I know that THIS probably isn't asked very often...

[teh_mugen18]

but, how do i make my car handle like a BEAST??
Its a DB1 integra...

I know i'll need coilovers of some sort. At the moment, i've got a coilover conversion and stock shocks, but its bouncy like crazy and thats no safe way to handle corners.... ....So, what i was thinking is, what if i just get some KYB shocks or some kind of new shocks to eliminate the bouncing?

Also, what about sway bars and bushings, etc.?? Should i worry about/change my front axles if im gonna try to turn my car into a corner carver?

Can i get some Input from Touge/road race gurus please!!

[Bruce Leroy]

if it was me...

better tires, koni/gc combo, adjustable camber caster, new bushings all around, some planned chassis stiffening, a agressive alignment,



but the biggest handling mod is the driver!!!

[teh_mugen18]

Not sure how to do chassis stifening. I know it requires welding, and i already have a welder, but i need to know where to put what. As in, what bars/braces go where in the car?

And, i thought an alignment was an alignment? There's "aggressive" alignments?

[Homer Simpson]

of course lowering the center of gravity will be the first thing. tires, rims size place a factor. Getting the appropiate sway bar will dramatically increase handing and chassis reinforcements helps out alot!

coilovers
http://www.evasivemotorsports.com/me...tegory_Code=C1

sway bars with reinforcements
http://jhpusa.com/store/pc/viewPrd.a...idproduct=1911

chassis reinforcements
http://www.evasivemotorsports.com/me...tegory_Code=SB

roll cages help alot also. oh, and don"t forget about seats. Yes, non supportive seats will hinder your handling.

[teh_mugen18]

Yes, non supportive seats will hinder your handling.

Cool.... Didnt know that. Can someone explain how it hinders it?

EDIT: i also noticed that with the EMracing c-pillar bar and the rear strut tower bar, that it mostly does more good for the hatchback chassis design, not the sedan chassis.

[Homer Simpson]

oh i see, db1 means four door! lol!

as far as the seats, if you're making a hard corner in your stock seats, chances are, you're gonna squeeze you butt-cheeks together and force yourself to the opppsite side from where you're turning. This cause uneasiness and panic to the driver. Supportive seats helps eliminate this so you're concentrating more on the turn and not pushing your body to the normal upright position. Maybe someone else can explain better.

I just can't have a good handling car without supportive seats...

[Master Shake]

Not sure how to do chassis stifening. I know it requires welding, and i already have a welder, but i need to know where to put what. As in, what bars/braces go where in the car?

And, i thought an alignment was an alignment? There's "aggressive" alignments?

having negative camber will cause your tires to grip a little better. "toe-in" does too. so if you do that, say good-bye to your tires. the road will eat those bad boys up with the quickness.
try getting all sway bars for the front and rear, upper and lower, and roll cage.

and i agree with dteng. get a good seat that will keep you in the seat, cause if you slice through a curve your body leans affecting your abililties which coule cause you to over/under correct you steering. and you might want to get a good safety harness to go with that seat to keep you down too, to reduce the leaning as well.
and IMO, dont' "gut" the car out, having dead weight in the back could hurt you.

[Tech5]

if you want your db1 to handle better...Get a vettZ06 chassis an put your body on it...Vett Z06FTW

[RWD164]

Cool.... Didnt know that. Can someone explain how it hinders it?

EDIT: i also noticed that with the EMracing c-pillar bar and the rear strut tower bar, that it mostly does more good for the hatchback chassis design, not the sedan chassis.

If you have Non supportive seats, when you enter a hard corner, you spend more effort holding your self in the seat w/ the steering wheel than guiding the car through the corner. A supportive seat will hold you in place and let you concentrate on driving.

MA

[teh_mugen18]

and IMO, dont' "gut" the car out, having dead weight in the back could hurt you.

That statement kinda contradicts itself....

gutting the car = less dead weight, correct?

[BB1_Luda]

gutting the car = less dead weight, correct?

Correct. But you still do not want to make the front to rear weight distribution too uneven.

In corners it is more about balance than less weight.

[teh_mugen18]

Correct. But you still do not want to make the front to rear weight distribution too uneven.

In corners it is more about balance than less weight.

Ohhh, i see.. Because, too much weight in the front vs. rear = MAJOR understeer right?

so, how do you "measure" front/rear balance? other than getting the car weighed....

[teh_mugen18]

Basically, i think that i'm just gonna try to follow this example. The guy who made it basically built an Integra Type R, but he built it on the DA9 chassis instead of the DC chassis. He did an amazing job with it too....

http://www.tnd2gen.com/CHASSIS.htm

[4eyedbox]

if you want your db1 to handle better...Get a vettZ06 chassis an put your body on it...Vett Z06FTW

Great advice douche nozzle.


