hey guys, i know this might sound like a silly question but heres the deal.

This summer i put on my koni's and gc's i have 400f/350r rates. I loved them so much because my car handled so much better, it amazed me actually.

So during the summer i pushed my car to its limits, i used to cruise on country roads at high speeds having full confidence in my suspension set up. But one day i put on a rear strut bar, and i was driving along this one road that had turns a little bit tighter than turns on the highway, and i was going about 80, soon enough i came up to one sharp downhill turn and suddenly turned my wheel to compensate. next thing i knew i was spinning out of control for about 350 ft. luckily nothing happend, but i got scared after that and immediately took off my rear strut bar.

I don't know if the strut bar had anything to do with the oversteer, yes oversteer (the *** end of my car slid out first), but ever since then i've always been sort of nervous going around turns at sort of a high speed, i'm talking about highway turns now. I can go around turns at 80mph on the highway and i get scared that maybe the *** end will slip out again, or maybe i'll hit a little bump and it will happen. So i wanted to ask you guys for your advice and see what you thought about the situation.

and guys i'm not a street racer or anything like that, 80mph is sort of an avg speed on highways today, but i just really hate having that in the back of my head everytime i'm driving on the highway. So any input you guys have would help.

 

Were you braking coming into that turn?

 

actually, i most likely was, i think that woulda beeen my first reaction seeing the turn and realizing i needed to slow down

 

My best guess is that you got on the brakes to hard and started turning under heavy breaking making the *** of the car come out. Strut bar shouldnt make you spin. And please be safe out there...take it to the track so nobody gets hurt.

 

alrite, so i shouldn't really worry much about goin around a highway turn at 80 then right?

i keep thinking to myself that since my spring rates are hard, i always think that my car is going to want to lean but my spring rates won't let it so then i'd end up spinning out.

am i wrong in thinking that way? should i have nothing to worry about really?

 

Well the strut bar could have added a small amount to the understeer, but please keep in mind that even stock DXs ( understear FTW ) can slip their tail in a situation like this.
I wouldn't remove the strut bar as it actually makes the car more controlable and predictable when it looses traction. You simply need more practice. Learn to love the rain and snow... experiment with doing turns with the brakes on. Use the ebrake. Someday on the road, you will HAVE to jump on the brakes to avoid a crash and you'd better be prepared. Just get used to the tail coming out with practice. Then you will not get scared so easily and you'll be able to control it.. even use it

Last nigth I was snow driving in the mountain with some friends. The guy in front spun out and I was already in the turn. Hard on the brakes, hard on the gas and stoped in no time. The tail stepped out a bit, but who cares when you expect it and know how to handle it.

the simple rule of thumb is: If the tail goes out just a little, add a bit of gas without moving the steering wheel. If the slide is bigger, add more power and counter-steer, just be ready to return the wheel straight the moment the rear stops rotating.
Lift-off causes oversteer, so always try giving it a bit of gas

 

Theres a few things that can make you spin. not just your springs or suspension setup. Road surface is one. a good size bump or hole could unbalance the weight of the car during that turn and make it spin. Also braking too much coming into the turn can get you sideways. And of course your entry speed into the turn...too hot, too bad.. nice and easy then its easy.

 

you have been so relaxed up to now because your car is setup on the understeer side and you got used to it. This however doesn't guarantee that you will always understeer. Try hard enough (like you did) and you'll make ANY car oversteer.

Don't worry, just learn to handle it with practice in large empty parking lots

 

well i can control my car at lower speeds, i'm a huge fan of the e brake and screwing around with it in the snow, i'm pretty good at doing **** with the e brake actually, but my previous question was basically askin if its possible to just out of nowhere have the *** end slip out of possition while driving 80mph around a highway turn?

i must of spun out orginally because i slammed on the breaks, there was no way i could control the car, mario andretti couldnt have.

but agian the main thing i'm askin if its possible to just go into a sudden spin out of nowhere when the car is slightly turning, such as a highway turn

 

It doesnt make sence that the car would spin out of nowhere during a turn. There has to be a driver error or somthing on the road or suspension to make you spin. You probably reached the limits of your suspension.

 

alrite thats pretty much teh answer i was looking for man. that makes me feel a lot better, i would just think since my suspension was hard and teh rear was light, that a turn would cause so much stress on the rear that i would just lose it.

 

You should take your car to a track and participate in a high performance drivers school. Or take a course. You shouldn't be driving that fast on the highway. You're going to get yourself or someone else hurt or killed.

You should never be driving so fast that you end up spinning out. I've driven down countless mountain and country roads in California and I've never spun out or even came close to spinning out.

The fastest that I drive on the public highways is probably only 90% as fast as I drive on a road race course. This is still plenty fast but nowhere near the ultimate limit for the car.

I've spun out at every track that I've run and all were the result of mistakes that I made. However, I did no damage to anything.

Instead of doing dangerous things on the street, learn how to drive and save the fast driving for the track.

 

Your problem was obviously due to driver error, not a freaking strut tower brace.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by bruinacura &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">You should take your car to a track and participate in a high performance drivers school. Or take a course. You shouldn't be driving that fast on the highway. You're going to get yourself or someone else hurt or killed.

You should never be driving so fast that you end up spinning out. I've driven down countless mountain and country roads in California and I've never spun out or even came close to spinning out.

The fastest that I drive on the public highways is probably only 90% as fast as I drive on a road race course. This is still plenty fast but nowhere near the ultimate limit for the car.

I've spun out at every track that I've run and all were the result of mistakes that I made. However, I did no damage to anything.

Instead of doing dangerous things on the street, learn how to drive and save the fast driving for the track. </TD></TR></TABLE>
That's all that needs to be said.

End thread.

 

sorry but i had to add this to the locked thread below for other people to read incase of similar situations

several other reasons people may spin out, off camber turns. lift throttle, miss matched tires, grippy in the front **** in the rear. wrong psi in your tires. check all that stuff. ok you can lock this too if you want

 

That thread was locked for a reason.

 

The OP of the original thread spun out because he was obviously;
a) driving way beyond his ability, judgement and experience
b) way beyond legal or sensible speeds on a public road

IMO the original thread should have remained open so these facts could be hammered home to him, for his own sake and that of others. He needs to uderstand that his 350 foot long lose had nothing to do with the strut bar he fitted, but a lot to do with him.

He is obviously quite young and doesn't yet understand that he is mortal and can actually die in an instant due to his own stupidity, or that he can kill other people. He needs to know that Mario Andretti probably could have saved the situation that he placed himself in (the OP), but almost definitely wouldn't have put himself in that situation in the first place. He needs to know that using Andretti as a benchmark for his own ability is utterly unrealistic.

I was once much the same, considered the public roads as my my own private race track, lucky to have survived my teens and early twenties. OP take note, if you want to drive at racing speeds then do it on a race track. I'd highly reccomend kart racing to you (cheaper than car racing, more intense racing, not a disaster if you wreck your equipment), but be prepared for an education re your current level of driving skill...

PS Someone in the original thread suggested that a rear strut bar would increase understeer, this is not correct. A rear strut bar will stiffen the rear end of the chassis, and anything you do to stiffen the rear end (whether the chassis itself or the spring or ARB rates) will tend to reduce understeer by increasing weight transfer at the rear, and reducing weight transfer at the front.

A front strut bar will increase understeer (slightly) by increasing front weight transfer and decreasing rear weight transfer, but also increase steering response (which some people may incorrectly percieve as decreased understeer) which is the main benefit of the front strut bar. A rear strut bar will also tend to increase steering response.