jewjew bean

lol what does this have to do with steering feel? Are you a car enthusiast or just a SI humper? Try picking up a C&D mag and learn how professional journalist critique cars.....

RICO_

And what the hell does this have to do with the STEERING of the car?

Edit: Woops....jewjew bean already asked the same question.

ajpturbopittsburgh

Well mr. jew jew bean, I actually don't like front wheel drive cars. I'm just making the best of my situation right now. I read mags all the time.

Well it just compliments the cars build quality and it's ability to hide speed.

So since you are so in tune with how the "pros" critique cars, why don't you tell me. I'd love to know.

I actually have an old car and driver or road and track or motortrend, I don't remember which one it was but they were testing the mugen and they said the chasis could handle another 100hp and would benefit from a turbo which wasn't available in the Si obviously.

So I guess I learned well from a car magazine and put a sweet *** turbo on it that I'm sure you would love to drive but can't.....oh well for you....too bad too sad

uh oh somebody got a turbo...

RICO_

You know for someone who brags alot about his turbo setup. One of these days karma is gonna bite you in the ***. And your precious car will be no more than a hollow tube with chunks of piston particles littering the road behind you.

And on that day.....I....RICO.....will look down on you from the heavens above and I will chuckle just a little bit. And then you will know at that very moment.........KARMA IS A BITCH!

ajpturbopittsburgh

Karma Shmarma....nah I'm a good dude. I got nothing to worry about!...That's ok if it does blow that's when it'll be time to build the motor and crank the boost to 20 or so and have 500 or 600whp

RICO_

Why don't you do that BEFORE the motor blows and leave the boost where it's at so you can lessen the chance of that ever actually happening.

TheMuffinMan

iTrader: (1)

So what does this have to do with improving the steering feel again? Every thread you post in turns into a debate about your turbo that you cannot shut up about. It's almost as if you're trying to justify it to yourself in every thread you post in

To the OP, on the cheap side you're not going to have any "quick fixes" to improve the steering feel/feedback in the Civic. From what I noticed it is as you said accurate but not much feedback - one of those drive by wire drawbacks

Stiffer sways front/rear that keep the same ratio will just give you a stiffer chassis feel and keep you flatter but will not help your steering feedback. I am not sure why someone recommended reducing your rear sway for more understeer, the car seems fairly balanced as is.

ludecz

One of the best steering upgrades you can do are stickier tires.

Kidnkorner

Who did that? I reread all of the replies and I didn't see where anyone recommended reducing the rear sway bar. I did recommend he swap out his front sway bar for a smaller LX/EX unit to increase oversteer.

rileyrat

Steering feel is easy.

1. 18" wheels with 35-40 series tires.

2. Upgrade your suspension first. s2 Pro-C or something along those lines will work out great.

3. Upgrade the rear sway bar. Make sure you add the reinforcements to the mounts.

4. More negative camber.

5. Chassis braces.

TheMuffinMan

iTrader: (1)

You sir are correct, I misread your statement. I glanced and saw the "LX/EX" and "stock rear sway"

Kidnkorner

1. Increasing to an 18" wheel will have a negative effect because you are pushing the heaviest part of the wheel tire combo away from the center axis. You can get a lower profile tire without jumping up in wheel size.

2. Where is it written that you have to get coilovers to improve your suspension. The main purpose for coilovers is to adjust corner weights.

3. or reducing the front sway bar which will accomplish the same effect without putting additional stress on the rear unit. A bonus is you might be able to accomplish this for free by trading.

4. more negative camber on the front tires, negative camber in the rear will cause under steer

5. This is a popular myth, the chassis on this vehicle is pretty rigid already. If one did put chassis bracing on this vehicle it would have a minimal effect if any.

rileyrat

Depends on the wheel. Mugen GP 18x7.5 are the same weight as my GL 57M. Both are quality wheels but one is much lighter than the other. You increase the rotational mass by 0% and three is no additional weight set farther out.

Quality coilovers are the easiest way to improve all aspects of your suspension. If they come with separate height and pre load adjustments then there are no adverse points.

While reducing the actual performance of the car in corners, good call there.

Proper negative camber, both front and back, allow the tire to sit flat on the road surface when cornering. This will increase your lateral traction, with minimal effects on the balance of the steering. The key is knowing how much is enough.

Myth, are you kidding me? I guess you know more than every racing team out there. You heard it here guys, HART and CUSCO know nothing, don't bother bracing your car.

The truth is, our front shock towers mount very close to our A-pillar. There is nearly no need for a strut tower brace. As for the other chassis bracing, it's very effective. Simple things like properly tying your front left and right suspension together and to the chassis. Bolstering the lower rear brace, locking down that critical area between your rear seats and trunk and even gusset plates. Lots of flexing happens in these areas, reduce it to improve both feel and actual traction.

Kidnkorner

Perhaps, but you are discounting the tire. Going with a lower profile tire can have diminishing effect, a tire that has little to no sidewall flex can break traction sooner causing a loss of control.

As I have said before, there is absolutely no reason to plus size your wheels except to accommodate a larger brake package or use a tire that isn't available in the size you need. For racing, I'd actually step down to a 16 on this car with the brake upgrades I mentioned.

If you want to get specific on this one you are going to have to show overall ride hide of the wheel tire combo and the weights of the tires.

