I am preparing my Integra R for NASA/SCCA competition and would like a few suggestions selecting the spring-shock setup. Please keep in mind this is a stripped, caged, nonstreet legal, racing machine. I believe my best options to be:

1. GC coilovers. I recently called them and was told that they could not offer me a coilover package. Koni does not make a rear shock for the R, except for the '88 crx shock (nonadjustable).

2. Truechoice. They quoted about $2,200 for Koni revalved/adjustables with my choice of springs.

3. H&R coilovers. I can purchase a set for $2,200. Awesome stuff according to their sales rep. Dampers are matched to work with the springs. They were supposedly developed specifically for the Speedvision WC series. My only concern here is that their spring rates are heavily biased toward the front.

I'm leaning toward #3. However, I'm worried that they will turn my car into an understeering pig.

Your thoughts please...

 

keep in mind IT rules dont allow threaded shocks bodies. so that rules out H&R. ground controls are your best bet with whatever shocks you can get. get a gcr or rulebook before you ponder getting into racing.


[Modified by Tyson, 3:17 AM 5/5/2002]

 

How unusual.

Do not be concerned. He has merely guessed at your driving style and suggested one of an infinite number of setups all of which can be made to work just as well. The secret is in your alignment.

Seriously (because the preceding comments aren't), look at the classes you're interested in. The rules will make many choices for you. Alot of people take a set of Mugen N1's and turn off the threads and put a sleeve over them to be IT legal. This shouldn't be an issue for you though since the ITR is not and never will be legal for any current real IT class. You are stuck in T2 where you are hopelessly uncompetitive, or in funny regional classes ITE and RS if your region runs them. I'm focusing on RS for the rest of the year.

The hottest shocks going right now are Moton - but they are mega-$$. Lex Carson their North American guy says the Mugen N1 setup is "very good". Save yourself alot of trouble and call King Motorsports, and buy a set with 600F/900R and use the Mugen 26mm rear bar (leave the stocker on the front). Then just be sure your ride height keeps you out of the steep part of the bumper curves and you'll have a setup that's good enough to have won many SVWC championships, and that I find remarkably forgiving.

Scott, who doesn't mean to sound like a paid spokesman....just a very satisfied customer.....who has learned the value of a proven out of the box solution to a problem that can eat lots of hours and money......

 

This post couldn't have come at a better time for me.

Through my Sponsor A&J Racing , Buddy Club have offered a suspension package to run this season and they are waiting for my set-up specs. I am running sleeved, re-valved Bilsteins with ERS 600lb f/ 800lb r and the Mugen 26 mm rear bar. I am happy with this but I think that there is huge room for improvement with just stroke length alone not to mention adjustability.

The real question for me is F/R spring rates and valving vis-a-vis NA vs JDM. I know what is working for me and others here on this board and in NA, but do the Japanese know how to set-up and run these cars? Better than us ? I want to try Buddy Club's set-up but I am nervous about having to re-learn how to drive to make it work for me and also the lack of testing time I have available.

What do you think?

Victor Penner

PS. Scott, I am also full on RS this season. I am sending in my RoseCup entry this week.

 

Victor,

Yeah - Rose Cups! And the following weekend? Jeff Z at Oregon Region says to register in advance - and that our cars are just what they'd like to see more of. Since you only get room for your car, and have to pay extra for additional paddock space it would make sense for people to pool money for shared trailers for our gear so that nothing turns up missing.

One of the things that bothers me about the rate argument is that Mugen is from Japan too and the official Mugen setup is rear high rate. And furthermore, King (among others) have told me that 1) they know about the "Japanese" setup, and 2) they've experimented with it and didn't go faster and didn't like it.

As the rates go up on either setup camber change decreases - which is good. Thru static camber tuning balance can be found with either. But, total grip will be slightly less with the front heavy rate since balancing the JDM setup will require sacrificing a little rear grip since the front roll couple bias will reduce maximum achievable front grip. The JDM setup should be slightly less forgiving at the limit for any equivalent total roll resistance because rear camber change and bump steer will be slightly higher. Initial turn in might be a little more reassuring with the JDM setup owing to the initial transient understeer, but the transition thru mid corner might be a little twitchier due to increased pitch and camber and toe effects at the rear. Also, the JDM setup should suffer relatively in front mechanical grip to the detriment of predictability at the limit - one of those always conditional rules of chassis setup is that you'd like the driven wheels to be sprung as softly as possible.

