whitehooptie

I apologize for the ignorance. I was a drag racer if you will and never really paid attention to a lot of suspension stuff.

My question is, I was taking a right hand turn rather fast the other day and I noticed the front of the car was pushing forward when the wheel was turned. I know tires play a factor in it but what else? What's the good stuff to get?

Thanks Brandon

bruecksteve

Usually it's the driver!!!

Most inexperienced drivers tend to drive too hard into a turn. The combination of braking and cornering cause the front tires to be overloaded and lose traction. On top of that, if you start to accelerate too soon you'll continue to overload the front tires. Remember, slow in, fast out.

Granted, your suspension has a lot to do with it also. Too much front roll stiffness, poor tires, etc all play a part in how your car will takes a corner. It's all about balance and having the correct matching pieces in your suspension.

I could write a book here but that's the short of it.

The good stuff.... it all depends on what you want to do with your car.

Do you just want a car that handles good on the street?
Do you want a car that's built to autocross?
Do you want a car to take on a track?

Give us some more information and we'll probably be able to help you.

Jerm

This past weekend, I met up w/ a man over in West LA who owned a El Camino setup for corner carving. He was an older gentlemen that was an absolutely amazing driver who spent his weekends carving corners.

Anyways, we get into the discussion of suspension and stuff and he brings up something. He states that stock cars are designed to push. Would you agree or why would do you think he would state that? He is very much experienced.

O-taka

He is completely correct. The engineers do that to almost every car to prevent lesser drivers from swapping ends and

bruecksteve

I agree, they're all designed to understeer. It's much safer for the average driver. BUT... you can also compensate for that to a very large extent by HOW you drive. Generally that means giving up the speed before you start cornering.

Sam Strano

What else can you think of? About everything plays into it......... More so, it's not just this or that, but can be combinations of multiple things not interacting well.

Assuming it's not that you were just too fast into the corners and over your head and that you don't have really small front tires vs. the rears, or P.O.S. tires in general........ Alignment and better shocks help a ton. The alignment is to stand up the tire when cornering and try and get more contact patch on the ground. The car starts about 0 camber, so when the tire loads up, it rolls under and you end up really only using the outside half. We counter that by adding negative camber, so when the tire loads you end up using as much of the contact patch as you can. The shocks help simply by controlling body motion. They slow down roll rate, which keeps the car from flopping and overwhelming the front tire's traction. Also, poor shocks (and even new the GM shocks are poor...) will allow the car to pogo or bounce. In situations that can unweight the front end and cause a change in grip.

From there is gets more complicated. More roll stiffness can help, but it can hurt if taken too far. Unfortunately, many folks are too eager to put really big rear swaybars on the cars to loosen it up. While that helps the balance of the car, it does so by taking grip away from the rear. I'd rather add as much as you can in the front first.

And from there, it gets really muddled.
Hope that helps.

whitehooptie

Well I appreciate the "in depth" explianation of the idea. I wasn't completely drag racer. I never put skinnies on the front. I've always had 275/40/17's all the way around. I have some crummy Falkens on there right now. They were the spares. But I've had F1's on the wheels, GSC's, some coopers's and they all seem to suck honestly.

I am not too worried about "carving corners" but want good high speed stability in turns, low speed stability but not completely kill the comfort. It isn't the daily driver anymore, but I don't wants knots on my head or bruised legs either.

Isn't there something where you can adjust the camber or something like -2 degress or something like that to help with handling? What tires, shocks, springs, and other thingings would be the best.

By the way, the car has a 6 point cage in it now, but the motor is out of the car. And for those who are wondering, I have a V6 and a Z. The pushing occoured on my V6, but the V6 has a lot of stock Z parts with about the same mileage and usually wears, but they both act the same.

Thanks
Brandon