over steer rant

I changes to stiffer coilovers mainly because the grip on Toyo R1r's would cause wayyyyy to much body roll on stock springs that even with upgraded lowering springs, i'm sure i'd be riding my fender liner through corners. it just wasn't fun driving at 30% of the grip limits to avoid the rub. my ultimate grip may be lower now, but I can at least get to 60-70% comfortably without so much as touching my fender liner 

@refirendum

...and there I go with OEM springs/dampers broadsliding warmed up AD08Rs  enjoying both the grip of sports rubber and the comfort of stock suspension 😎 

Ok, so I did a p.a.s. delete to feel whats´s up but that´s hardly cheating 😋 

Posted by: @refirendum

I changes to stiffer coilovers mainly because the grip on Toyo R1r's would cause wayyyyy to much body roll on stock springs that even with upgraded lowering springs, i'm sure i'd be riding my fender liner through corners. it just wasn't fun driving at 30% of the grip limits to avoid the rub. my ultimate grip may be lower now, but I can at least get to 60-70% comfortably without so much as touching my fender liner 

  I hope you don't mind me critiquing.  Toyo R1rs are notorious for heat cycling out very early and make a terrible street tire value because they lose their grip in a dangerous way as they get older.  Its possible that they make this tire  for competition where rules govern street tires so they pretty much blur the lines with making a race compound and advertise it as a street tire to skirt the rules. 

Regarding stock suspension it depends because we have two different types and that is old struts vs new struts.  The OEM struts are finished at 40k miles. What I mean by finished is they are no good for performance driving and can exhibit body roll.  Ask Notamiata  about his experience.   When you replace the dampers they are much better and it is more true to the way the car came from the factory which suited the performance tires they car came with. Most people don't realize this because the struts are not completely  blown and you can get by with normal driving but it can easily give you the impression that the car is a boat.  

One of the great things about the lowering spring options for this car is that they are made by reputable companies that know how to match the spring to the stock damper.  They mainly do this for looks more than performance and they are soft for a reason because you would end up in a ditch if they were much stiffer.  They do reduce the suspension travel which can be a bad thing but on the whole they work out ok.  Don't expect any kind of performance from these and if you run sticky tires you will still boat around. 

  Next we have the cheap Taiwanese coilover sets.  These will be around the  $1000 range and the most popular is the BC BR.  You will have many others that are relabeled something else. These are horrible. They are only stiff and have damper performance that is not matched to the car.  These sets will have you pulling out your hair but if you don't know you  will think they are great because they are stiff and responsive.   One thing is for sure they will hold you back and are bad for your back. Another problem with the cheap sets is poor quality and they are known to lock up if you leave the car sitting for an extended period of time or if you hit a bad enough bump to damage the body of the damper. 

 There are other options that came later on to address these issues that are notorious of cheap sets  but one in particular is the best and that is the KW V3 .  It will cost double but they do everything right and are built and researched to the standard of the OEM suspension.  They will work well with swaybars for tuning and for being a street coilover they have done well  in competition where they punched way above its class.   

I love the KYB replacements with the S.Drives. I stay on the street (successfully so far, LOL).

I have not tried my very best, but with that combination, I simply cannot get the back out, but I also try to baby my clutch. This failure does not make me sad, I love the grip. The feedback is perfect, the tires seem perfectly matched to the struts and I get a comfy level of roll, and a firm but not tooth-chipping ride. Just a total pleasure to drive on street.

OTOH, now I have Toyo Observe 6 snow/ice, same size as the S.drives. I can break the back loose too easily, IMO. These guys are super-soft, which I am hearing helps with traction. I can almost fold over the treads with my thumb. I do get more sensation of body roll, but it must be from the sidewalls. It is not nearly as bad as the marshmallow all-seasons I had for a while, but I think the old dampers made those tires feel much worse than they may have been. @Dev says they are also sucky tires, inclined to take his word for it, but I approach the black ice season with caution, since these O6s just don't seem very grippy. Rather disappointing, but I have not been on true ice or snow yet. Not very exciting wet grip either.

Now, I did run the S.Drives for a few weeks during cold (sub-40F), rain, and cold+rain. Even though the cold makes them noticably harder, they still outperform far better than the O6 set. Perhaps T-Bone is onto something? But the S.drives' ride really does kinda suck when cold.

Still, without the driving experience, nor having a bunch of sensors, I feel it is unfair to blame the O6 tires with 100% confidence. They might kick ass on softer dampers, I dont know. But The Frog is a slug with softies, so it is moot anyway. It is really very surprising that such a soft tire has such apparently shtty grip. I do have about 600 miles on them now, so we can probably discount mold-release or break-in period.

It may also be useful to put out there that my grip test involves gunning it out of a slow turn, in 2nd, on a curve with outboard bias. I.e. in a spot that makes it easy for this noob to kick the back out just a teeny-tiny bit -- I dont want any undue attention and I want to stay on the street, and that is enough to show me where the limit is anyway. It is not about fun, it is about discovering the limits gradually and reasonably. Because the O6s are not so great there, I have not pushed it in any other scenarios, and I drive like an old lady on these. Would do that with any winter set, but perhaps more than I would really need to with something grippier. I might just expect too much.

The MR Spyder has a, deliberate, rear weight bias. That dictates a softer front in everything stock.
When tuning this remains, include less negative camber up front.
That however says nothing about tuning softer than OEM.

The Spirit videos give rather hárd for all even in Touge trim. That is very specific rácing though. Not neccessarily an example to follow for real world open B-roads.

The most interesting Í found the stock brakes!!!

I thought I would quote Petrus on MR2roc to continue this excellent discussion. You make some very good points regarding keeping the front softer and I think that is true for the spring rates but the Spyder has been shown to be benefited by a large sway bar even for the street.  I have personally found to counteract the understeer of this car on stock size tires is to add negative camber up front as well but only unto a certain point otherwise you will kill your braking performance.  I would say a conservative -1.5--1.8 is just right and I feel its best to get this from camber plates and not camber bolts.  

I met the guy that developed the addco sway bar for the Spyder and had a chat with him and he tried different versions the company sent him and eventually settled on a two position 1" bar.   It's the bar that is currently on my car and works very well but initially I upgraded that bar before the rear and experienced so much understeer it was comical but I was able to control it by mashing the gas pedal around turns and it was actually a lot of fun to have to work for it. Eventually I got the Whiteline rear and was able to dial the car exactly the way I wanted it which is neutral. 

I have mine neutral now and can play with either end on the throttle. Have it at -2.0 up front, 2.2 rear, stock suspension, stock arbs, 195 front with 0.1 bar more, 205 rear, no p.a.s.

Just the initial understeer at low speed and not loading the front remains. Makes you feel a real óaf on a tight roundabout wanting to cut inside the lot 🤪