at corner exit. What tires? RS3s?

did you maintain your rear toe settings the same? what were they?

 

I have both RS3's and Dunlops. Increasing negative camber helped the overall grip of the REAR. For my setup -2.5 degrees rear camber would decamber too quickly no matter what i did to improve rear grip. With more camber my adjustments became more usable. My rear toe is still 1/4"-3/16" toe-in.

 

thanks for that. Where is your build thread?

 

It was my shock thread but I changed it to a build thread about a week ago so I could be a pic whore and share all my stuff.
https://www.s2ki.com/s2000/topic/818.../page__st__200





Interesting you gained corner exit grip by raising rear camber, for me on RS3's I found that taking out camber in the rear added grip (understeer) on corner exit due to being able to put down more power. I was experiencing oversteer on corner exit when I got on the gas with a higher camber setting. Which makes alot more sense to me than adding camber to gain rear grip on corner exit. Hens the reason drag race guys run zero camber for added grip?

Not saying your wrong or anything. Just interesting it work out that way for you. Now if you told me you added more camber in the rear for added mid-corner grip I would of agreed with you. Maybe I'm to agressive with the throttle and need to become a star spec user for the added longitudnal grip.