my car has almost 11,000 on the odo, i have had track time and know how to drive it and yet it still feels unstable in that it does not completely telegraph when it will break loose....i can live with it, but?????

My tires are wearing very well, the rears are about 50-60% gone, and even, all tires are even wear wise, fronts look new.

Do I need an allignment? i don't want to get one cause"every new car comes from the factory out of allighment and you should get one".

All indications are that i am fine now, running straight and normal at all speeds...i don't want to fix something that is not broken...

would the allignment be needed, and could it improve the tendency to snap oversteer in turns???my take on this behavior is putting on too much throttle too early in the turn causes it and not allignment/driver error abides.

thanks for all opinions except the stupid ones from the uniformed.

 

Here are my semi-educated opinion on the handling and alignment.

My '02 should theoretically be more oversteer prone than your '04, and I know for a fact that it has static understeer on the skidpad. IMHO there is no such thing as snap oversteer. That suggests that there is no reason for the occurance other than the car. I think of it as there is a unusually small grey zone between "riding on rails" and terminal oversteer, so less opportunity to correct for a driving error. All oversteer situations are due to the driver's inability to know or feel the limit for the driving conditions. (It is a rare occurance to hit an unexpected slick spot like dropped fluids on the track or actually have a mechanical failure.) For this car the punishment for pushing the limits is quick and not forgiving. The more I drive on the track or autocross the more I'm able to feel the tires, so don't be so quick to think that more seat time won't help.

That being said, I think some of the issue at least with pre '04 cars is an overly aggressive toe curve on the rear suspension. When the suspension compresses the more the rear tires "turn into the curve". This is great for perfectly flat pavement and a skilled driver, but two issues can come up when driving on the limit. The first subtle issue that with increasing cornering there is more lean, more outside suspension compression, more toe in. This increases the slip angle with increased cornering, which sort of makes you come up to the limit of tire very quickly, ie. the harder you corner the harder it is to catch a loss of traction of the rear tires. The second and more obvious problem is with bumpy roads. The bumps cause sudden compression and possibly uneven toe changes. This can cause the rear to "swim" which feels bad, especially on turns, where I've felt the back end bunny hop. There is a rear control arm mod that the s2ki GoFast Lab sells that adjusts the rear toe curve.

Get the alignment. It's cheap and it does make a huge difference on how the car reacts and feels. You can adjust your alignment settings to dial in understeer/oversteer, more turn/straight line stability, better tire wear or increase turn in response. The only issue is knowing what to tweak to get the particular characteristics and make the associated compromises you want. Maybe not applicable to an '04 suspension, but when I switched to the "UK alignment specs" it did feel like that oversteer was more linear and forgiving. Basically more rear negative camber and less toe in. Do some searches on s2ki and the web in general for alignment tuning tips.

 

thanks, pretty decent answer, it might make a difference...so far more seat time is a good answer, i do not get this behavior since i spun the car on the track, but i am always waiting for it to happen again, since it seemed so sudden.

 

Put your car on the alignment machine and you'll see what it is doing, and you can decide from there. Most likely your car is out of alignment, just from the mileage. I have the UK specs and the car just locks down as soon as you turn into a corner; it's like all of sudden in the corner, the car's handling improves out of no where. It is twitchier on the highway above 70+ and I am going back to the USA spec alignment on Saturday.

It's a toss up between sheer cornering and highway stability. Either way, you'll have to put it on the alignment machine to access what your car is currently doing.

 

thahks again for the excellent reply...i can't really be there when they do the allignment and the car is on the rack and telling the tech what to do...in calif they are touchy about that and i could end up with something other than what i want or is stock...i agree perhaps an allignment might work some wonders...as it is i have really no symptoms of misallignment, strange as that seems with a factory setup!

i was fishing for something i may have missed in my assessment..and yes now that it has been explained i see that with certain rear adjustments i can have either high speed stability or cornering...i want the compromise as i do both, the handling aspect is really good now, i just can learn more about the cars' behavior through experience, it is an awsome car.

 

Not to Hijack but I think my concern can be addressed by the folks who have posted above and is relevant...

My car is in need of an alignment again (pulls to the right more than it should) and I am unsure about which specs to run. I too have had great success with the UK revised specs on my MY02 with stock wheels and tires.

My issue is that I now have the MY04 wheels and Kumho Ecsta MX's which are a bit softer and 17" vs. 16" should I go back to stock, use the MY04 specs (are they diff?), or continue to use th UK numbers?

Thank you all for comments, facts, or just opinions!