The single most important aspect in making your suspension handle better is the shocks/struts that you go with. I would not recomend KYB, they are of inferrior quality to many other brands on the market (ie Koni, Bilstein, Penske). You would be much better off getting a non-adjustable Koni than the KYB AGX.

I am not sure why people believe that you can not make a car handle without coil-overs, but for some reason they do. You can make your car handle like a dream on a set of high quality springs that are of the correct spring rate. The main advantage of coil-overs is easy corner weighting. Corner weighting can still be acheived with regular springs, but it takes a little more work and knowledge.

Another important aspect in handling is the sway bars. I will not make a recomendation as to what size you should put on the front or rear, because I do not know how you would like the car to respond to steering input nor your driving style. Best advice is to go spend some time on the track and try several different set ups, then decide what you like the best.

And then there is suspension geometry in the form of camber, caster, toe, etc... For these settings you need to decide what the car is designed for: street or track. Or perhaps, what are you willing to sacrafice on your street car for good handling? I highly recomend speaking to individuals and shops that have extensive knowledge and experience with either road racing or solo II to gather the needed info on what you should be dialing in on these settings. One of the biggest mistakes that is made by novices when setting up these parameters, is setting both sides of the vehicle up the same. What do you think happens to the settings once you place a 150 lb driver in the seat on one side of the vehicle? Another mistake comes into play when adjustable camber plates are installed...Just because you can dial for instance -7* doesn't mean that your car handles the best at -7*. Spend some time with different settings and a g-tech to see what kind of lateral g's you hold.

Last, but far from least is tires. You can set up an awesome suspension and then totally destroy its capabilites with a set of chitty tires. When you are sitting off course or in a ditch because your tires got warm and quit gripping, you will quickly realize that they were not such a good deal after all.

Just my

-Chad

[teh_mugen18]

What suspension shop(s) would be good to talk to?

[teh_mugen18]

Hm, since suspension's been covered.....

What about chassis stiffening?

How should the stuff be welded into my car so that i can still make good use of all my seats and carry people in the back, while having a stiffer SEDAN chassis?

[JITB]

i say FIRST, fix whats wrong with it..

THAN:

take it out the track, autocross, and find out how it handles and what you dont like about the stock handling. And you can also see what holds up and make sure nothing else breaks.

THAN AND THAN!!

you start buying stuff to help fix what you dont like..

INSTEAD:
of buying a bunch of parts....and throwing them on the car...and have your super stiff db sliding understeering off the track...

[StraightSix]

My recommendations:

1) Take the suspension back to stock. You're already on stock struts, put the stock springs back on.

2) Take all the money you plan on dropping into aftermarket suspension parts and spend that money on autocrosses or track days. <---- This means work on the driver mod.

3) Once you know how to drive the car with stock suspension and know what the car is/isn't doing on the track/course, then begin making suspension upgrades.

All the parts in the world are useless if the driver isn't aware of how they should be best taken advantage of.

Do NOT cage a street car. Cages are meant for cars that are being driven by a helmeted driver.

[teh_mugen18]

^^^^(JITB) LOL, what can i say...

[ash7]

My recommendations:

1) Take the suspension back to stock. You're already on stock struts, put the stock springs back on.

2) Take all the money you plan on dropping into aftermarket suspension parts and spend that money on autocrosses or track days. <---- This means work on the driver mod.

3) Once you know how to drive the car with stock suspension and know what the car is/isn't doing on the track/course, then begin making suspension upgrades.

All the parts in the world are useless if the driver isn't aware of how they should be best taken advantage of.

Do NOT cage a street car. Cages are meant for cars that are being driven by a helmeted driver.

^Sage advice from one who runs NASA events on a regular basis. And worth repeating twice.

My suspension "checklist" so far includes:
1) Zeal Function coilovers
2) Progress 24mm rear adjustable swaybar
3) GTSPEC trunk cage
4) Nagisa spherical trailing arm bushings
5) Carbing front 4pt bar
6) Nagisa Auto Gacchiri fender braces

*7) do not forget about the most underestimated piece of equipement that makes the biggest difference - a clutch type limited slip differential.

-jonathan

[teh_mugen18]

^Sage advice from one who runs NASA events on a regular basis. And worth repeating twice.

My suspension "checklist" so far includes:
1) Zeal Function coilovers
2) Progress 24mm rear adjustable swaybar
3) GTSPEC trunk cage
4) Nagisa spherical trailing arm bushings
5) Carbing front 4pt bar
6) Nagisa Auto Gacchiri fender braces

*7) do not forget about the most underestimated piece of equipement that makes the biggest difference - a clutch type limited slip differential.

-jonathan

what do fender braces do? I've already tried looking around on google, and it only points me to what a fender brace IS, not what it does.

Also....trunk cage? I posted something up about a trunk brace a couple days ago, and i was told it was prettymuch worthless

[ash7]

what do fender braces do? I've already tried looking around on google, and it only points me to what a fender brace IS, not what it does.

