***The Official "HANDLING" Thread***

[Sugarphreak]

Yeah no problem. They are pretty neat, you don't often get to compare cars in motion like that.

It is at the end of a long sweeper so there is a lot of force pushing the cars out and away from the cone. I would say you hit about 80km (50mph) in that sweeper and then have to hit a hard 90 degree corner.

[mahout]

Originally Posted by Jodele

Being engineers, we both understand that there are many way to skin a cat…And that everything (in real life) is a compromise. The engineer with the best combination of compromises wins…the race in this case. We measure results with a stopwatch on the racetrack. That is why we say that, “When the green flag drops, the BS stops!” What we are doing now is BSing/philosophizing.

By going with the torsionally weaker chassis and stiffer springs, you may be getting the same result as I would with a much stiffer chassis with roll bars and softer springs. Yours is the much cheaper rout – more bang-for-the-buck approach than mine, but I could (theoretically) dial everything in individually. I therefore have more control over each aspect of the handling characteristic of the car. By saying that you don’t need a rear roll bar, is not accurate enough…and therefore, not necessarily true…for the aforementioned reasons. Neither one of us are wrong, just a different approach.

Unless you have chassis flexibility removing the front bar brings the understeer and oversteer very close into balance on 08's and thus a rear bar isn't necessary.
On 09's you can add a rear ASB to balance the understeer and oversteer but then you really need to lower and stiffen the springs as well.. And if you have adjustable bars at both ends you can really fine tune your handling to get absolute neutral balance. Never take the front ASbar off and add a rear ASB ! Terminal oversteer.
For my daily driver merely having near neutral handling was as good as desired for little cost. And thus it is with little money. The guy with Hoosiers indeed has a more critical approach and he has ASB's at both ends with the lowering for A/Xing. (Minis still beat him because they are just as serious.)
Likewise for the 08's as well for competition. How far you go depends on the level of competition you want to play in.
The more competitive the more you have to do.

we see no no need to stiffen the Fit chassis though.. If we doubled hp that would be advisable to at least check but not at 100 hp .