We are having a little trouble with our Del Sol. Its a basic road race car, 2409LBS race trim, 96 Type R motor. Running Billstine Sports on the front and HD on the rear.No rear sway-bar. We had a super lose condition, Had 600 front springs and 650 rear. So i swapped them. Now 650 front and 600 rear. Much much more stable. Almost perfect rotation for our track, but now the steering wheel is crazy. Every little bump on the track bounces us around. Its a old track. Atlantic Motorsports park in Nova Scotia, Canada. So I was going to lower the spring rates equally. I was thinking 500 front 450 rear. But was wondering if 525 front and 475 rear would be better. We didn't find the steering to bad when it was 600 front 650 rear. But i think the car would be faster with less then 600 front. Just not sure how big of a swing to take. Plus i need to order by 4:30 Pm today. 2 hours here in Nova Scotia.

Any help would be great.

 

After watching several You tube clips of this track, I personally would run sway bar(s) on this track. I think you are on track with spring rates setting. But, please pay more attention to damping also.

 

Ended up ordering a set of 550 for the front, and 500 for the rear. Definitely will be putting the rear bar back on the car. When it was 650 rear, with a rear bar. We had to toe it in a lot to keep it from rotating to much.

I do believe the shocks just suck. We were told they were great by multiple guys, but none that ran our track. Sine there not adjustable, we can not dial them back any. May look at a set of Koni yellow race shocks this winter. Be $1100 CAN, but I think its well worth the cash.

 

What work for someone else not necessary work for you. Hey, that why we race and learn, right? None adjustable shocks are ok if you will never visit other tracks and that you already sorted them out. Otherwise, spend the extra money on adjustable ones and you will definitely be more happier.

 

Well that didnt work. lol.

Put the 550 on the front and 450 on the rear. 22MM sway-bar back on, and it still wants to oversteer like crazy. Pulled the rear bar back off and it was much better but It had lots of Mid-corner push, and slightly less oversteer on corner entrance. Thankfully another racer that's good with sorting out cars was there. His immediate feeling is we have a lot of rear bump steer and Shocks that don't work very well.

We are running 1/8 toe in per side in the rear and slight toe out in the front.
corner weights are LF-781 RF-718
LR-510 RR-410

We did corner weights for cross weight. Normally did it for equal LF-RF. Old numbers were LF-751 RF-752
LR-534 RR-362
Stock bar still on the front, shocks are Bilstien sport front and HD rear. Skunk 2 upper arms front, SPC upper arms rear. Polly bushing front to back. KIWI helical toe adjusters.
I had a good look at the hoosiers after yesterday, and figured we need a bit more camber up front. Right now we are at -2.8 front and -2.4 rear.

Only thing I don't get is the rear bump steer. I have a 95 hatch thats lower then the Del Sol with softer springs, and its smooth as glass. Suspension are the same outside the stock honda toe adjuster, spring and shock. Unknow rates 300ISH front and back, and skunk2 sport struts with Afco sleeves for the springs.
Ill make sure everything is free in the rear, but is there anything i should look at, that would give us crazy bump steer from the rear?

We have 1 last 3 hour Non-points race this year, and are hoping to get a set of Kini yellow Race shocks on the car for that weekend.

 

I think the best way to put the car is Scary Fast. Not thats its so fast its scary, just when you go fast, its scary. lol

 

"Well that didnt work. lol."

“Put the 550 on the front and 450 on the rear. 22MM sway-bar back on, and it still wants to oversteer like crazy. Pulled the rear bar back off and it was much better but It had lots of Mid-corner push, and slightly less oversteer on corner entrance.”
^^^ I’m a little confuse on this. Pulling rear sway bar off should introduce more over steer, not less.

“Thankfully another racer that's good with sorting out cars was there. His immediate feeling is we have a lot of rear bump steer and Shocks that don't work very well.”
^^^ Rear bump steer is not a "nature by design” in Honda fwd. So, again, I’m confuse why you experiencing this. Bad bushings will definitely cause rear bump steer in a fwd Honda. So, check for that. Bad shocks in the rear will cause the tail end to jump all over the place. Hence, give the driver the feeling of bump steer.

We are running 1/8 toe in per side in the rear and slight toe out in the front.
^^^ I won’t comment on the toe setting as I feel this is marry to the track and you know better than anyone who has not run that track.

I had a good look at the hoosiers after yesterday, and figured we need a bit more camber up front. Right now we are at -2.8 front and -2.4 rear.
^^^ I personally will compensate for driver weight by giving the passenger side a little more neg. camber.

Couple last things to do/check: Before tighten up the suspension, make sure that the springs are pre-loaded. Settle the springs and shocks by jump up and down on top of the car front and back. Sit your *** down in the driver seat and have someone else tighten up all the nuts and bolts to spec.

 

^Agree with the bushings, rear trailing arm bushings came to mind. If those are bad the rear end could be doing all sorts of wacky things. I haven't driven a Del Sol but have driven Integras and Civics with similar spring rates and sway bars to what he's running and they were not at all tail happy IMO.

