Swaybar Under development ?

[jsmonet]

i hate that rear endlink design because i've had nothing but bad luck with it on my strano front sway (sti). are those bushings actually going to hold up for long-term use? considering what i drive now, and the mods on it as it stands, daily driving something like this isn't out of the question

[AJ PwR Jr.]

I would like to update you guys. During the time attack, with the front and rear T1R swaybars and dialled in camber/toe, the Fit was oversteering too much so we ended up removing the rear bar and just run with the front one and the car is very neutral and the control-bility was better so we are thinking that the rear swaybar is not necessary for the Fit so we will be holding off the project with the rear sway.

Here's my opinion about the Fit's suspension:
If you are not dialling in the camber, with the car being lowered, the front will have positive camber and the rear will have more negative meaning the rear will have more grip than the front and this is the reason why the car understeers (beisdes the weight or the suspension/spring rates). On the Fit, the rear camber cannot be adjusted so the only way is to work on will be the front. If you dialled in the front camber, the handling will be dramatically improved ( with everything stock just with springs, the car will slightly oversteers).

[Fit of RAGE]

Hey, just wondering if teh swaybars are on the way or not.

[Harry_Fit]

So, with the rear swaybar alone, would that cause the car to oversteer a little?

[JamesBizzle]

Originally Posted by Toy Yoda

Hey, just wondering if teh swaybars are on the way or not.

+1 on that.

[azkikersfit]

Originally Posted by AJ PwR Jr.

I would like to update you guys. During the time attack, with the front and rear T1R swaybars and dialled in camber/toe, the Fit was oversteering too much so we ended up removing the rear bar and just run with the front one and the car is very neutral and the control-bility was better so we are thinking that the rear swaybar is not necessary for the Fit so we will be holding off the project with the rear sway.

Here's my opinion about the Fit's suspension:
If you are not dialling in the camber, with the car being lowered, the front will have positive camber and the rear will have more negative meaning the rear will have more grip than the front and this is the reason why the car understeers (beisdes the weight or the suspension/spring rates). On the Fit, the rear camber cannot be adjusted so the only way is to work on will be the front. If you dialled in the front camber, the handling will be dramatically improved ( with everything stock just with springs, the car will slightly oversteers).

so if i had to dial in the front camber, wat do i have to do to get an oversteer? do i go negative or positve? or can u gimme some specs on dat?
i m running on Tanabe springs with stock shocks

[jsmonet]

*sigh* let's play around with the physics of a turn.

ok, when tires are cambered in (increasing negative camber), you lose straight line traction and braking because less of the tire meets the ground.

when you go into a turn the parts of the car that AREN'T the tires all wants to fly out of the turn. that leans the car, but it also leans the tires. keep in mind this is only with independent suspensions, not live axle.

ok, rolling straight, if you add negative camber to the fronts, they'll look like this:

/--\

in a left turn the car will lean on the right tire. you'll lose camber on the outside tire and gain on the inside. this is because the car is LEANING RIGHT. your tires end up looking like this:

/--|

if you ran zero camber you'd go from |--| in a straight line, it would end up like /--/ this in a left turn. that means less contact patch on the outside tire, where it matters most, meaning less traction.

question to ajr:
since the fit is a beam rear, did you see much deflection in the rear, camber-wise in hard turns? i know this is exacerbated by slicks.

also, the sti on slicks will lose as much as 3 degrees of negative camber. on street tires i've seen 1.5~2 degrees of loss (running 2deg of neg camber nets even heat across the tread after some hard runs on street tires). i'm curious how the fit held up front and rear.

before anyone calls bs on that, read iwsti.com regarding front sways, camber run by those running road courses, and take a look at video of the wheels on any stock sti in a hard turn, lol. it's embarassing.

relevance: if the rear end runs minimal camber, but has very little deflection due to being a beam rear, then just adding some negative camber in the front is all you should have to do to make the car relatively neutral.

[AJ PwR Jr.]

Originally Posted by azkikersfit

so if i had to dial in the front camber, wat do i have to do to get an oversteer? do i go negative or positve? or can u gimme some specs on dat?
i m running on Tanabe springs with stock shocks

You will need to work on the toe as well. Playing with camber and toe will not do all the work, it also depends on the suspension you have such as spring rates and dampening before to can achieve the results that you wanted.