Coilovers are the easiest way to adjust ride height and corner weighting.

All the coilovers available for the FA/FG have their rebound and compression adjustment in 1 ****, unless the user is swinging and can afford Motons or wants to roll the dice on a set of over priced D2's. I can accomplish everything a coilover user (except corner weighting) can and reduce my costs with good set of dampers and custom springs. Coil overs on the street become nearly useless once the user has decided on a ride height, which why a lot of user buy them for.

Something I'd like to add is a lot of hobbyists who I installed coilovers usually skip the $89.99 recommended alignment untill they come back to me to order a $300 correction kit once they see their tires are gone. On this vehicle the camber goes positive while the rear goes a little more nagative creating a precarious situation

Hardly. It would be pretty stupid to change ONLY the sway bar without changing other components as well. Changing out the front sway bar would actually improve the performance because it would enable the driver to corner with less steering input.

You should have stated this from the begining instead of "more negative camber," and most of the negative camber should be directed to the front wheels.

On a daily driven car, are you kidding me?

Are we talking about all out race cars and trailer queens or are we talking about street cars that race at an occasional event.

Much more effective parts to spend money on than over priced chassis bracing bling-bling. I don't follow million dollar race teams, I follow the guys that drive their cars to the track or tow them with their families mini van.

rileyrat

I do believe I stated a 35-40 series tire, the sidewall on these are plenty to still flex. Your car will break traction long before you reach what a proper tire in those sized fail.



We discussed this before, for those in the know, it's easier to buy quality springs and struts. For a quick answer, coilovers are easy. Unless you are wanting to seriously fine tune your suspension, shared rebound and bump are not that big a deal. You are also jumping to the conclusion that they would be installed improperly.


Problem is, the way a sway bar works. They tie left and right side together, relative to the chassis. They work to resist the weight of the car, now consider the weight of an Si vs. one of the R18 models. Once the multiplier is put into effect, that "paltry" amount becomes considerable. Thinner, weaker sway bars will be unable to resist the body roll and cause you to break traction early. A thicker rear sway bar, bring you to the same feel that a smaller front sway bar will, and actually improve your car's performance, not just the feel of it's performance.

To even try to argue on the grounds of not changing out other hardware is a stretch, you are grasping at straws on that one. Attempting to make my comments look overly complicated when it serves you then overly simple is a sad way to argue a point. You seem a smart guy, don't stoop to that.

Well any properly set car has negative camber front and rear. Your statement showed that I oversimplified, but I think you are going extreme in the other direction discounting the values of proper rear negative camber. When properly set it will almost be unnoticeable, but very much there.



Does it make my statement any less true? What one person finds acceptable in ride comfort another my cry all day about after a 10 minute ride. When you tie the front left and right suspension together and bolster the rear lower brace you create a good amount of rigidity, but nothing that isn't already on cars such as EVO MRs and STIs. A couple more steps and you now have a car that is lighter and as capable in corners as these two famed dirt goers are. The entire set of Cusco braces for our car will run you something like 2,500 bucks. That is the entire line of parts, each part ranges from 150-300ish. this is hardly "baller" money for what it offers. Sometimes, cool parts actually work too.

You really should start following million dollar race teams, it's where all the tech for cars comes from. That guy that pulls his car to the track with the family van, he's using million dollar race team tech, might be older but it originated in the same place. What you should of said was, you like old tech because new ideas scare you. Cutting edge stuff happens in race teams, shortly after that it's made available to the public at a deeply discounted price. They pay millions for research, we pay pennies on the dollar for the exact same thing.

vladd

when i lowered my civic and increased the negative camber in the front i noticed that the steering wheel got heavier but i wouldn't say that it got more responsive; i still have trouble telling when the tires are about to slip. i always listen for the squealing from the tires .

rileyrat

Did you just pick a number for the negative camber or did you really research it? In the end our car will never have the ultra responsive wheel feel you get from some other cars. The absolute best way is to get to know the car, and just as importantly get to know the tires.

Zeusone

this will fix your problem. you will need someone or a shop with a press to help you install them.

vladd

did research, why?

T3KNiQe

I don't mean to thread jack,

but....

I was always under the impression that running larger diameter wheels will actually slow the vehicle? So how can running 19" have any beneficial effects?

Isn't there a correlation between wheel diameter and vehicle speed, positive and negative?

Somebody school me here.

vladd

the only reason people run anything bigger than 17" wheels on the civic is for looks, there's no performance benefit to increasing the wheel size.

6SpeedTA95

But if the wheel is lighter couldn't there be some positive benefits? If you switched from stokc SI wheels to mugen 18" which are 16.x lbs as opposed to the 20lbs the stock wheels weigh (assuming tires don't offset that) you could increase your performance could you not?

vladd

yeah, the 18" mugens are lighter than the stock 17's, but 17" mugens would be even lighter than the 18" . even though the 18's are lighter, the weight is farther from the center of the wheel, and the farther out the weight is the more force it takes to spin it. i don't know which wheel is better for performance between the 17" stock and 18" mugen, but i bet once you take the tire into account the stock 17" is better.

6SpeedTA95

They make the mugen in 17"? If so that could be 100% awesome...

vladd

http://www.inlinefour.com/mugpfowh.html