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hi guys,

i have a dumb question.

my last car was a 1993 ford tempo sedan (i know, crappy car... my parents gave it to me so never complained).

anyway, i am quite happy with my 2001 ex coupe as it is a better car in all respects compared with my tempo. however, one thing that i have noticed is that when i go around a tight corner in my civic, if there are any bumps in the road, my car tends to slide around, almost as if i was losing control. the reason i bring it up is because i recall taking those same tight corners in my piece-of-crap tempo in the past, at the same speed, without having my car slide around.

so, i was wondering, what is it about the car/tires/suspension/..... that keeps a car from sliding around when it hits bumps on a tight corner?

any help here would be much appreciated.


gasboy [IMG]i/expressions/face-icon-small-frown.gif[/IMG]

 
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happens to me too.
kinda scary. feels like i slide a few inches everytime and probably a foot by the end of the turn

 
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I'm with you buddy... when i got the money i'mm lower it to lower the centre of gravity and wider rims and sticky rubber also better shocks and struts....that the problem with the stock set up too much body roll and bouncy
Also i tend to jerk the car into the oppostire direction and back so I enter from outside and gas it and aim for inside of the turn nowadays...
I'm used to the car sliding around on ice...it was fun now i slide on the gravel and sand that's left over from winter

 
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You drive like a freakin madman! [IMG]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/IMG]


Suspension is the likely factor. I recently got Kumho 712, and slide too. After I got my Eibach springs installed I don't slide/squeal anymore.

 
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wow... 3 replies in 12 minutes... incredible response times, guys!

i'm glad i'm not the only one who has noticed this. a couple of times, i've almost drifted into the next lane (full of traffic, of course) which is when i decided i'd better start driving more carefully.

guess i'd better start saving up so i can make my car more "sticky"....


gasboy

 
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I think the biggest factor is the stiffness of the rear struts. Change those out to adjustable ones and set them to a softer setting and you should see an improvement. After that I think upgrading to a thicker rear sway bar will help out a little more. After that a rear strut bar. After that a rear tie bar. That should take care of the rear. You can also lower the car and then get a camber kit with polyurethane bushings. That will help out as well. That and replacing the sway bar bushings with polyurethane ones will help out a little bit too. Maybe even more than the strut bars and tie bars. There's a couple of other bushings that could be swapped out, but I don't think anyone will actually make replacement parts foe these. It would have to be a custom job.

 
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my mom says that about here 2001 sedan but i drive like a$$ more than she does i and hit turns at wicked angles and never noticed anything but then again im really paying attention to the turn and everything so i couldnt honestly say if ive noticed or not

PeArLhOnDa

 
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You guys are seeking something which is impossible to achieve, both sports-car like smooth road driving as well as rally-car like adhesion on bad surfaces. The suspension mechanics that favor one of the above situations hurt the other.

Lets look at both cases...

I think we'd agree that a Viper ACR is a sweet handling machine on the track, where the surface is prepped and there's little unevenness to settle the car. The car will only see a limited range of suspension compression, so the shocks and springs are set far stiffer to prevent the suspension from exceeding that range. The car is low to the ground, to lower center of gravity. Swaybars prevent excessive suspension travel on only one side of the car.

Now, the other case: Subaru Impreza WRX Group N Rally car - it'll take any road unevenness you throw at it and just soak it up. Look at the film footage and it seems like a sponge, harsh road features get blended into the car's gentle motions - the shocks are specially designed for very long travel with widely adjustable settings, the springs are often twin or even triple coil, to get a progressive compression ratio, letting the wheel soak up even large bumps and keep the tire on the ground. The shock rebound is set higher than street or road course settings - there's lots more suspension travel to use, and the rebound can force the wheel down into the road after it's deflected upward by a bump. On a road race setup this would let the suspension top out, making it useless at that moment.

