understeer with hotchkis??

understeer with hotchkis??

i installed my rear hotchkis swaybar today. the front one is still stock. i set it to the setting that gives me the shortest arm distance, which i heard is the stiffest, yet my car still understeers. is this right?

You won't eliminate understeer entirely. Isn't the understeer even somewhat lessened?

yes it is, but i was looking to get a balanced car or even some oversteer

Move your battery to the trunk that will move like 30 lbs from the front to the back and should help a little

when you put in the front in, the car will understeer ever so slightly during moderate driving but you will be able to induce oversteer on hard corners with out the hand brake you just have to get used to them.

if you install the front bar you'll get hella go-kart steer! hehe

ok. i'm already planning to move the battery. i'm not exactly sure how installing the stiffer hotchkis front bar would help induce the oversteer. if someone can explain this might justify buying the new endlinks in order to install the front one.

actually b4 i do anything else i'm gonna buy some azenis and see if it helps, cuz right now my economy winter tires are rolling under hard cornering, which would explain why its still plowing cuz the front is heavier and the sidewalls are thin

What are you trying to do, anyway? Drift or AutoX?

well you cant really drift a FWD car very well so autox. starts in 2 weeks

Only reason I asked was because it sounded like you wanted to induce large amounts of oversteer. Usually for AutoX you want to have the car neutral. You can do this by inducing oversteer, maybe you should balance the car a little more, like putting the hotchkis roll bars on both ends of the car. You don't want to have to man-handle the car through the cones.

I heard this from a few people: when you go to AutoX, try giving the front tires a few more PSI and let some PSI out of the rears. As long as you don't overdo it, you will be minimizing the front tire's slip angle (angle formed by the direction the tires are pointed versus the direction they are actually travelling) and you will increase the slip angle of the rear tires.

And you can drift in a FWD car, you just have to think outside the box in order to do so

What year corolla?

Even with a stiffer rear anti-sway bar, fwd cars till tend to understeer as a result of the stuff being up front. Mine still does. Adding a more stiff bar just helps. Its better on the 98-02 corollas since you guys have independant rear suspension with an adjustable bar through hotchkis. My oh-5 doesnt have that option or "luxury" as I put it.

i gave it a good run today and heres what i determined. at low speeds it always understeers, and at high speeds it oversteers, and if i stab the brakes when going into a corner i can induce it(its kinda scary if you overdo it). so its working quite well. i do have the really apply the wheel cuz my front bar is still stock but it can still manage to get it around the corner without too much trouble. i'm also going to add 1/2 deg of negative camber when i get my azenis on that might help it too cuz right now my front is set to around 0 and the rear is in the negative because the rear is not adjustable and my car is running H&Rs. oh yea mines a 98

If you'll be a regular at AutoX (and if you don't mind a bit more wear on your tires), I would suggest 1.5* neg camber for the front and 1* neg for the rear. I don't know if you meant you were adding 0.5* to whatever you have now, or if ou meant it will be at 0.5*. Do what suits your driving, after all this isn't your track car.

With both in the car is very neutral, only at the very limits does understeer happen and even then its not quite like the stock understeer. Huge improvement. Though others have said they have induced oversteer, I must say that even at very fast entry with late breaking and/or complete lift off the accelerator I haven't had it oversteer (which is good).

Don't install a front sway bar if you are trying to get rid of understeer.. if anything installing a front sway bar would give you more understeer.. its Suspension 101 for FWD cars. I've already discussed how to minimize of understeer on another thread not too long ago so I'm not going to get into it here.
http://TRDforums.com/forum/showpost.php?p=73355&postcount=14

Also you should watch your driving line, DO NOT abruptly brake or accelerate in the middle of a corner or near the apex or you may shift too much weight towards the front inside tire. Its good if you know what you're doing but if not you would definately lose a couple of seconds by introducing snap oversteer... which might send you into a spin.

thats exactly what everyone i talked to said(and by everyone i mean my 2 buddies that do autox). and the same thing goes for a rear strut bar - it would induce more oversteer. any stiffening in the rear causes more oversteer, and stiffening in the front causes understeer.

already tried it on purpose to get the hang of it... it was kinda fun, but scary at the same time. if the ground was dirty or wet i would spin it out every time. in the dry i can somewhat sense the point where the back starts to swing once youre in it you really have to fight it in order to get the back to go straight again.