I was thinking about this last weekend at an autox test and tune I attended. They had a skid pad setup and it really made it very aparent that my car understeers like crazy under power, but off the power the car has a tendancy to oversteer and is very contolable. Is there a simple answer for it understeering so bad under power? Does my lsd have something to do with it? or is it something else?

 

the simple solution is something you can't really change. get rid of the FWD thing. the realistic solution is likely much more complicated, possibly involving many suspension components.

 

Under acceleration, you're going to have weight transfer from the front to the rear, decresing front grip and increasing rear grip. You can't really get past that unless you reduce your weight transfer (lower CG or lower front/rear roll center). This is part of why a rear stiff setup is desirable for a FWD car.

 

What he said. Weight transfer.

 

Left foot braking is your friend.

 

Here is your answer!!

https://honda-tech.com/zerosearch

Stiff rear springs, big rear sway, higher in back than in front, etc. No magic answer, lots of little things that can help, or hurt if you go overboard. Research, seat time, testing time, and all the money you have will be what is required. Good luck!

 

Your car is understeering under power because while under power on a skidpad, you're asking the tires to steer and accelerate at the same time. Look up "friction circle" as it's the best way to understand your tires' limitations. In short, you can't ask them to use all available traction for turning *and* accerating or, say, braking *and* turning at the same time. You can ask for 100% grip to be used for one or another, but as soon as you start asking your tires to do two things at once you have to make a compromise. Some grip is used for one task, some for the other. Neither gets performed with 100% of the tires' attention. At some point, they will get overwehlmed and you'll experience some sliding. Since your rear tires are doing very little while you're on the skidpad, they maintain good traction while the front end loses it. The result is some annoying understeer.

Often times the natural-feeling thing to do in this situation is to feed in *more* steering input. However, you can probably see why this would make the situation *worse* since you would be asking even more of your front tires. You may find that reducing your steering input will actually help you to get the turn-in you want by asking a little less of the tires in terms of steering.

When you lift off the throttle while turning, all available front grip can be used for turning. Now, the front end will stick and go where you point it, and the rest of the car should follow suit. However, if you were cornering hard and accerating briskly, you will experience weight transfer from the rear to the front when you let off the throttle. Your car's front end has some massive weight pressing the tires to the ground while the rear has very little. Since you're still turning, your rear wheels will want to follow a line tangent to the arc in which you're turning. Welcome to the world of lift-throttle oversteer.

You can modulate this steering with the throttle with some practice. I learned to do it in turn 2 at Laguna Seca and in a few spots at Thunderhill. It's great fun.

-Adam

 

I figured it might have to do with weight transfer. the way i have my suspension setup right now is probally not the greatest: Koni yellows with eibach coilover springs 400 f/350 r , integra ls stock sways front and rear, gsr front strut tower brace. Right now normally on the street i have the konis set at half turn front and 3/4 turn rear. at the races i leave the front where it is and turn the rear up to 1 and 1/2 turns to get the car to overstear. I guess my next step is to get stiffer springs for the rear maybe 500s? and maybe move to a larger rear sway.

I did learn alot on that skid pad, mainly doing exactly what was just mentioned: using the throttle to steer and not the steering wheel. I started the day by going around the skidpad with my foot going deeper and deeper into the throttle and turning the wheel more and more to compensate for the car pushing, then of course as soon as I let off the car wanted to catch up with the tires and I had to turn the wheel the opposide direction to correct but after talking with a few instructors and letting them show me what i was doing wrong, i started picking up gobs of time around the skidpad, go figure

I think i understand why the car understeers on the skidpad, but im still confused as to why it doesnt do it other places, is it just the nature of a skidpad? The course was fairly simple: slolom into a long sweeping right hander and then into the skidpad turning left (acted like a figure 8) then out of the skidpad to a hard left hander and through the finish. After the slolom the whole right hand sweeper I had my foot planted on the gas and the rear end was nicely oversteering behind me, but as soon as i entered the skidpad the car wanted to understeer. that's what has me confused, Is it that on the right hand sweeper maybe it wasnt quite as a tight of a turn (even though it seemed to be about the same) and so I wasn't at my limit of traction yet?

edit: now that i just reread what i wrote I think Im throughly confused now, anyone care to try and make sense of my thoughts?