This was my second event with my bigger front bar, and I did find that I got a fair amount of push depending on my settings. I have KYB AGXs with four stiffness settings. I started with 3 on front (4 is stiffest), 3 on the back and very high tire pressures. After my first run -- where I could barely keep the car under me due to ice cold, rock hard tires -- I let out a fair amount of tire pressure. Got them down to 39 front (warm) and 38 back (warm). I also took my front shocks down to 2.Originally Posted by joe.MIATA
My second and third runs -- on warmer (but not hot) tires were exercises in oversteer. I had dialed out the push alright! For my fourth, I took the back shocks down to 2. The car seemed to set OK (I still couldn't get much grip), but I overcooked the top and got all sideways. The rest of the day, I ran with that set-up: 2 on the shocks both front and back, and 39psi front, 38psi back. I never felt like the car was planted, but it didn't feel terrible either.
Where I experienced the most understeer problems was that first left hand sweeper leading into the right hand transition and sweeper... lots of push, particularly right after the transition from left to right. I also could barely turn the beast on the tight left-hander right after the slalom. But I liked the way the bar kept the car flat during turns, and while the slalom was not a very good test (way to short and too much offset), I think the car behaved pretty well through there. And the car was amazing through that section from the slalom to the sweeping lefthander towards the end. It just flew through those offset gates...
I think for me, there were a lot of things at play. Poor tires. Driver fiddling with too many settings. Driver not a smooth as he'd like to be. But I never could really figure things out. Particularly during the afternoon runs, I was really trying to concentrate and notice where I was loosing time -- and I really couldn't pinpoint anything particular. I felt like I was pushing the car as hard as I could, and didn't see where I was missing opportunities to be faster. Judging by my results, something was seriously out of whack with the driver.