I'm of the opinion that the JDM setup is ideally suited to relatively inexperienced drivers operating well below the ultimate performance of the chassis.

I've neglected mentioning sway bars because so much of this is about what happens as the car pitches. If you run high front rates with no front bar, or soft rear rates with a 3 inch rear bar or zero droop limiters - then we are talking about something very different and I don't think that conversation's worth having.

What we on the board need is for someone with good Japanese skills and connections to research who ran what in what series with what results. The idea that North American and European Professional Race Teams are not as sophisticated as the average Japanese club racer is ridiculous. And pictures from the Japanese equivalent of Super Street aren't going to cut it. And I have to say this: the quote from the President of Spoon to the effect that the front gets the heavy springs because that's where the weight is is among the most tired fallacies of suspension setup. It's only merit is that it is intuitive to the unsophisticated - which makes him a better marketer than chassis engineer.

About your Bilsteins - my Bilstein body lengths are just about right and allow max front wheel travel. What is the "huge room for improvement with just stroke length" you are referring to? Shock adjustment is nice, but becomes a smaller deal if your spring rates are working and your curves are anywhere close for your application.

Scott, who thinks you gotta run the Buddy Club's and see what happens....you've got the same problems I have: there's only so much time and money we can put to this stuff......and the idea of having a lousy race weekend because of a mistake or dead end is not attractive......

 

I've got the books...thanks.

H&R's coilovers come as a matched set, ~850/700. You do not get to select the rates.

Thanks for the comments. I guess that I would just like some vendor recommendations.

 

My ride height is about 1 in lower than stock and I have just around 2in of travel on the fronts. It hasn't been a huge problem but not ideal. I agree about the schools of thought and I know it is working good for me but it isn't just "club racer's" it is JTCC, Super Taikyu etc that have races every 2 weeks all over Asia. Actually We are the "club racer's" ! This discussion always gets sideways fast and I am wondering if anyone on this board runs higher f/r rates that can give some feedback?

Victor Penner

PS. Yes...time & $, it's a beetch!

 

Scott, I have thought a lot about the different JDM/NA suspension setups, and I feel that at least part of the answer lies in the advice that you can read or listen to in Japanese books and videos on driving.

The thing that really jumps out at me when I listen to driving advice (specifically regarding FF cars) from Japanese pro drivers is that they emphasize trail braking to a much greater extent than American drivers do. I think this affects their suspension setups to stabilize corner entry so they can enter very hot and drag the brakes right down to the apex.

Even watching Mr. Ichishima of Spoon drive his Spoon ITR around Tsukuba, he did exactly the same thing. He was a very good driver and he was a pretty decent racer a few decades ago, so I wouldn't just brush him off as inexperienced.

 

Glen,

I didn't brush Mr Ichishima off as inexperienced (I have no clue as to his background) - I registered my opinion on what he was reported to have said and I stand by it.

For what it's worth, when I'm trying to save my car from the wall in PIR's T9, I trail brake very deep with the NA setup (like I always do entering the chicane as well as many others at PR). That capability is not compromised by a typical NA setup. The idea of trailing brake all the way to the apex plays the wrong game with respect to weight transfer on an FWD car, though it's apparently appropriate on a CART car according to my shock friend who was discussing such matters with crews when they came thru Portland last. I can understand that the technique has defensive use, but it's no way to run away off the front.

I haven't seen much Japanese driving beyond the Pro's doing the shootouts on BM - and while I was diplomatic back when I was writing about them, I'll speak plainly now: I wasn't real impressed. And, for what it's worth, in the BM video that I remember most, Gansan turned in later and was back on the gas sooner and had less lock on from apex out than all the rest of the drivers and he won (in a Spoon front bias car with small rear tires).

You probably have more vid'ing and access to what's being said, and I'd be interested in more information if any of it is specific and includes detailed analysis of the sequence of operation and breaks down the inputs and responses.

The testimonials of "decent" racers are always suspect. Brilliant ones too. You never know if they know what they are talking about technically, and if they sound pretty good then you have to figure out if they did their own thinking. When Mark Donohue gave some friendly coaching to my friend Joe Chamberlain you can bet he paid attention. Conflicting advice from a second tier driver wouldn't have commanded as much attention. I've been on the journey I'm on in part because nobody ever made good arguments for their beliefs and recommendations.

So, to date, no one has described in detail how the JDM way is supposed to work better. I invite someone to do this, and I wait.

Scott, who always wants to go faster....and I'd go JDM if there was a convincing case and some clear examples....

