I measured the ride height from the leading edge of the front jack points and the rear most edge of the rear jack points. It turns out the rear is about 1 inch higher than the front. Ignoring all the other variables, does this seem excessive? I'm going to be even-ing out the ride heights and re-aligning the car anyway. Should I dial out all the rake? Is it even from the factory? I'm not going to be campaigning this car in sanctioned races but I do have fun with my cars in empty parking lots. Nothing serious and nothing that endangers myself or the general public. As a general idea, how much rake would you recommend?

It's a 93 Civic hatch, lots of decent off the shelf bolt on suspension, lowered but not slammed, decent summer tires..

 

it would be a good idea to get it corner weighed/balanced

 

It would be a better Idea to not be an asshat in empty parking lots.

They are not controlled like a race facility or auto-x is

 

oo man i didnt even read that part

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by vietnameeh &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">it would be a good idea to get it corner weighed/balanced</TD></TR></TABLE>

That's pretty darn silly if all he's doing is driving in a parking lot.

To the OP, I don't see how it would possibly matter if you change it or not.

 

From a little experimentation on my Integra, more rake gave me better rotation for auto-x use, though I'm currently at about a 1.25" rake measured from the side jack points, with the front side points at 6" from the pavement.

My best guess, is that since you raise the rear roll center as you raise the back, you decrease the body's tendency to roll in the back, which creates more of a rear suspension bias. Or, it could very well be the increased rear CG. Or a bunch of other things that I barely have an understanding of.

Rake is also good for improving aero at speed. How much rake is needed and at what speed it becomes effective, that I can't say.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Crazydave &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">It would be a better Idea to not be an asshat in empty parking lots.

They are not controlled like a race facility or auto-x is

</TD></TR></TABLE>

I agree with that statement though. Please, parking lots are public, and stuff can happen. Even at a sactioned event, stuff happens, but there are people there ready to take care of it when it does.

 

I don't think you guys understand what I meant by "parking lots". I'm not talking about the empty mall parking lot like some hot shot. I'm going on 30 here pretty soon. And I'm not taking the car up to it's cornering limits putting my health in danger or anything as I said. My friend has to shake the cars down after tuning them, and we also play around with our own cars on the little "course" we have set up. You can't say anything over the internet without someone taking it wrong. Anyway...

I had Progress set up one of my cars before, but that isn't justified for this car at this point in time. I just want to know, is 1 inch excessive... in general? Should I level it? Make it .5 inch rake? What's stock? Anyone suggest an actual measurement?

I am aware of the effect of rake on a car and I'm not a stranger to trial and error suspension tuning at sanctioned events. But currently this car is a daily driver and I just want to get it evened out and aligned.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by TunerN00b &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">From a little experimentation on my Integra, more rake gave me better rotation for auto-x use, though I'm currently at about a 1.25" rake measured from the side jack points, with the front side points at 6" from the pavement.

My best guess, is that since you raise the rear roll center as you raise the back, you decrease the body's tendency to roll in the back, which creates more of a rear suspension bias. Or, it could very well be the increased rear CG. Or a bunch of other things that I barely have an understanding of.

Rake is also good for improving aero at speed. How much rake is needed and at what speed it becomes effective, that I can't say.

I agree with that statement though. Please, parking lots are public, and stuff can happen. Even at a sactioned event, stuff happens, but there are people there ready to take care of it when it does.</TD></TR></TABLE>

if you raise the rear of a car, it also raises the rear corner weights.

op - i wouldnt stress. . .

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by TunerN00b &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">From a little experimentation on my Integra, more rake gave me better rotation for auto-x use, though I'm currently at about a 1.25" rake measured from the side jack points, with the front side points at 6" from the pavement.

My best guess, is that since you raise the rear roll center as you raise the back, you decrease the body's tendency to roll in the back, which creates more of a rear suspension bias. Or, it could very well be the increased rear CG. Or a bunch of other things that I barely have an understanding of.</TD></TR></TABLE>

That's not entirely correct AFAIK.
The rear roll center and rear ride height raise (or lower) at approximately the same rate for the EG chassis. So raising the height would not increase body roll. However, it does change the relative CG and affect weight trasnfer (hence affect grip).

 

I've read about rake quite a bit and experimented with it in the past. I have a good understanding of it's effects. But that's not the topic here. I'm just looking for a guideline so I can decide what to do with the ride height of this car. Can anyone tell me, "yeah, I ran my Integra last season with 1 inch of rake and it worked out pretty well", or "you shouldn't have more than 15mm of rake on a Civic or it just causes drag without any benefit."

After I swap the rack, I'm going to even the ride heights. It takes some work because you can't just adjust one corner w/out affecting the other corners. These are the ride heights as set by the previous owner measured from the ground to the jack points:

RF 5"
LF 5.5"
RR 6"
LF 6"

So... raise the RF or lower the LF?

 

I think most of the race/track guys don't pay much attention to rake (at least, none that I've ever talked to do), so we may not be much help.

 

the "rake" of the car will change the aerodynamics of it. You want a little to create downforce.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by suspendedHatch &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I've read about rake quite a bit and experimented with it in the past. I have a good understanding of it's effects. But that's not the topic here. I'm just looking for a guideline so I can decide what to do with the ride height of this car. Can anyone tell me, "yeah, I ran my Integra last season with 1 inch of rake and it worked out pretty well", or "you shouldn't have more than 15mm of rake on a Civic or it just causes drag without any benefit."

After I swap the rack, I'm going to even the ride heights. It takes some work because you can't just adjust one corner w/out affecting the other corners. These are the ride heights as set by the previous owner measured from the ground to the jack points:

RF 5"
LF 5.5"
RR 6"
LF 6"

So... raise the RF or lower the LF?</TD></TR></TABLE>

Neither. You want to set the left and right spring at the same perch height (measure, count threads, close is probably good enough), and let the car lean slightly. Our FWD cars aren't 50/50 weight distributed left/right, and won't sit even. They weren't level stock, actually.

Lets say you want to try and level out the car, and the spring perches are currently set level left to right. The heavier side of the car is lower. To raise that side, we need that spring to lift the car more, so we raise the perch. Now, the heavier side is forced to carry even more weight on that tire, since that spring pushes up on the chassis and down on the suspension equally. This will unbalance the handling even further than stock. Cosmetics are important to some people, but its not like people will be looking at both sides of the car at the same time.

And, to answer your "in general qeustion" a slight amount of rake isn't going to have much, if any, effect on a daily driver under normal conditions. If you can tell, you're either imagining it, or pushing the car well beyond what is acceptable public road behavior. Most aftermarket lowering springs add some rake, because the rear wheel arches are smaller than the front, and an even drop doesn't look even, it looks lowered more in the rear.

*edited out some typos, probably still missed a few.

 

I'm not entirely versed in FF cars just yet. I'm coming from an S2000 that I auto-xed for 3 years. Anyway, on my STS2 CRX, I'm planning on running a little negative rake and then I'm going to make the rear of the car skip around versus get all carried away with weight transfer. I've found that rake bias on the S2000 has a profound effect on handling. The lower the end of the car it seems it's more stable in proportion to the higher end. In our FF cars I think it may be beneficial to stablize the rear but then to counter that with swaybars and camber until you get the rotation you want. I think the stability of the low end will allow you to catch your slides better than if that slide has all this weight transfer energy built into it.

Just my current state of understanding.

 

From what I've heard "rake" will effect the roll center of the car, by moving the CG