Understeer all day every day

[econti]

Quick run down on my cobbled together setup:
318is, full interior, A/C delete, front strut brace
Rebushed everything with poly
12mm front sway, 14.5mm rear (previous owner)
Ksport Kontrol Pro coils, 6kg front 8kg rear (price was right)
16x8 wheels, 205/50 Federal 595EVOs

My problem is that the car understeers well before the back starts to slip.
I'm not looking for drift kiddy drives like the back's on casters, but what can I do to try reduce the understeer? 12mm rear sway? I have one lying around somewhere.

The tyres aren't track spec but they're pretty decent albeit a year old or so. They've been through a lot of heat cycles but it's always tended into understeer, just now more so than ever.

Feel free to give me tips on my driving style, but it doesn't seem to ever want to oversteer regardless of what I do unless I"m being an idiot

Thanks lads

[Jb325is]

Do you have adjustable swaybar links? If not, get some. If so, ensure that swaybars are not bound, you should be able to rotate the end links with the car sitting on the ground.

Does it do it in both directions? Look into getting the car corner-balanced

Try raising the rear of the car in the short term, rake will induce over-steer on corner entry

What are your shock settings like? Have you messed with them? Are you confident the shocks are working?

[e30_302]

What's your front alignment like?

[TobyB]

More front camber.

t

[raudonis]

12mm front sway bar? Maybe you mean 21mm?

[nrubenstein]

What is your current alignment?

[digger]

12mm front sway bar? Maybe you mean 21mm?

youd think, in which case a 16mm adjustable whiteline bar might be enough to tweak it

[raudonis]

youd think, in which case a 16mm adjustable whiteline bar might be enough to tweak it

Exactly.

Here we have a single race track in the whole country which dates back to 1960 so the surface is quite bumpy. There are a few abandoned soviet airfields which get turned into tracks for the events, but they are paved by decaying concrete slabs which are not smooth either.
Most of the racers ditch the swaybars altogether and control the roll via coilovers only. Otherwise there is simply no traction at all.

[MX339]

You'd need to stiffen the rear end rather than soften it in order to decrease understeer. What are your camber settings like? I've found that E30's will take about as much front camber as you can get out of it, especially on a soft car (eg. Spec E30).

[econti]

Forgot alignment stuff, sorry.
Last time it had an alignment it was running -2.6 camber 0.05 toe out and whatever caster it brings, 9 degrees or something.

I'm raked fairly heavily forward, I suppose the best way to describe it is the wheel arch gap is the same for front and back, and S2 rear arches as we know are a lot lower.

I've got the shocks on 3/4 as stiff as they go all round.

Front sway is stock iS, 20mm I think. Links are not bound.

It scrubs an equal amount on left and right corners, sounds like it's coming from the outside wheel only.

Should I get a infra red thermometer and get tire temps to judge whether more camber is necessary?

[MX339]

You could definitely use more negative camber, at least 3.5 degrees or so. I'm running 4.5 on my Spec E30.

[e30_302]

More negative camber up front for sure. A temp PROBE, not infrared, will be useful here. But really, you need a ton up front.

Are you running on the bump stop or running out of travel up front?

[econti]

I'll stick some more camber on it and see what happens.
Travel is fine up front, as far as I can tell. There's no harsh bottoming out feeling, there's enough shock stroke and the spring isn't binding. It is pretty stiff however. Should I soften the front shocks?

[TobyB]

Softening front shocks will help on rough pavement.

More front camber!

Tie wrap on strut/ shock rod is cheap bottoming detection.

t

[econti]

Softening front shocks will help on rough pavement.

More front camber!

Tie wrap on strut/ shock rod is cheap bottoming detection.

t

I'll stick some more camber on and see what happens.

Tie wrap?