Note to Victor and Glen - some of what I've written is motivated by historical context and is not directly responsive to you.

 

This has been a very interesting thread that poses a question I've asked myself for awhile but haven't had the opportunity to test.

On one hand the Japanese drivers may very well trail brake deeper which favors the greater turn-in stability of the front bias spring rate setup. On the other hand I too was left dissappointed with the driving in the Best Motoring. [safety rant]I was somewhat aghast at the way Gansan was blasting around Honda's test track in penny loafers with no helmet on. Then to top that off at the end of the video Tsuchiya-san (the Drift King) and another driver (who sucked) were blasting through a mountain road in a sort of hill climb chasing each other with no helmets on. Some of the cars they were driving had roll cages and here they were flying around trying to get their heads cracked.[/safety rant]

Basically I wonder about the credibility of these guys if they have significant disregard for safety and some not driving particularly well. At least not as well as some of our Honda-Challenge guys. I wish one of the N1, ATCC, or JGTC aficianados could chime in to give us the scoop.

Perhaps Grassroots Motorsports or Sport Compact Car could do an empirical test to answer the question (not that SCC has great drivers but I'm sure they can find some). Better yet maybe the Realtime R's could have a shootout against one of the Japanese teams. Either way I'm sure everyone would love to see the result.

 

I have a question to throw out...

Many, if not most, of the FF cars I've seen from Japan are run with narrower tires in the rear. This idea seems logical to me, but I've heard arguments on this board of it reducing "total overall grip". I don't necessarily agree, but don't have the experience to back up my thoughts. Regardless, this is something I've never really heard of in this country, possibly because it would cause problems with cars already setup with high rear spring rates and large rear bars.

Anyway, my question is... is the running of narrower rear tires really that prevalent, and if so, wouldn't this have a lot to do with the suspension decisions made by these drivers?

 

perhaps they run narrower tires in the rear because they can fit a wider tire in the front and not the rear but still achieve greater total grip. Thats OPM's crx setup at least. 225 up front and 205 in the rear.

anyway, i dunno if you can classify this stiff up front or back as Japanese vs American. i know of a very successful regional driver who runs (really) stiff in the rear and still trailbrakes deep, but lightly, (and left foot brakes in the turn, to control the oversteer) and wins. point in telling this is that every driver, car and track requires a different style and setup. but then again, its not like he's a pro driver. a japanese vs american shootout would be cool, but unlikely....

also, drifting is a stunt, akin to doing wheelies and stoppies on a motorcycle, should you expect the guys in these videos doing stunts to really think all out safety?


[Modified by Tyson, 11:49 PM 5/5/2002]

 

Well, I agree with just about everything you're saying. I agree that some of the drivers in BM don't seem like they are driving at pro skill levels. Those that I think are pretty good are mainly Gansan, Tsuchiya, Hattori, and I guess Takuya is not too bad either. You're right, Gansan sticks closest to driving the "right" way.

However, a few years ago, BM went on a short quest to look for additional staff members to fill out their stable. A bunch of drivers (many with "pro" level resumes) showed up on an episode that was an "audition" to compare their driving skills, ther showmanship, and whatever else makes for a good BM "caster" (their term for the staff of driver/journalists). Well they all sucked big time. It was very hillarious to watch. So they ended up not hiring anyone. Gansan made a speech on how he was truly disappointed by their performance. Yikes! Imagine Mario Andretti telling you on national TV that he was truly disappointed in your driving!

Anyway, my point was that "showmanship" was a part of their judgement. It was not just who was fastest, although that factored in. The driver had to be able to play around with the car, the goal being that he needed to be able to show the audience how a car reacted to going too hot in a corner and missing the apex, how easily the car will regain control after a mistake, and so on. All while making witty remarks for the camera. I don't think that what you see is always representative of how they drive when they are on the job. Note that I don't mean to defend all of them--some of them don't seem that good. But if you watch Tsuchiya drive at ten tenths at Suzuka in a JGTC race, then watch him in BM, you get the impression that in BM, he is just having fun.

Oh well, I have no details on why JDM cars are set up the way they are, although I gave my conjecture. I do wonder why if the NA setup is so much better, why there isn't one tuner in Japan that realizes this and switches over to blow everyone away. Or maybe they already do the same thing on their real race cars, and we are all working ourselves up over nothing, speculating based on Spoon's or Zeal's or Tein's consumer/out-of-the-box setups, not the actual race setups. I haven't seen any actual published race setups. Maybe someday I'll run some tests on my own.