 

I totally agree. That set up shouldn't introduce too much tail happy like what he's experience.

 

Thanks guys. I gave the car a check over before last race weekend and couldn't find anything outside of the rear uppers had small cracks. But my plan is to pull all the arms off and give them a proper check, cleaning and regrease. Could be binding up. Also have new bushings to put in the spare Skunk2 rear upper arms. Currently have SPC rear camber arms. I really liked them, but to replace it will cost $350 Can. So spending $50 on bushings to try the Skunk2 ones seemed like a good idea. Would like to get Sphical this winter. Same with the trailing arm bushing.

Also the Koni Yellow race shocks are in. The warehouse had them In Stock. Took 3 days to get them from Ontario. Showed up in a weathertech box. lol. I didnt even know what they were. Very nice looking shock and should give extra travel in the front and rear as the body is much shorter then the Bilstien. I would guess we wont need the Ground Control top hats anymore?

 

If this this a road race car, as you say. you need to get this thing to rotate. Your spring rates are way too soft. Get some decent adjustable konis on there. The rear rate should be around 900 front 500. Rear bar should be massive. (I run a 32mm hollow bar) Take the toe out 1/8 in the front 1/16 to 1/8 in the rear. Use the shock adjustments to find grip and control the spring.

 

We could not run this setup at our track. Way to much spring. Any of the guys who run other tracks here, add a lot of spring when they go away. My bosses ITB golfs get a extra 200LBS in spring for VIR, NHMS, and Atlanta. The track is just not smooth like else were.

Now to give my Koni Yellow Race shocks, Review. WOW. We basically replaced every bushing on the car. Some didn't need it, but some others did. And while i like to think i keep the car in A1 shape. I missed a few things. first, i have checked bushing with everything together. Once we pulled a few arms of the rear we realized how bad the rear trailing arm bushing was. lol. Polly ones on the car had a bunch of twist.

Anyway, We went to practice with 550 springs on the rear and 600 springs on the front. 19 MM rear bar back on. Shocks on full soft. It was amazing. You could trust the car again. Enter the corners were we wanted, instead of were the car was not off the ground. Old setup would net us about 3 inchs of air entering T1. New setup eats the bumps up. since it isn't jumping off every bump now, i have to remind myself to relax my hands more often. We did turn the shocks up 1/2 turn in the front and a 1/4 turn in the rear. Will be putting 650 on the front and 600 on the rear for next season. You can still feel to much front roll entering the corner. Best part was, we took a swing with the alignment, new rates, new shocks, and first time using the toyo RR tire (on the racecar, only autocrossed before) and tire wear was great between the RR and the old R6s i finished on. The RRs did 2 hours and we figured the R6s would be fast for the end but the track fell off to much. I did a 1:15.7 on the RRs. Previous best was a 1:15.0 on a set of R7. So next year we are hoping for a mid to low 1:14 on good R7s. My boss just took my FWD track record, from the 1:15.0 to a 1:14.5 with his 07 GTI golf. So, game on.

Anyone thinking about buying Koni's or bilstiens Sport/HD, I suggest the Koni's. They seem to be the shock of choice in HC, and Work best with us. Now we didnt go and get the bilstiens revalved or anything. I was told we could have done them ourself, but would lose the lifetime warrenty and buy the time we sent them to Bilstien to revalve them, From canada with our crappy dollor and crappy boarder taxes, and crappy shipping. The koni yellow races were not much more money, and we have a shock we can adjust when needed.

I also need to say, how lucky you guys are state side. Man i look at prices on some stuff and get sick when i price it here. Its like they price the product for canada to cover the money the lose selling it in the states. My father-in-law has a 69 & 71 BB roadrunners and looking on summit all i can think of is how much better they both could be if we were down there. lol. God, why not put a blower on both. 2 for that matter. Anyway, we just had a election so, maybe the new guy will help us out there a bit.

 

I couldn't be happier to hear this. You finally sorted it out. Just like what we were discussing about, the problem mainly came down to bad rear bushings and lousy shocks

 

Great news! Bushings are way too often overlooked unfortunately, but as you can see they are very important. With these older cars bushings would be pretty much the #1 suspension item I'd plan on replacing.

 

We definitely learned how long the poly bushings last. Or atleast how long to long is. They were used for 4 1/2 seasons. Most looked great and felt fine. But once they were tested alone or removed, we found they were split inside the arms itself. Some were energy, some were prothain. I would like to convert to spherical but its a lot of $$$ to convert the hole car. So might have to do some this winter then finish next winter. Right now only the Toe adjusters are spherical. Ill try and get some of the video up tomorrow. Atleast the high lights.

 

Still waiting for the vids

 

Tring to find some free editing softwear. Any good ones to try? Just downloaded race render but cant seem to sort out how to cut out sections in the middle. Only start and finish. Also going to try my PS3 this weekend. Shouldnt be this hard to removing the boring bits.