need help deciding next step to my suspension upgrades

[rodama5anthony]

current list of mods:

• stance coilovers
• whiteline front adjustible swaybar
• front and rear strut bars
• floor bar (not installed yet)

im happy with how my set up feels so far. I have lots of control, grip when i want it and i can break that grip when i want as well. but i can still see/(feel alittle) a bit of body roll. so i was looking for advice on what my next step should be. My idea was to save up and get whiteline rear swaybar but i was thinking maybe bushings might be a better investment for the moment. advice and/or feedback please?

 

[supraguru05]

a little roll isnt going to hurt you. That said I would do the control arm bushings and get it aligned at the same time.

 

[rodama5anthony]

alright thanks for the input. i just did an alignment do still need to do it after changing the bushings?

 

[Poodles]

Rear swaybar made a lot of difference on my car, YMMV.

 

[rodama5anthony]

Rear swaybar made a lot of difference on my car, YMMV.

which rear sways do you have poodles?

 

[airhead04]

after doing the bushings you need to align the car again, Yes.

 

[rodama5anthony]

grrr darn well better to spend 80 on alignment then hundreds for tires. oh which reminds me wen i got the alignment they couldnt zero out the camber cus the caster would go pretty far out. wat does having hella caster do?

*edited

 

[Poodles]

I have the whiteline adjustables front and back. $80 for an alignment is very cheap, they may not know what they're doing (or have the rack that's accurate enough).

 

[IBoughtASupra]

We know a shop that does all our alignment on a Snap-On machine. 69.95 for the alingment and customers don't complain about their cars not driving good.

 

[rodama5anthony]

the car drives great! and they spent about 3 hrs aligning it, but your right they probably have little to no experience with lowered cars. Im sure they have good equipment tho. what the guy explained to me was that if he got the camber to 100% spec the caster would not be close to spec and vis-versa so he met it in the middle were they were both in the green.

 

[RockPaperSwoRD]

if you have the whiteline front bar I would go for a matching whiteline rear or a tanabe rear (the tanabe is stiffer, so youll have a tiny bit oversteer when you want it).


From my experience: I bought a whiteline rear sway bar and kept the stock front, I drove around on the softest setting for a while and it did offer plenty of handling precision. Although the middle setting offered an extremely balanced setup, the stiffest setting I would use with a mild stiffness front. You dont want to have the front too stiff as it will cause the car to understeer and makes it harder to kick the tail out.

IN the supra, I find a bit of oversteer alot easier to manage than having both bars overly stiff and cause your car to plow forward unexpectedly mid-turn.

 

[rodama5anthony]

if you have the whiteline front bar I would go for a matching whiteline rear or a tanabe rear (the tanabe is stiffer, so youll have a tiny bit oversteer when you want it).


From my experience: I bought a whiteline rear sway bar and kept the stock front, I drove around on the softest setting for a while and it did offer plenty of handling precision. Although the middle setting offered an extremely balanced setup, the stiffest setting I would use with a mild stiffness front. You dont want to have the front too stiff as it will cause the car to understeer and makes it harder to kick the tail out.

IN the supra, I find a bit of oversteer alot easier to manage than having both bars overly stiff and cause your car to plow forward unexpectedly mid-turn.

lol thanks for the info. i was planing to go with the whiteline rear. at the moment i have the front sway set to medium , damper setting in the front set to 13 , and the rear damper set to 8. grips the road hard on corners and i can easilly break traction wen i want. lol wen it was raining last week i went out and drifted a few corners =] ( went in the rain so save tire life rear tires are almost ready to retire)

 

[rodama5anthony]

can anyone tell me what having lots of caster does? effects? benifits?

 

[tye-bo]

My understanding of caster is, that too much positive caster will make the steering wheel return more quickly when coming out of a corner, but will make the vehicle feel unstable at high speeds. Having the caster too close to zero, the steering wheel will return slowly (causing you to physically move the wheel rather than it returning on it's own), but will offer more stability at high speeds. Too much negative caster, the vehicle will be feel unstable at all speeds and will have poor steering wheel return, it typically is never the case unless the vehicle has been in an accident or had any damage. This angle is the only steering/suspension adjustment that has no tire wearing effects, as opposed to camber and toe. If one wheel wheel has more positive caster than the other it will cause the vehicle to pull in that direction. A good alignment shop should be able to correct this issue, why are they telling you that you have "lots of caster" and not fixing it? I believe our cars have adjustable caster, and it should be able to be corrected (unless, of course, something is bent or damaged). If I left anything out, or made a mistake please let me know, thanks!

For illustration purposes:
http://www.justih.org/Binder-Bench/attachment.php?attachmentid=14040&stc=1&d=1281709430

 

[LordDigital]

can anyone tell me what having lots of caster does? effects? benifits?

More caster heavily affects the dynamically induced camber on some suspension geometries. My experience (DSP 400 ; MA70 with 2inch front drop) - at 10 degrees turn I only gained 0.2degrees of camber for 3 degrees of caster. That is way too little ,in other words if you have to trade between static camber and caster I would ALWAYS choose the caster!

 

[rodama5anthony]

thanks guys. im not sure why they werent able to perfectly align both caster and camber in the front and since they were unable to do so they aligned it so both would be in an acceptible range

 

[Poodles]

Any number of reasons. I assume you have a sheet that shows the numbers?

 

[rodama5anthony]

Any number of reasons. I assume you have a sheet that shows the numbers?

yup somewere in my mess of a desk =/