I have a 2000 Civic 2 door coupe with a B-Series....how do you set the front vs rear height bias????

Where do you take your measurments?

Cheers

 

Measure height at the jacking points.

 

That makes sence lol

Should the front be lower then the rear or do you want them the same height?

Thanks

 

People generally have front and rear close to equal, but a little rake has been discussed. Check out these threads:
https://honda-tech.com/forums/showth...highlight=rake
https://honda-tech.com/forums/showth...highlight=rake

 

I run slightly higher rear just for rake sake...

 

OK. So I set the rear 1/4" higher then the front for Mosport this pas weekend to see how the car would behave (I measured at the jacking points).

Note: I have PIC 14kg/mm front and 16kg/mm rear spring (The shocks in the back are the 18kg/mm ones) 23mm Type R sway bar rear and none in the front. The cars ways 2400lbs with me in it!

What I noticed:
- with 6 click front and 5click rear on the shocks, my rear end bounced alot entering corners when I was off the throttle.
- Turn-ins where better.
- couldn't get on the throttle early...had to be patient with the throttle out of corners.

What to do next???

 

Alignment, corner-balance would be a good place to start. Jimmy mentioned something about the rear suspension design on EKs, that they have a lot of camber gain under compression or something?

 

Yep meaning that as you lower the Rear of the EK gains a whole lot more camber then say a EG/DC/EF.

 

The longer rear LCA on the rear of the EK stays flatter, while the shorter upper link pulls in the top of the wheel more as suspension compresses.
I had a similar problem with my last EK hatch. Entering the tighter corners it would 3-wheel and the rear would kinda catch and hop, wasn't very inspiring. The problem stems from crossweight and allowing the front to roll too much. IMO you gotta run a front swaybar and maybe a little softer springs up front to get weight transfer, and modulate it with the throttle.
Getting the back down-maybe even lower than the front, might be beneficial although ghetto looking.
On larger auto-x courses this isn't usually a problem, but we are stuck using parking lots here and it's mostly 1st/2nd gear courses.
I've actually installed brake bias adjusters and used them to effectively e-brake around some turns to get the damn car to steer.

 

rk, you're saying you get so much camber gain in the rear that it makes the car understeery?

 

Longer LCA found on EK will give more negative camber under compression. If it's good or bad will depend on too many variables.
I was refering to the hopping entering the corner.
Setup is difficult because there is no way to define what is better or worse. Everything has a sweet spot. Too little camber the tire rolls under and you lose traction, too much and you only get a little contact patch and lose traction+wear your tires. Somewhere in the middle there is a sweet spot that will keep the tire flat to the ground when the body rolls.
Much of my experience comes from RC cars, I raced everything from off road to 4wd touring sedans, and did very well. I always found with the sedans that the best handling setup was to run heavy swaybars front and rear, then change the springs until you get it the way you like it.
I quit that to roadrace real cars in 1999, and played with alot of different suspension ideas. Seattle runs CCW, more lefts than rights, so I used to run a stiffer RR spring, and at Portland I would change it to the other side.....
Blah blah blah...
I just auto-x now and regularily change springs at the event if I'm unhappy with the setup. Front drive requires alot of the front tires, and the setup defy's the physics of a good handling car when weight transfer comes into play, but to stiffen up to eliminate it requires more rear brake bias and usually aftermarket adjusters which some of us can't install.




IMO camber should be set such that your tire wears even during an event. On a roadcourse-typically always a circle put simply-the outside tires may like a little more negative camber.