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so i will answer the fishtailing question, considering no one payed any attention to it! fish tailing is when the back of your car slides around (left and right) as you drive. much like a fish propells itself through water with its tail.

btw- 60mph rr crossing is no way to measure a cars performance, unless you drive a truck of some sort (i guess).

 
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Bump Steer??? how low do you have the car? Because I've been autocrossing with mine for 2 years now, and I havent had one experiance were I could blame it on Bumpsteer.

 
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Honda civics with even the firestone tires will out handle a mazda 6 easily. The cars nervousness isn't a bad thing. Its sporty I like the feel. The mazda 6 will understeer, understeer and understeer some more............. I know mazda 3 even with the stock toyo proxes don't handle as well as our vics darn gives so easily. Maybe your bro thinks it the 6 feels more secure. Its like how the VW golfs feel. Secure but no handling.

 
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Lol.....nice to see new comments on such old thread, guys =) thanx!

my idea is probably the same with one of the comment here.....not the chassis, but the suspension...........

 
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Ibtl!!!!

 
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Hey 409. I don't think you would experience much bump steer in an Auto-X setting. These cars tend to do it on the highway, in a turn, and the front wheels hit ANY kind of bump. The front setup is so poorly braced that the car will actually jump/shift tangentially to the turn/radius. It REALLY sux on a stock suspension. My mom has an '02 EX and even she noticed it was pretty bad. She stopped driving it on the highway after a while.

I only dropped the car about and inch and a half. That helped some but added stability came from the front strut tower brace and rear lower tie bar. The car handles pretty sick now. I still want to do front and rear sway bars and an RSX rear strut tower brace.

 
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Sounds like Tracking rather then bump steer. when you hit these bumps and the car pulls, does the steering wheel turn too?

Tracking has more to do with alignment and tires then it does with suspension design/geomitry.

 
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Think again.

http://www.modernracer.com/hondacivicsi2002.html
http://www.modernracer.com/history/mazda3shistory.html

The Mazda 3 pulled a .86g on the skidpad, and the civic only pulled a .82.

 
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I hate it when the car tracks. How to fix, mr. auto-x junky, sir? lol.

 
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JUST LOOKED THIS UP:

Bump steer is the tendency for the tire hitting a bump to momentarily change its toe-in setting, which causes the car to feel like someone turned the steering wheel a bit. This happens due to the tires’ suspension going up and down over the bump. The steering arm is attached to the body of the car at one end, and the suspension at the other end. So it travels in an arc. When a rod with one anchored end travels in an arc, the effective length of the rod changes. This is what pulls on the wheel and makes it feel as though someone besides the driver is steering the thing.

The reason our cars have bump steer is because the tie rods are bolted DIRECTLY to the struts. Not exactly great engineering in my opinion. Look at it closely: when you hit a bump, the wheel rebounds and esentially bounces up. Seeing as your wheel and suspension are linked to the tie rod which is linked to the steering.......BAM!! You have bump steer. LIke I said, poor geometry. You can limit this by decreasing the amount that the suspension travels......lowering & stiffinening springs. If you make the entire assembly stiffer, you limit the amount of slop. I'm even more curious about doing the sway bars now.

 
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The thing is, when our suspension compresses, we get toe in. and this causes the car to want to go in more of a straight line (which is precicly why Honda mounted the steering rack High). If you are hitting bums and the car is pulling in to those bumps then you are experianceing tracking.

 
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I'm not too sure that the definitions of bump steer and tracking are too far off then. Either way, the 7th Gen suffers from it. My Integra has a sweet setup. That car is rock solid in turns. I can't wait to try out the new and improved suspension.

 
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According to this article our skidpad sucks.

http://motortrend.com/roadtests/coup...evy/index.html

Its .78 but it takes the turns in the test 2 mph faster

What's going on? Does our car have any advantages over the competition?(plaese don't say reliability cause I'm gonna have a break down)

I'm pushing the car on turns like its a Ferrari I should be careful.

 
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That's a damn good question.

 
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Guys check out this article on skidpad test.

Thys a skidpad test the grip of the car to the road not the handling.

Even though the dodge viper has a skidpad rating of 1.02 where the porsche has only .96. The porsche is still better balanced. The viper handling is impraed by its heavy body roll


http://www.kent.k12.wa.us/staff/TomR...g/skidpad.html

(Geese I have no rep and I've been here for a while)

 
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You're a f.ucking idiot Man, some people shouldn't be allowed to drive

 
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bump

 
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THe biggest difference between the two is weather or not the steering wheel turns when it happens.

If the steering wheel doesnt turn then its bump steer, if it does its tracking.


if it is tracking, thats an Issue with Tire selection (and Tire preasure) as well as Alignment (Do you remember the last time you had the car aligned? what were the specs?)

If it is Bump steer, then its an issue with the angle that the steering rack and the tierod mount (on the strut) and it may be in your best intrest to raise the car up (as I said before, Honda mounted the steering rack high so that any compression in the suspension would cause the car to want to go in a straight line)

 
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Dont look too much in to Skidpad Gs or slalom speeds on 100% stock cars (including tires) as these test are more a matter of what tire the car comes with stock then how the car is setup/built. And Honda is notorious for under-tireing their cars...

 
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It's not an issue with what I've done, it's an issue with what Honda has done. The car did it stock and I improved it. Like I said, my mom's '02 EX Coupe was just as bad. I find it hard to believe that I have two cars with the identical problem and no one else is experiencing it......or are people just not aware of it...? This is what happens....in a turn (higher speed), on the highway, during a turn you hit a bump/pothole/etc, the car seems to lose traction as if it hits ice and it skips across the lane. I'm not talking about FLYING across the lane, but enough to feel it. And yeah, you can feel it in the wheel somewhat. Does it PULL the wheel, I'm not sure I'd go that far. It's definitely not as stable as my Integra.

 
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That actually sounds like a shock issue...... where the OEM dampers arnt up to controling the stock springs (Very common on stock cars actually) a Set of Tokico Hp's may fix your problem....

 
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Jeeeezzz. I actually didn't even think about that damnit!! (not being sarcastic). That would make sense seeing as the shocks take the brunt of a hit, next in line to the wheels. I have Eibach springs, which helped some, but I didn't change the shocks due to money issues. I think I may give that a shot when I do more work on the car. Thanks......I've rather enjoyed the debate.....

 
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Honda did have problems with the OEM shocks early on (01-parts of 02) so it may be the same problem with your moms car.

 
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If I ever get my Integra out of the garage I'll probably spend a little money and get those new shocks.