Removing the rear bar makes the car push really bad. I have been tinkering year long with bars and same rate springs front and rear.

I am leaning towards running a smaller rear bar if I can locate one. as well as my front saner bar.

 

No it doesn't. It sure as hell makes the car a lot easier to drive and puts power down pretty damn well though.

 

^ I agree. I have been running with no rear bar for several years with great results. I prefer a very loose car. If you are having too much understeer with no rear bar and equal spring rates, I suggest you look at alignment or a lighter front bar. Are you running a bunch or rear toe in or a large front bar?

 

I know you aren't referencing my post but I thought I'd throw this out there too - I'm running one of the largest front bars available (1.44") and I have zero issues with understeer (unless I induce it by jackassery).

 

I think most will agree...

With a large front bar as used for autocross (i.e. 1.44") the car is much better behaved (balanced, do what you want it to) with the same size tires on all corners. A staggered tire setup tends to exhibit understeer.

 

Questions about shocks:

I am decently knowledgeable adjusting a cars settings day to day/event to event.... but very new to building a car from scratch.

For shocks, does the typical AS S2000 Koni valving translate well to STR and higher spring rates? I don't know the fine details of the typical AS valving so I am not sure if there is anything weird about it to accommodate stock spring rates.

I've never custom valved shocks and will be looking to make a purchase of Koni DAs for STR in the next month or so.

 

Matt they work for the most part. Definitely nothing out there better for the money unless you want to do some custom fabrication. Koni's are notorious for not having enough low speed compression. No need to go crazy on a lot of rebound either - the Koni Yellow isn't all that digressive and if you turn the knob up - you'll end up with a pretty rough ride and a lot of high speed rebound.

I've never seen the valving of an OTS Koni but I run my revalved Koni's at near full soft. No need to try to use rebound anymore to control body roll like we did in AS.

 

I have a set of revalved-and-converted to DA koni's on my FP car. I had them rebuilt this April and revalved to handle higher spring rates. I've been experimenting all year with springs ranging from 700lbs to 1200lbs, and they work very well, although I have been kicking around the idea of selling them and trying something new.

 

Elaborate, please.

 

Its not the most outrageous thing in the world to take any set of circle track shocks, cut off an eyelet, then weld a fork to the bottom to make it fit. Circle track shocks arguably have the most valving options available of any shock known to man. Penske and Bilstein offer some pretty sweet options. Not hard to invert them if you wanted to do that too.

Actually, its pretty hard to run inverted front shocks because the sway bar is in the way.