2G FWD Rear Traction Upgrades

[BLACK'98DSM]

Alright my fellow DSM racers. I'm needing advice from the experienced. I need to find some ways to improve the rear traction of my 2g. I think the main problem I have is lacking any weight in the rear of the vehicle. It is fully stripped. Bare hatch, bare trunk space and Archer Fab spare delete panel. Here's what I've done so far:

- Megan Racing traction bar.
- DC Sports upper strut bar.
- All polyurethane bushings.
- 225/50r16 Kumho Ecsta 730 tires (@30 psi)
- Koni Yellows
- Megan Racing lowering springs (have also tried Ground Control and Ebay brands but these feel the best while cornering)

Even with all this I find myself having to countersteer during high speed cornering because the rear end slides around. What other upgrades should I do? I've looked into fitting wider tires but will need wider rims for anything larger than a 235. I can probably get away with slightly lowering the tire pressure as well. Anything else besides that? Maybe a tubular rear subframe? I've seen photos of autocross DSM's cornering so hard that a rear wheel lifts from the ground. I can never seem to get enough traction to achieve this. Any tips or suggestions are greatly appreciated. I really don't want to add any weight if I can avoid it. I thought about sandbagging it for experimental purposes but the added weight will cause other performance losses.

 

[Mello]

Are you snap spinning (sudden over steer)? What's the spring rate of your front? May want to look into more front spring to push more force to the back.

 

[Canadian_CD9A]

You could very well be leaning the car too much in corners, which will unload the inside tire to the point where a weak rear LSD can't stop that tire from spinning. Upgrading your rear differential and getting stiffer springs are options to improve high-speed stability in corners, maybe you could play with rear camber as well to find something more effective. Taking more weight out of the rear with a tubular subframe will just make it worse, so I'd suggest you don't waste money that way. You see cars lifting a rear wheel because they've got a very stiff rear sway bar that limits travel, which is something you can also look into since the stock sway bars aren't really adequate for high performance setups. Alternatively, you can start looking into a big wing as an aerodynamic solution to this. It may look stupid, but downforce is a blunt force way to plant the rear.

 

[BLACK'98DSM]

Forgot to mention this is a FWD model in question, so rear driveline is out of the equation. Rear wheels are independent.

I've looked into a sway bar upgrade. Options seem limited but I could give one a try. Or both.

 

[Canadian_CD9A]

Ah, that changes things. A suspension should be addressed as a whole with all springs, sway bars, and alignment variables addressed. You're still likely rolling over too much, but you can address this specific problem with better tires, stiffer front springs and likely a better alignment, instead of wholesale spring and sway bar changes. Sticky tires with more contact, and keeping the weight from transferring frontward, will give more grip in the rear.

 

[EC17PSE]

You will be better off getting coilovers vs what you have! Raise the rear rates higher then the front. What are your toe settings and Active toe? Active as in checked your toe upon compression and rebound. You might be causing the rear to lose traction if the toe is being weird on you.

Looking at the megan springs they drop the car 2" thats ALOT and will drop the CofG and this means you have to compensate for the now even softer balance which means making the stiffer spring upgrade and even roll bars to help control the roll. I believe you being too low now your arms are creating most of the problem during its motion. As they go past level they toe out so your might be inducing more toe out under cornering.

Best bet right now and it sounds weird but its correct procedure is to get a bumpsteer test as the car sits right now! This will tell you ALOT about what the toe is doing and you can work with that data to best adjust the chassis and make ride height adjustments to suit if needed

 

[pagosa dsm]

read upon Greg Collier RIP. he races a FWD and was very successful.

 

[BLACK'98DSM]

So I took the car to a close friend who has an alignment rack. The front end was already acceptable but the rear toe was out of wack, especially on the right side. I fought the adjustments back and forth but could not get a consistency in reading as we loaded/unloaded rear suspension. We ended up using the air jack to raise the rear and check for play. Turns out the hub bearing has some slop. No big surprise as it's 26 years old now. I'm hoping a new hub gets this issue sorted out. I also noticed it has 3 degrees negative camber at each rear wheel. It increases to 5 degrees with some load. I currently do not have a way to adjust camber but can certainly install the necessary parts to dial it back in.