[jsmonet]

indeed. where someone like me would typically go for zero toe all around, if you're still learning about what various alignment adjustments do, you'll probably want to go with a little toe in for the front just to keep it... civil.

this could tangent away so i'll stop

[azkikersfit]

so u mean i should try goin negative on the front by little bit? how much? .5 - 1?

[RagingAngel]

I think there are certain enthusiasts who perceive that adding more modifications will inherently make the car somehow "better."

I'm not saying this is not true, but for many of us out there who will likely not track the car as hard as some of the tuners, adding this rear sway could be detrimental to daily driving.

Ben has already informed us that his current findings with a rear sway creates more oversteer than even he is comfortable with. He also produced suggestions on how one might improve the handling and make the car neutral once it is lowered.

I think it's important to try these settings that he suggested

[jsmonet]

that's pretty much true. for someone inexperienced and learning, having a neutral car, or one that understeers just a little is actually a lot safer. you can just as easily swap ends/spin on a freeway/expressway onramp as you can on a track if you aren't disciplined enough to know your car's limits.

I asked aj-r about their track findings with the hopes of figuring out what a good daily driver's alignment settings would be. keep in mind that I daily drove my sti with the following settings that, while not extreme, would put a lot of lesser drivers through walls:

front:
left camber: -2.3 || right camber: -2.3
toe: 0 both sides
caster: maxed at 4.7 (car doesn't really have adjustable caster)
zeroed thrust angle

rear:
left camber: -2 || right rear: -1.9
toe: zero all around
thrust angle: zero

with a 32mm front sway on my car and the factory 20mm rear sway, the car could oversteer with very minor input.

now if the beam rear on the fit acts in any way similar to a live axle setup would, you won't experience much loss of camber and you can run the rear nearly zero in the rear and it'll keep sticking as well as possible.

i won't give camber recommendations because i don't know the car all that well. what typically works for me is running a little more negative camber in front than rear. for you, have them toe-in the front by 1/16 inch or so, maybe a little less.

toe-in: your front tires are pointed /--\ like that, where the bottom is the back of the car and the top is the front. if you drew that on the ground, it would be how your tires are pointed. this isn't a bad thing. with just a LITTLE toe in, you limit how much the car follows lines in the road and the car acts... calmer at higher speeds (over 60mph). with zero toe cars tend to wander just a little if you don't pay attention.

that's all anyone can tell you until they've run the car hard or aj-r replies with their alignment specs.

[AJ PwR Jr.]

I have tried a couple settings and here's my opinion on that.

1) Front camber -2 (Street and track)
toe out total 0.10
caster stock - stock sway
T1R suspension F12k R.6k
**the car oversteers during turns with the speed of 60mph and up. The oversteer was pretty easy to control by the throttle but when the tires get really hot then you will be drifting I think if I run less toe then it will help less oversteer. Fun to drive but laptimes wasn't great.

2) Front camber -3.5 (Time Attack settings)
toe out total 0.20
caster stock - T1R 24mm sway
T1R suspension F.12k R10k
**now the car understeers at low speed turns but any turns from 40-50mph and up, it is very neutral. Steering is very responsive.

The rear camber was unchanged for bnoth settings and the specs are :
Camber -1.5 both sides
toe in total 0.16

I do have some data from my datalogger on the Fit. I will try to get it posted as soon as possible.

Cheers
Ben

[jsmonet]

awesome.

i'm just not used to seeing toe out front, toe in rear setups. turn-in must be fantastic

[gettinafit]

Basically No go on the rear sway bar? It makes the car less stable on the track!

[nttdemented]

This is how Formula 1's setup their suspensions. A little bit of tow out up front and toe in on the rear.

Tow out gives a more stable turn in (read slightly less overstear during initial turn-in) and on FF cars like ours it also has the added benefit of helping control the tendency to understear when applying throttle during corner exit.

Tow in on the rear helps stabilize the rear end of the car in all situations, you can also interpret this as minimizing overstear when cornering since the outside rear tire will be trying to tuck the rear into the curve not away from it. On FR or MR cars it also has the added benefit of controlling overstear caused by applying throttle during corner exit.

Also adding toe out on the front without a little toe in on the rear to compensate will make your car feel jittery on the straights, basically it will be a little harder to keep the car going in a straight line since both tires are sort of pulling away from the car, making your car unstable during straights.