Oh yeah, on the trailbraking thing--I think you would agree with me, Scott, that although you may be trailbraking significantly with your setup, the degree to which you do that is affected to some extent by your suspension setup. So it's not that NA setups don't allow trailbraking, it's just that you are limited by the grip of the tail a little more than the JDM setup.


[Modified by Gansan, 11:25 PM 5/5/2002]

 

i think the good driver in BM are only keichi, gansan, nakaya, hatori........
anyway, its all depend on their mood..........

back to the question, i like JDM setting better. although the car is still understeer while its limit, it is more stable during turn-in. with higher spring rate at the back, the reaction of the front/rear weight transfer is very effective. however, under a wheel to wheel condition, u dont want to have a over react setup, since u might have a chance that turn in side by side with other car, or require to let go the gas/brake suddenly.

it just feels like u put azenis at front and some cheap **** tire at the back.

well, of course, its also depend on the course too.

 

That's one of those things I don't know - Is there not one Japanese RACING team running this chassis that uses high rates in the rear?

One of the things that bugs me is that I've been to SVWC and Grand Am races, talked to everyone from Peter and Pierre down to the back of the pack privateers and it was very easy to find out what they were running, and in most cases I could look at the car and read the partnumbers right off the springs. Can't we come up with somebody who KNOWS what Japanese RACING Integras are set up like?

Thanks for the BM details. I know they take their day jobs more seriously, and that a big part of the videos is fun and surprise.

I saw an old picture from the sixties in a book about Honda Motor - and the driver in the photo looked like Gansan. He seems like a good guy.

Scott, who would love to watch some JGTC video....

 

Scott, since some of your statements were directed to me, I just wanna say something for the record. I've never said either setup is more sophisticated than the other. I DID say the Japanese guys are trustworthy but it doesn't mean that I was knocking down the racers here in the US. If that's the impression that got thru your skull, I can't help it. But I still have great respect to all racers, regardless of where they come from.

Obviously you've seen the thread that I posted a while ago with pictures showing the serious Japanese race cars' setup (https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=133390). You responded with pictures from the Japanese equivalent of Super Street aren't going to cut it. Why formed that kind of opinion without actually seeing the said magazines/articles? Where exactly did the hate come from? If you like your research result that's fine and thanks for sharing, but why was it necessary to diss others (which you've done multiple times)? I really don't think any "featured car" in the Super Street magazine can pull 1'01 on Tsukuba.

You asked for a convincing case of how the front biased setup works better. Although I can't say it's "better", here's a case ---
This JUN sponsored DC2R broke the track record in its class (>2L NA engine) in Zhuhai, China, which would soon be the official track for the F1 Grand Prix. After a day of suspension and engine tuning, the record was broken on the following day. Here's the suspension setup:

Spring --- F20K, R16K
Tire Size --- 195-55/15 Dunlop racing slick
Camber --- F-4.5, R-3.5
Toe --- F0mm, R2mm (toe-in)
Sway Bar --- F26mm (Mugen) R26mm (Mugen)

I guess you would say that they fought the understeer by abusing front camber. True that they do have muncho front camber, but it's not an abuse (especially on racing slick). The whole JUN crew was at the paddock keeping close track of everything during the test/tune day, including pyrometer to make sure the tires were not overheated. Why used 195 all around? Why the 26mm front bar? Why toe-in in the back? All these things would contribute to understeer. Honestly I have no idea. That has a lot to do with the driver and track condition, and the fact showed that the car didn't plow like a pig and pulled outstanding times. The level of professionalism of the driver and tuner is not any one of us here who were not at the scene can imagine. Did that setup work? I think so. But was it "better" than a rear bias setup? I honestly dunno.

The newest setup that some of the Jpn racers are using is stiff front and VERY soft in the rear (i.e. F16K R6K). Why such a big difference in ratio? After some thoughts and researches, it comes down to the "predictablility" of the car. The idea is, no matter how fast you go, if you ran off, you loose. Run-offs often times are caused by unpredicted oversteer. So by lowering the rear rate, the tail movement is more predictable and forgiving especially with small bumps in corners. To fight the inherent understeer, they use narrower tires in the back plus other things like sway bar, alignment, spacers, etc. The front heavy rate is mainly for the purpose of minimizing nose dive and help loading up the front tires at turn-in. I have yet to get a chance to drive or ride in a setup like that. So I guess what I've just said could be classified as "hearsay", but still worth thinking.

