Need some advise on set up

[ijwhiteman]

Hi peeps

I have an EK9 running

Stock Roll Bars (new rear bushes and drop links)
D2 coilovers F 13kg/mm R 7kg/mm
D2 lower control arms
Camber adjusters front and rear
Tyres Toyo R888's F 35psi R 33psi
Upper and lower strut braces and a cage.
Full allignment and camber set up a week ago.

For me there is still to much body roll.

How can i reduce this and a lil to much understeer for me.

I have been told that fitting polyurethene trailing arm bushes will solve that straight away. If so how do you fit them and how easy a job is it?

Or i was thinking about upping the rear spring rate to 10kg/mm to bring the car closer to the more balanced 4kg/mm all round as stock. And also reduce some understeer.

Its funny becase its mainly been since i've put the cage in that the weight transfer seems to be effecting it.

Please help

 

[stevenEK9]

More oversteer you could.......

-Raise the rear a bit to shift more weight over the front
-Get camber adjusters!!!!! Rear will have more -ve than front after lowering which is not good
-more preload on rear springs
-Toe out on the rear
-keep the revs higher through corners and let the LSD pull the car through corners more, even get a mechanical plate type LSD

Shame you stay so far away as i would have been willing to tweak the suspension for you, haha. nah i like playing with set up and seeing how it affects the feel of the car

Also try same tyre pressures front to back, i run 32psi all round with RS2's

 

[Joshm88]

I would stay away from PU bushes. I'd definitely reccomend camber arms, especially since your car is lowered!

Maybe start to think about a plated diff?

 

[ijwhiteman]

More oversteer you could.......

-Raise the rear a bit to shift more weight over the front
-Get camber adjusters!!!!! Rear will have more -ve than front after lowering which is not good
-more preload on rear springs
-Toe out on the rear
-keep the revs higher through corners and let the LSD pull the car through corners more, even get a mechanical plate type LSD

Shame you stay so far away as i would have been willing to tweak the suspension for you, haha. nah i like playing with set up and seeing how it affects the feel of the car

Also try same tyre pressures front to back, i run 32psi all round with RS2's

I would stay away from PU bushes. I'd definitely reccomend camber arms, especially since your car is lowered!

Maybe start to think about a plated diff?

Why does everyone hate PU bushes?

Thanks for the offer though Steve.

Ok forgot to mention it does have camber adjusters and i had all my castors,camber and toe adjusted a week ago. Car was perfect but since fitting the cage something doesn't feel right now. Its got to much roll and seems to be pushing the front. I've been playing with damping setting but i'm pretty max out on thoses. I've played with tyre pressures and found stock setting to suit my driving most.

I'm a bit stumped.

 

[Joshm88]

This is something Dino-Spunomi told me a while back:

Some places it's appropriate to use poly, like the upper A arm bushings or the lower rear shock bushings. These bushings only get movement on one axis and do fine. Poly is also OK for the swaybar mount and endlink bushings. Polyurethane doesn't rebound it's shape the same way rubber does. Rubber is more apt to keep it's shape over time and it bounces back. It's better for all bushings than poly, not that poly is bad just there's no reason for it.

Poly bushings have to be lubed during install and as a constant maintenance. If you don't lube them, they make noise and they will prematurely crap out on you. Rubber requires no lubing. Spherical bearings are high maintenance as well, you do have to keep them greased or use covers, but most racers don't mind this. I think we're mainly talking about street setups here.
It's common knowledge that rubber lasts longer, that's why OEM's still use it to this day. The person who said poly is a harder wearing compound is only right when talking about skateboard wheels. When used as a bushing poly succumbs to forces much more differently. The deflection and forces upon a bushing make it break and age and crack, poly just doesn't stand up the same way as rubber.

Also, why do you think the OEM peformance partners like Mugen and Nismo use hard rubber? For the reasons of having the properties and reliability of an OEM bushing while being more responsive.
Everything Mugen is expensive, hard rubber bushings don't have to be. Hardrace and PIC Performance both offer hard rubber bushing kits for much cheaper.
I would personally buy the kit from PIC, they always produce good stuff and are great people. If you want more detail on the dynamics of bushings, where you should use what, ect, email co-owner Al Hung
http://www.picperformance.com/store/.../contactus.asp

 

[chrismc_DC2]

A beefier rear ARB will dial out some understeer

 

[haitch]

Get the car set up again asap & see how it is, upping the rear rate sounds good for balance, what springs are on there D2? How much front camber do you have? Have you tried 34psi all round to compensate for the extra weight. If your maxed out on the damping after another setup, new spring rates imo, different manufacturer.

