new stance! waggling the rear

[Lawrence C Leung]

Tess, 

Your car is rotating much faster than you are used to because the lowered
suspension transfers weight more quickly. 

You don't say whether or not the tail comes out on turn entrance or exit.
If it's on entrance, then I'd say the tail is considerably stiffer than
it was before, AND the front end is sticking quite well. If this is the
case, there are several  things you can do.

1) Cheapest - change driving style. Do more of your braking in a straight
line so that you aren't loading up the front as much on turn entrance.
Essentially end your trail braking sooner. BTW, keeping your left foot on
the brake while accelerating is a complete waste, unless you are trying
to spool up a turbo ON TURN ENTRANCE or keep it spooled on exit. In an
aspro, such as your 80, when accelerating, you should be completely off
of the brake. WHY should the engine have to work against the brake, when
you can just press the gas less hard. 

1b) Get a straightforward suspension alignment. Once the springs were
installed, it is possible that they didn't do an alignment. 

2) Of course, the above isn't neccessarily going to produce the fastest
track times. What you need to mechanically, is get the rear end to stick
better (thus making the car faster through the turn overall). IF you
already have a rear sway bar, adjust it to be LESS stiff, or remove it
altogether. This will slow the rear weight transition to the outside
tire, giving it more time to get "accustomed" to the lateral forces it's
being subjected to. Thus, it will give more grip right up until the body
roll makes the tire become less vertical (positive camber) and it loses
grip. In addition, adjust the rear camber to be more negative, I'm
guessing, since I don't know the baseline camber adjustment, to say -1.5
to -2.0 degrees. You may want to increase rear toe - IN slightly, but I'd
stay within maximum factory spec to begin with.

3) If the above doesn't work, then you can add more front roll stiffness
by either increasing it's adjustment (if it has any, the stock one
doesn't) or increasing it's size or effective stiffness. 

Enjoy the car, and keep driving it. Probably the most cost effective safe
way to test the balance of the car would be at local autocrosses, much
cheaper than track time. It really isn't too safe to go 10/10ths on
public roads, as they usually don't have the needed run-off area. Think
about it, if you were testing and the rear suddenly lets go (i.e. snap
spin) where would you likely end up? But as recent posts have noted, if
you can't really recover it (and it's rather hard in a snap spin) hammer
the brakes and clutch and let it spin. Hopefully you'll remain on the
road's surface and away from something hard.

Additional comments below.

Good Luck,

LL - NY

On Thu, 22 Feb 2001 11:32:49 -0800 (PST) Tessie McMillan
<tessmc at drizzle.com> writes:
>
>I've noticed on a particularly tight, uphill curve (onramp to 
>freeway)
>that I can get the rear end out pretty easily. I was thinking this is
>because the weight is falling back over the rear wheels, which are 
>going
>straight,

This would settle the rear in and give it more grip. More downward
loading means more grip. I could give you the friction formula, but the
above statement pretty well says it. 

>
>Should I left foot brake as I'm accelerating to keep the weight 
>balanced
>toward the front wheels?

No, No, NO! This will unload the rear wheels and load the front, possibly
causing a spin or worse yet, snap spin. This is trailing throttle
oversteer, sometimes described as a "loose" set-up. It takes practice to
use this to your advantage, but if your car is acting the way you've
described, just be careful that it doesn't bite you. Once you know what
your doing with it, it can be exceptionally fun!