 

Wai,

Minardi, Arrows, Jaguar, Jordan and BAR all operate at a level of sophistication that far exceeds anything the vast majority of racers can imagine. But they are LOSERS. The differences between them and Ferrari, McLaren and Williams are actually fairly small - that's what small differences are worth.

Take the rates up, biased whichever way, and the Integra chassis works better. The differences between NA and JDM setups of the same total roll stiffness are relatively small and their effects mostly to be noticed at the margins. You can't tell by casual observation the difference between a 97 and a 99 percent solution. Prost was quite famous for looking slow and going fast. And we're all familiar with people who look fast and go slow. An understeering 97 percent solution is going to be preferred by the vast majority of drivers. What's ironic is that the rear high rate bias setup has demonstrated no vices worthy of genuine fear to me or anyone I know who uses the setup and drives sufficiently well to find them if they exist.

Where does the hate come from? I wonder. And it's not "hate" - I wish people would stop overusing that word. If that's hate, then it's polar opposite would be equal valuation for everything - yay, Minardi wins another GP. Maybe my dissing is a reasonable response to poorly thought out or written arguments. Your case (from Juns Chinese testing) doesn't provide what I asked for. A setup and a laptime don't tell the theoretical story - that's why I ask for a sequence of operation including chassis dynamic responses and driver inputs.

Your description of an F16K/R6K is lacking much. It suggests confusion about how weight transfer works - which is surprising since you appear to be an engineer. Soft rates mean deflection, deflection means camber change, camber change drastically effects available grip at a rate that exceeds what would occur due to change in normal force (weight transfer at more constant camber angle) alone. The theoretical case must address the specifics of what is happening - if understanding is the goal. Anything less is mere testimonial which is ok if there's an entertaining and thoughtful story to go along with it.

And Wai, lets remember that your response to a request for meaningful information and analysis in one thread was a page copied from an equipment companies catalog. Think of it in terms of a class assignment requiring meaningful description and analysis. You just plunk that down on the Professors desk and say QED? Where did you go to school?

Scott, who doesn't hate....he loves....be excellent to each other, and party on dudes....

 

We've been on this topic before. I don't think anybody here has driven a full JDM setup (ie, a whole car setup) vs. just the suspension. So one probably shouldn't knock it until you try it.

Roger got to drive the 5 Zigen DC5 @ Streets of Willows recently, why don't we try to get an impression from him. In the mean time somebody dig out its specs.

Spring rate is only part of the pictures, there are swaybars, rim width, offset, tire compound, tire size, pressure... etc. all can change the balance. I mean have you guys try R tires on the front and street tires on the back around the track? I don't care how understeer you FF is originally, with that, it will be a huge balance change and be on the oversteer side. Or take my car EG2 for example, it has very simple suspension setup. Stock swaybars, Skunk2 coilovers 10 kg/mm front and back (560 lbs/"), KYB AGX shocks. Stock alignment. Same size tires front and back. What do you think it would drive like? Roger's impression is that it is slightly oversteer biased. Would you have thought of it as tail happy from simply looking at the spring rate?

For comparision, anybody know the spring rates the Super Tourer's from BTCC/NATCC ran? Super Tourers were the highest level of FWD racing, although it is far from it street counter parts since you can change so much. But still it'd be interesting. How about WRC F2 FWD car's tarmac setups?? Any clue on their spring rates? I've never seen any spring rate info on WRC nor BTCC cars.




[Modified by frank@b16a.com, 10:12 AM 5/6/2002]

 

nah, the 5 zigen dc5 cannot be a standand since its more show than real race. all the suspension is not dialed in right. front strut is bottom out. seem like they lower the car too much. i drove that in street of willow too but it seem like understeer feeling is very strong(+ not used to rhd).
on top of that, in hot version vol 44, they prove that dc2 is still faster than dc5. even mr spoon said it will be fast after 1 year but its slower at this time.(i think the parts for dc5 is not fully developed yet)

 

"However, a few years ago, BM went on a short quest to look for additional staff members to fill out their stable. A bunch of drivers (many with "pro" level resumes) showed up on an episode that was an "audition" to compare their driving skills, ther showmanship, and whatever else makes for a good BM "caster" (their term for the staff of driver/journalists). Well they all sucked big time. It was very hillarious to watch. So they ended up not hiring anyone. Gansan made a speech on how he was truly disappointed by their performance. Yikes! Imagine Mario Andretti telling you on national TV that he was truly disappointed in your driving!"