 

[haitch]

How many settings on the D2 & what are you running F/R?

 

[DedeSIR]

The difference in spring rate between the front and rear is too much.

I'm running 8kg front and 12 rear and the car is pretty neutral
( I did push the car hard on the track to come to this conclusion )

Since you feel too much body roll, reducing the spring rate up front
won't do it, you can increasing the rear and get a BIG rear swaybar.

ASR have a 24mm and a hollow 32

Playing with the ride height ratio front/rear will do alot too. (rear higher)

Alignment will help too.

It's really a personal thing to set up a car...

 

[ijwhiteman]

This is something Dino-Spunomi told me a while back:

Thanks mate

A beefier rear ARB will dial out some understeer

Possibly solution but expensive. To change spring rates are only £35 each.

Get the car set up again asap & see how it is, upping the rear rate sounds good for balance, what springs are on there D2? How much front camber do you have? Have you tried 34psi all round to compensate for the extra weight. If your maxed out on the damping after another setup, new spring rates imo, different manufacturer.

I'm contemplating taking it back in see if the can do something but would still a prefer a change from the rear. Camber is set at -0.5 front and -1.5 rear. My biggest thing really is the roll. I'd say it turns in nicely and holds a good line most of the time. I had the same issue on the EK4 but never knew about it cause it was better than stock set up. But currently i'm struggling to get a balance.

How many settings on the D2 & what are you running F/R?

36 settings in total but i always adjust in 6's cause each induvidual doesn't make much noticable difference.

36 being Hardest and 0 softest i've tried

36 all round

36 rear and 10 front

24 rear and 16 front

few other variants but not much

Found this i've highlighte the issues

Response

Unresponsive: (car feels heavy)

1. Tire pressures too low.

2. Too much aerodynamic downforce. (N.B. if car accelerates poorly at high

speed the problem may be a rear wing Gurney lip too high.)

Unresponsive: (car feels sloppy; will not take a set; rolls too much) THIS IS DURING HARD CORNERING AS IN BANKED OVER FOR A LONG TIME.

1. Insufficient shock settings.

2. Sway bars too soft.

3. Tire pressures too low.

Too responsive: little feel: slides too easily.)

1. Car too stiff for driver.

2. Excessive ride or roll resistance.

3. Excessive tire pressures.

4. Excessive shock settings.

5. Excessive rear toe settings (in or out)

6. Insufficient downforce.

 

[ijwhiteman]

The difference in spring rate between the front and rear is too much.

I'm running 8kg front and 12 rear and the car is pretty neutral
( I did push the car hard on the track to come to this conclusion )

Since you feel too much body roll, reducing the spring rate up front
won't do it, you can increasing the rear and get a BIG rear swaybar.

ASR have a 24mm and a hollow 32

Playing with the ride height ratio front/rear will do alot too. (rear higher)

Alignment will help too.

It's really a personal thing to set up a car...

See i was thinking change the rear springs to be 10kg/mm instead of 7kg/mm. The thing is with stock suspension on i felt the roll bars where absolutly adequate and roll was minimum.... Baffled. The car overall doesn't weigh any more.

My ride height is level all round.... as in same height. Perhaps raise it but by how much? 5mm? 10mm? wouldn't want to go to mad.

 

[stevenEK9]

the car will deffinately feel like it rolls alot if you have had it setup with more camber on the rear than front!!!!!

look at ANY japanese race spec civic, they run the rear with very neutral camber and lots of negative up front, for instance i run -1 on the rear and -2.5 on the front

This setup will make the car feel ALOT more planted and roll less, with only 0.5 camber up front, especially running a cage and sticky tyres you will be rolling the tyres alot and running on the outsides too much

 

[haitch]

^Agree, I run mine similar to Steven. Sort this first before you try anything else mate.

 

[haitch]

Those settings you have need to be swapped, where did you get the suspension setup?