Also....trunk cage? I posted something up about a trunk brace a couple days ago, and i was told it was prettymuch worthless

Any type of chassis reinforcement aids in countering the effects of chassis flex which tends to make the car feel "sloppy." No single piece will "solve" this effect on its own and they're all more or less "worthless" by themselves. However, there are a few points in a FWD chassis that can make more of a difference than others when they're connected or reinforced to one another.

The front chassis supports to the firewall (fender brace) - front lower control arm mounts to the rear subframe (H brace) - C-pillar bar to the rear subframe (trunk brace) - strut towers to the firewall (3pt tower brace).

In my experience and research, I've noticed a trend where these areas of the car have the greatest amount of chassis separation difference while in a corner. A roll cage combats this to the greatest extent, and brings the car together as one solid piece. Bolt in cages do not have this effect though. And are there more or less as a bandaid to pass tech inspections before an event.

-jonathan

[green91]

Its apparent most of these guys in the post have no idea what they are talking about.
Take advice from this forum with a grain of salt

[Humphrizzle]

My recommendations:

1) Take the suspension back to stock. You're already on stock struts, put the stock springs back on.

2) Take all the money you plan on dropping into aftermarket suspension parts and spend that money on autocrosses or track days. <---- This means work on the driver mod.

3) Once you know how to drive the car with stock suspension and know what the car is/isn't doing on the track/course, then begin making suspension upgrades.

All the parts in the world are useless if the driver isn't aware of how they should be best taken advantage of.

Do NOT cage a street car. Cages are meant for cars that are being driven by a helmeted driver.

i agree whole-heartedly

[teh_mugen18]

WOW se7en, thats pretty much all the info i was looking for! How to stiffen the chassis, what bar(s) go where, how to keep my car "passenger ready" since its a 4-doe, and how it works(sortof..lol). Thanks a lot man. Lol, i even did a *right click, save* on that last post

Also, when i get some of this stuff done, ill be making it custom. I'm not gonna buy the name brand bolt-on chassis stiffening kits, im going to go to my welder and have him do all my chassis work.

[teh_mugen18]

Now, if someone could answer me this;

How do you check to see how balanced or un-balanced your car is, as far as front/rear weight distribution??
And what might be the "ideal" distribution for a FWD car to have?

[ash7]

having negative camber will cause your tires to grip a little better. "toe-in" does too.

i just read that and laughed

You should be less concerned with the actual measurement of camber and more concerned with your tire temperature. You add camber to optimize your traction patch. To do this you will measure your tire temperature at 3 points across the tire: inside/middle/outside. You will want the temperature to be hottest on the inside and lose about 10 degrees as you get to the outside. Inside is hotter by more than 10 degrees then you have to much camber. If the outside is hotter than the inside then not enough camber. At least, that's how I've always done it.

-jonathan

[ash7]

Now, if someone could answer me this;

How do you check to see how balanced or un-balanced your car is, as far as front/rear weight distribution??
And what might be the "ideal" distribution for a FWD car to have?

...I'm whoring this thread up... BUT to answer your question, if i remember correctly from when i had a db1 they have a weight distribution of 62f/39r +- a few.


Weight over drive wheels is only good for traction on slippery surfaces like snow/ice and wet to a small extent. Extra weight under most other racing situations hurts performance in every way. Even for drag racing, the small traction benefit in the first 20 feet does not outweigh the disadvantage of having to accelerate the extra mass for another 1300 feet.

It is highly unlikely (not to say impossible) to end up with a 50/50 distribution with a FWD front-engine car. At least just by shedding weight/replacing with lightweight parts. The obvious reason, of course, is that the engine/tranny is hanging above/in front of the front wheels... Whatever weight you can remove ANYWHERE in the car will be an advantage just about from just about any point of view when it comes to performance potential. Dont worry too much about weight distribution - the pieces that you can actually remove - replace - relocate, will not affect it by more than a couple of percentage points, if that.

-jonathan

[StraightSix]

I really can't stress enough what I said in my previous post.

Here's another way to think about the situation. Most driver's will have a certain level of capability, let's use a 1-10 scale and set out theoretical driver at say, 6. So, the driver is above average in driving ability. His car, however, is capable of more, so on the same 1-10 scale, I'll say an 8. Now, the driver wants to make the car handle better, this will raise the car's capability to maybe a 9 or 9.5. The driver doesn't do anything to raise his capability, so the driver stays at 6.

What's the point with that little hypothetical? Well, if the driver doesn't do anything to raise his ability, then he'll be unable to take advantage of what the car can do.

If you do things the other way around, you will be very amazed at what a good driver can get out of even a bone stock suspended car.

I'm to the point that when I go to our, NASA, events, I'm getting as much out of my car as there is. My car is pretty much bone stock with the exception of 15" wheels and some decently sticky street rubber.