Which episode is that? I'd love to check that out!

 

Frank,

This is from one of my earlier posts in this thread:

I've neglected mentioning sway bars because so much of this is about what happens as the car pitches. If you run high front rates with no front bar, or soft rear rates with a 3 inch rear bar or zero droop limiters - then we are talking about something very different and I don't think that conversation's worth having.

End-Quote

I tried to address your concern about the total setup, and I did mention that you can balance just about anything if you throw away enough grip at the good end. I also tried to stipulate that monkey business was prohibited - lots of damping on a softly sprung rear being another example.

What this comes down to is basic dynamics on a 60/40 FWD, which I've described in some detail in the past - and yes, we have been here before alright.

What I did this time was new was to describe what a JDM setup might be like and how it might differ from NA - nobody has contested anything I've said yet.

But, really, taking Victor as an example: What basis do any of us have to adopt this other approach. Nobody has made a technical case for it. And we have no reasonable comparison test data with qualified analysis.

Roger Foo might be able to tell us something interesting, and I'd love to hear about it. But that will be one data point, and still not enough to base an expensive decision on.

Scott, who figures it might take him at least $10,000 to answer this question very imperfectly...

 

rr98itr,
i think the difference between is all depend on how the driver to use it. its not easy to argue it here. the easier way to find out is to get 2 cars and 2 drivers. one NA setup and the other JDM setup and find a track to run a time attack. use something like PI logging system to track down all the movement on both car(like accel, brake, g force, cornering speed, etc). then u can find out where is the difference.

 

1. Actually they do make the rear Koni's for the R. I have them and they are adjustable. You just need to buy the rear koni's that are non-adjustable, send them to Koni NA (talk to Paul in the re-build shop, or Lee Grimes). They can convert them to external adjustable, re-valve to whatever spring rate you have or want, and shorten them one inch if you would like (good if you want to lower your car more.
2. Truechoice is an option
3. They may have been designed for the SWC, but that was probably YEARS ago. Now most of those guys spend that much for one shock using Penske, Moton, Ohlin or a specially/custom made "Mugen" shock. The other thing to remember, if anything is made just for one series, you need to take in account for the series rules (such as designers knowing a rear adjustable wing, front splitter, camber kits, brake bias, etc, etc, etc is going to be used).

 

"I've neglected mentioning sway bars because so much of this is about what happens as the car pitches. If you run high front rates with no front bar, or soft rear rates with a 3 inch rear bar or zero droop limiters - then we are talking about something very different and I don't think that conversation's worth having."

if the car goes straight it never pitches. but we're all road racers here so we always take turns.

personally i don't like to get into technical details too much, especially on a subject like suspension where so much of it is subjective. Paul Van Valkenburgh who has teh regular column V-Angle in Racecar Engineering, he's a serious engineer. He once wrote about Sprint Cars, said something like, if you look at the design of Sprint Cars purely from engineering view, it doesn't make a lot of sense, and lot of stuff they do you'd think it wouldn't work, but in fact, it works really well. Sometimes you throw the rules out the window and use what works.

Non the less I do enjoy your technical arguments earlier in this tread. In case some of you missed it (kinda easy to miss if you just glance the tread):

"As the rates go up on either setup camber change decreases - which is good. Thru static camber tuning balance can be found with either. But, total grip will be slightly less with the front heavy rate since balancing the JDM setup will require sacrificing a little rear grip since the front roll couple bias will reduce maximum achievable front grip. The JDM setup should be slightly less forgiving at the limit for any equivalent total roll resistance because rear camber change and bump steer will be slightly higher. Initial turn in might be a little more reassuring with the JDM setup owing to the initial transient understeer, but the transition thru mid corner might be a little twitchier due to increased pitch and camber and toe effects at the rear. Also, the JDM setup should suffer relatively in front mechanical grip to the detriment of predictability at the limit - one of those always conditional rules of chassis setup is that you'd like the driven wheels to be sprung as softly as possible.

I'm of the opinion that the JDM setup is ideally suited to relatively inexperienced drivers operating well below the ultimate performance of the chassis."

 

Well alrighty then! It's gonna be the Scott vs Victor show then two weekends in a row.

But that's got it's own problems - drivers may not be identical in skill and adaptability, driver familiarity with the track may not be equal, there may be power and tire differences. Head to head racing usually answers only one question clearly - who crossed the finish line first on that day at that track.

Scott, who will have to wait to see what happens.....and sure wishes he had DAQ....maybe next year.....