 

[rvm]

Don't forget the toe settings!

 

[Dino-Spumoni]

I'm with DedeSIR on this one, your spring rates are too far apart. Those rates are a safer, understeer oriented rate. You generally don't want the front-rear ratio to be farther than 2kg/mm.

But you also shouldn't just put 10k or 11k springs on your rear dampers that were valved for 7k springs. They should be re-valved for the higher rate.
And, if you really don't like understeer you could go for a rate that is higher in the rear than the front, like most all track setups for FF cars. That may require a new set of coilovers (I'm not a fan of D2's, they age quite quickly)

As far as dialing out understeer even more, you can raise stiffness in the rear of the car in a few ways-
tire pressure
ARB size
spring stiffness
or take away the same from the front.

To reduce body roll goes along the same principles as above, with the addition of reducing weight of the car and changing the car's center of gravity to be lower. This is done by lowering, and moving/removing weight around from higher to lower. (ex- CF hood, battery relocation)

Jacking the height around front to rear to change the front and rear weights of the car is a waste of your time, the results are so negligible. If you are playing with ride heights to affect weight, borrow a set of scales to corner weight the car. I still need to write an article on this..

 

[ijwhiteman]

the car will deffinately feel like it rolls alot if you have had it setup with more camber on the rear than front!!!!!

look at ANY japanese race spec civic, they run the rear with very neutral camber and lots of negative up front, for instance i run -1 on the rear and -2.5 on the front

This setup will make the car feel ALOT more planted and roll less, with only 0.5 camber up front, especially running a cage and sticky tyres you will be rolling the tyres alot and running on the outsides too much

That seem crazy ammounts of camber.... Where can i find details of suspenions set ups....

^Agree, I run mine similar to Steven. Sort this first before you try anything else mate.

Do you know your exact set up?

Those settings you have need to be swapped, where did you get the suspension setup?

From micheledever. They have all the settings for stock EK9.

Don't forget the toe settings!

I had toe done but that probably all wrong... Man i'm just making one big ****ing mess of my set up....

I'm with DedeSIR on this one, your spring rates are too far apart. Those rates are a safer, understeer oriented rate. You generally don't want the front-rear ratio to be farther than 2kg/mm.

The thing i have found is that difference between the spring rates seem standard on all coilovers. Even the SPOON K20 EK9 runs 14 Front 8 Rear....

It was set to this which i believed was a good set up as it is near stock. I liked the way it handled as stock....

Castor

1.66 deg

Front Camber

-0.44 deg

Rear Camber

-1.54 deg

Front Toe

Total 0.09 deg

Rear Toe

Total 0.19 deg

 

[haitch]

Camber - definately running -2F, rear I think is -0.8, toe etc not sure but will ask Tom, had it adjusted before Donny so need to check. My eibachs are 10F/8R, whatever Tom has finetuned the other settings to, handling is excellent, no cage to compare though mate (

 

[ijwhiteman]

Camber - definately running -2F, rear I think is -0.8, toe etc not sure but will ask Tom, had it adjusted before Donny so need to check. My eibachs are 10F/8R, whatever Tom has finetuned the other settings to, handling is excellent, no cage to compare though mate (

Thanks mate. I will get myself back up to micheledever and get them to adjust my camber front and rear see what difference that make. Spring rate side of things i will leave untill i've changed the set up. Like i say with cage in feels ok but something is not right. For me anyway. If you could get settings for me would be lovely.

 

[stevenEK9]

On track -2.5 up front was PERFECT, when i was coming into the pits every 6 laps or so i felt the front tyres and was getting nice and even heat distribution across them. no problems with loss of traction during acceleration/deceleration also every when the track was greasy. These settings i run all the time and they work great on road too

I dislike how people "think" something isn't right, or it's "too much" in this case because of what they have heard or read, i have tried it and i know it actually works (not having a go at you, just too many people give opinions online based on what they have read, i give my opinion on here about what i have tried and tested)

Also your toe settings aren't very agressive, if they are positive values that would mean they are toe in. toe in improves straight line stability but won't do much for cornering. i run half a mm toe out each side on the front and 3mm toe out each side on the back, toe out on the front gives you a slightly sharper and quicker steering feel, on the back it helps to loosen the rear end a bit and improve turn in