Xian

The rear motion ratio is pretty shitty... the actual wheel rate is quite a bit lower than the spring rate.

JW racing

They are not that bad if you spend time to set them up properly. I will be driving a DC5 in Super Lap Battle the end of this year and look forward to it.

No it does not need 4000 lb spring in the rear to work either.

Mr. Spade

Thanks. Now I hope my mechanic friend won't mind doing it.

Thing is, will -2.5 to -3 mean my steering rods are going to run out of travel?

(all stock albeit Aspec suspension)

VTECIntegra9

Also look into roll center adjusters (the lower balljoints). Good friend had a lot of luck after changing these up front. Unfortunately I didn't have a before/after drive to compare.

Todd00

Yes they are that bad. They are horrible, actually.

And unless you've discovered something new, every other race team who has ran the car always end up going with 3000lb+ rear springs.

When the rear suspension moves, it binds. Especially if lowered past OEM height. It's like Honda tried to make a car that had suspension problems. I just don't know what they were thinking.

Mr. Spade

What do you mean by "it binds"?

TBH I haven't heard a whole lot of complaints about the rear suspension. Mainly just the front's lack of caster, poor camber curve and tendency to toe in.

VinnyV81

Not to bring up an old thread, but I have built a RSX into a NASA HC1 car and am running into some of the same issues discussed in this thread. I'm curious if there is any new information out there when it comes to the suspension of the RSX. My current setup:

Fortune Auto 510 Gen 6's with their latest valving
16k/28k
HardRace RCA's
Progress Rear Sway with custom adjustable end links

I'm running on 235/40/17 tires on all four corners (Toyo RR's per specs). The understeer is pretty bad currently, but after reading this thread there are a few things I'm going to try.

Going to run -3.5 degrees of camber in the front and -0.5 in the rear. Previously, I was running -3 front, -2 rear.

Going to try and swap caster/camber plates on the front to see if I can get more caster. Right now I'm at 1.6 degrees, which isn't nearly enough, IMO.

I'm also going to try and raise the ride height up some. It's not overly low right now, but I'm going to try and get some angle back in the rear LCA's to see if that might liven the rear up some.

Car has PCI rear wing and custom front splitter with 5" air damn in the front, built to within the rules.

If anybody is still around, any advice I can get would be very much appreciated.

Thanks,

Vincent

chargeR

It's been some years since I have run my DC5 at the track, and I've never won anything very much, so take the following with a grain of salt:

- I think adding more static front camber is a good idea, I ended up around -4 to -5 on my car with -1 to -1.5 at the rear (which is less than ideal for the tyre, so I was throwing away grip at the rear to get it to turn). Do you have any pyrometer data? My tyres had good temperatures across the tread and good wear with about -4.5 (Hoosier R6)

- With the front RCAs you've raised your front roll centre but the rear is still quite low, so you're roll axis is inclined upward toward the front, which is the opposite of what commonly accepted wisdom says (front roll centre level or slightly lower than rear). So the higher front roll centre probably makes the steering feel more direct, but it's hurting you as load transfers as there will be more near-rigid load transfer through the suspension links at the front, which means faster load transfer at the front, which means understeer under transients (early turn in).

Raise the rear ride height to get the rear roll centre higher, which has the added benefit if getting the car into a range where there's probably less binding and also less steep camber curve.

My setup as a guideline:

01 DC5R (about 1160kg without fuel or driver)
Mugen N1 shocks with 14kg/mm front, 28kg/mm rear
JDM 22mm rear sway bar
-4.5° camber at the front, about -1° to -1.5° at the rear
+7° caster
Ride heights about 320mm F 330mm rear, measured from guard/fender vertically to hub centre
245/40R17 on 17x9.5 Front, 225/45R17 on 17x8.5 Rear - Hoosier R6
No aero

I found that setup to be quite balanced, with some understeer in lower speed stuff, but it could be trail braked to aid rotation without it being excessively loose. Note that typically Australian circuits seem to be slower than North American ones, for example my local track is a 3km circuit and I was doing 1:38s there , so an average speed of about 110km/h.

VinnyV81

Thanks for taking the time to reply! I will try some of this advice and let you know how it works whenever I get my car put back together.