My cars faar to tail happy

[K-Swiss]

Heres the specs.
My car
Suspension
Fully adjustable Koni yellow coil-overs, front and rear.
Modified struts to Ground Controls.
Springs: Eibach GC F375lbs, R475lbs.
PowerFlex offset control arm bushings.
Ground Control rear shock mounts.
Sparco strut bar.
New control arms.


Its on some 16x7 rota formels with brand new tires. Anyways. The car is faaar to tail happy. In the wet I can barely keep it in a striaght line till at least 4th gear if I pedal on it. Its twitchy under hard cornering. What would you guys all recommend me to do to make it more stable?

[backtrail69]

Unless you are pushing serious HP, you need to just tone down your driving style. I can drive my turbo car in the wet just fine in 2nd+, first is alittle sketch, you have to really baby it.

[DarkWing6]

More rear tire pressure and less up front will help. Maybe try having a 2-3lbs less in the rear than you do in the front.

What stiffness do you have your KONIs adjusted to? What tires are you running?

[cheades]

First part of your statement was backwards Darkwing6, I agree on the less pressure in the rear though. Have you checked your alignment, make sure nothing is bent in the rear to make it tail happy? Do you have an lsd and is it still in good shape, if not that could be the problem combined with your driving style.

[K-Swiss]

Hey guys,
I have a 3.73 LSD, I have 90% on some Falken 512s...

Also in the dry even if I even think of backing off the throttle just a C-hair on a corner the ass end wants to step out HARD.

My previous e30 was a 85 E on 14 inch bottle caps Falken 512s, Bilstien tuned suspension and worn everything else. It felt a lot less twitchy on high speed corners.

[Massive Lee]

Hi K-Swiss.

You forgot to mention what tires and pressure you run. I am quite surprised that you find/make your car "tail happy" because just looking at your suspension specs, everything points out to an understeery car.

Front to rear spring ratio should be 150%. That means that if you run front 375# springs, rear should be around 560#. You run 475# which is softer than ideal. Relatively soft rear springs will lead to understeer. Perhaps you should calm down or change your brand of tire.

[K-Swiss]

Hey Lee,
I'm just running stock pressure(Whatever that is I can't remember). But by far my car is majorly over steery. So any ideas where I can get proper springs for it? I want to resolve this a bit before my first track day...

As soon as I burn off my 512s I'm going to go to Azeni sports or at something really grippy and summer only.

[Hick]

id agree with an alignment issue.

[Massive Lee]

Hey Lee,
I'm just running stock pressure(Whatever that is I can't remember). But by far my car is majorly over steery. So any ideas where I can get proper springs for it? I want to resolve this a bit before my first track day...

You can't go stiffer as it will make things worst. I think that what you describe as "oversteery" is in fact a car that doesn't go straight, even on a straight line. Have you had the car checked for alignement and body straightness? How low is the car? Any photo to show your camber (and toe)?

[K-Swiss]

Would my alignment specs help?

My track width difference is 0.3 and my wheel base is 0.2
my SAI is 15.4 and 15.1

Front caster is 9.3 and 9.5 and camber is -1.9 and -1.5

[K-Swiss]

Also my car is yes fairly low but it appears to maintain proper steering geometry(control arms are just above parallel not below.

[1991 318is]

To eliminate shocks and driving style from the equation, put the car on a skid pad. You basically go around in a circle at a gradually increasing speed. The rate of speed increase needs to be slow enough that the chassis is not effected by shock rates or drastic braking or acceleration. See which end breaks loose first. To get the car to where it is neutral, you need to change springs and adjust/change bars. This is such a basic step and is so rarely used. Most universities and small airports have a skid pad. It's actually just a great big circle painted on the pavement. You can also contact driving schools and any university that is part of the SAE program.

[nando]

rear toe.. you probably have toe out.

[Massive Lee]

rear toe.. you probably have toe out.

Heavily lowered cars will have excessive toe-in because of the angled geometry of rear trailing arms.

[PiercedE30]

maybe bent trailing arms.......