The "loose" suspension setup lets the suspension move far faster in tracking the road, at the cost of being worse when faced with only one condition, like the Viper - the Viper excels on the track where it belongs, but the WRX can handle any conditions reasonably well. By modifying your suspensions with the traditional mods, you're making them closer to the Viper side of things than the WRX side of things. A Viper feels awesome on most streets. A Group N WRX feels like mush on city streets. In the majority of cases, your mods improve performance for your street application. If you want performance over bumpy terrain, you need to go towards the WRX side of things - ADD suspension travel, SOFTEN that rebound damping, SOFTEN those springs.

Now, that's the last thing you guys want to do for your street car - your car is driven on good roads the vast majority of the time, and the Viper's handling is more "cool" in today's import scene. Your best bet then? Know that unless you're willing to change your car's handling in a way that goes against the current trend, your suspension cannot properly handle bumpy roads - slow down for them!!

Sam

 
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There are really three key components to making a car handle well:
1) use the right components
2) tune these components to achieve maximum potential
3) learn how to drive your car safely at the limits of control

One of the most important factors in improving the handling of your car is the tires, for the tires are the only portion of the car that actually contact the road. Switching to a higher performance tire and possibly increasing the width of the tire are both good ideas. Lowering your center of gravity will improve the handling of the car, but only if it is done correctly. Simply slamming the car will not result in an improvement. All this means in that the higher the center of gravity, the more weight transfer that will occur. Excessive weight transfer will detract from the traction of your car, but there is a limit to the effectiveness of lowering your car. The ideal ride height can only really be found by corner-weighting the car. The whole purpose of the suspension of a car is to keep the tires on the ground--this means that in order to achieve the most improvement, an adjustable suspension is required. The suspension linkages must control the vertical movement of the wheels, which in turn controls how the tire contact patch rests on the road surface. You are going to want shocks that allow you to independently adjust both bump (dampening) as well as rebound. These shocks are key in determining how your car absorbs and reacts to bumps--the shock should not allow the spring to bounce more than one full cycle. You are also going to want adjustable camber, caster, and toe. Sway bars also do a great deal in improving the handling of a car by resisting body role.
For street driving, the ideal suspension setup would involve high performance tires mounted on lightweight rims no bigger than 16 inches, a slightly lowered ride height, bigger (stiffer) swaybars, a good set of adjustable shocks, a camber correction kit, a polyurethane bushing kit, and various chassis-stiffening components.

--tony

 
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Tony is right most important are the rebound rates and bump dampning and the hight of your car.

 
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The stock tires stink. Replace the wheels and get a wider tire w/ a smaller sidewall and you will see a dramatic differnce. The tire/wheel combo will make the most significant difference in handling. The suspension fine tunes it, not the other way around. I look at it this way, the stock tires keep me from going off the road into a tree. I don't drive as fast, I go around turns slower. I learned my lesson in my teens recking several cars going to fast around turns.

 
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My two cents: Slow down a little. The civics are very light and stock they bounce around a lot. If you're gonna race around, mod your car so you have what you need. Funny sometimes those old pieces of crapo work pretty good. At Sunday's Solo II Autocross, some guy in a beater Saturn (of all cars) was whoopin butt. Go figure.

My Car and my website.

 
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After installing eibach springs and kumho tires my car feels like its glued to the road.

 
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the stock tires are horrible!!! replace them with something better and youll probably notice a big difference

 
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I think Honda really messed up the rear suspension of our cars in their attempt to make it a more comfortable ride. For people who don't mod, the stock setup is way too bouncy, and contributes to the problem of our cars not "sticking" to the road. A better set of shocks should correct the bounciness though, even if you don't get better tires.

 
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i dont know about yall cars but i think my ride is good and when i make corners in my car it sticks and my car is stock

do all the civics some with the FRONT and REAR sway bars? because i think the factory ones i got are nice and there
is no roll at all when i make those turns with the FIRESTONES.

 
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It's those damn crappy *** Firestone tires is what it is I tell you what.