what would help back end stability?
 

i was driving down this nice windy road behind a 93 turbo supra last night with my girlfriend on our way to dinner. i decided to take the scenic route and came up behind this sweeeet supra. anyway, we decided to play some and we took to the curves. the posted speed was 25mph, but i got through them behind the supra at 45mph easy. so the supra pushed me a little more and took the next 25mph curve at a little over 50mph. i tried to do the same but i hit some cracked and broken pavement and i felt my tail end giving out. i had to let off the gas and slowed down to about 40 and found my tail end again. so here's my question.

what can i do to keep the rear end from coming around, or at the least, keep it from WANTING to come around. i'm going to be getting a set of 7" wheels pretty soon, will this alone help? other than the eibachs that held the car extremely flat, are there other suspension components short of a full coilover kit that would help? my next battle will be with a little stretch of pavement called "roller coaster road" here in town. i'll go out after i get my wheels to see if the increased contact patch helps.

This is a new one to me... someone who wants to make their Protege understeer MORE. :)

There are several things you can do to decrease oversteer (i.e. tail wagging) and increase understeer. You can stiffen the front suspension (i.e. stiffer springs, MP3 front swaybar) or soften the rear (softer springs, remove rear swaybar). You could also check the alignment- more rear toe-in will increase transitional understeer.

However, I'm a little puzzled about the basic question posed by this post. IMHO one of the nicest things about the Protege's stock suspension is that the back end WILL break loose, allowing the driver to rotate the car into tight corners. Most other cars in the economy class just exhibit varying degrees of front-tire-roasting understeer, which IMHO is no fun at all in the tight stuff. ("Turn, you stupid %$^#&@ car, TURN!!") :D Most handling-related posts about our cars question how to INCREASE the tendency to oversteer, not decrease it (i.e. AWR rear sway bars, etc.). In other words, less understeer is GOOD, not bad.

My recommendation is to learn how to drive better. Seriously. No offense. :) The situation you described was probably caused by lifting off the throttle too suddenly and/or braking too late. Try being smoother with your throttle, braking earlier, and if the rear end starts breaking loose, countersteer a little bit and smoothly apply MORE throttle. :D This seems counterintuitive, but applying more throttle in a FWD car will pull the car in the direction it's steered and transfer more weight to the back, increasing traction at the rear. Soon, you will learn to use the car's tail-wagging tendency to make it rotate better in tight corners. Zoom-zoom! :bt:

Follow-up post...

Just read your mod list. You mention springs, but not struts. You also say that the rear-end broke loose when you hit some rough pavement. These two things are probably related. Conclusion: if your car still has stock struts, they are TOO SOFT. The stock struts are too soft for aftermarket springs; rough pavement is probably making your suspension oscillate and lose traction. If this is the case, get better struts! :D

get better tires.

I would agree.

Stickier tires, and a harder sidewall will do wonders. I've gained HUGE reluts just from getting better tires for my car.

That Supra was probably running at least a Z rated tire, and sticky ones at best, so it would take a lot for your Protege to catch up to it. It's also A LOT wider and it's designed for fun in curves, like a Viper is.

Good luck. :D

~A

and DO NOT lift your throttle mid-turn on a FWD car, it will make the oversteer condition worse!

slow down before the turn, and then POWER through the turn!

I agree, I have 175/70/13 general lee tires on my car, and yet still I outhandeled a 95ish nissan maxima on a highway here we call the jackie robinson , I mean I was passing him on the outer lanes in corners, then letting him go by on straightaways , and then still going around him on the next turn , with the tires screaching ...

I think he was smart for backing off when he hit the cracked pavement and the back end started getting nervous.. GOOD JOB,
you need to be responsible when you drive, you don't want to injure your girlfriend and total your car just trying to keep up with a stupid supra....

my recomendation , keep the stock struts you have on the car, if they have noticably good compression , look into a sway bar and a rear upper strut bar.. you don't need big rims 17" rims will just slow you down and keep you grapping the shifter to mate it with a lower gear ..If you can , just get a better quality tire for your factory rim... get a good feal for you car, get to know it , get to know your tires breaking point . (turn off the radio) ... know your cars limits, know when to shift by listening to the motor , heel and toe whenever you can , even during regular driving ..(do it to the point that you don't even think about it when you do it).. and go to your local autocross and practice ....

1st thing is to get some better aftermarket shocks/struts. Since Koni doesn't make a shock/strut for our cars, I would try the Mazda Speed adjustables. This way you can play around with the settings, and find a nice match to the spring rate on the Eibachs. Keep in mind, you don't want compression to be too soft, combined with a high rebound rate, or successive bumps like you encountered will quickly cause you to run out of suspension travel, and you'll be riding the bump stops. Some additional compression will not make the ride as comfy, but it will make the car handle a little better.

Truly good handling on real roads does not come from dropping your car on the ground. The Eibachs are very mild, and probably not too bad for the street, but they probably contributed to your problem by limiting your wheel travel, as well as overpowering your stock dampers. It is too bad Eibach doesn't offer their dampers for the Protege like they do for the Focus, or most VW/Audi products. At one time I had matching Eibach springs and dampers on my 99 Passat. As aftermarket suspensions go, they were very nice, and really worked well together.

One problem with aftermarket lowering springs is the false sense of security they give. They so limit body lean in hard steady state cornering, or in side to side transitions, that your body's built in sense of balance isn't as acute because of the limited yaw effect. They also tend to make the car more twitchy, so when the higher limit on a smooth road is reached (with the higher speed) the car does not progressively break loose, it just happens all at once.

I certainly have nothing against good aftermarket suspensions, but as stated above, a good driving school will make any car you drive better. I really haven't found the need to upgrade the suspension on my 02 ES. Coming from the Passat, I figured it would need upgraded as the Passat most certainly did, but I find it works very well bone stock as my daily driver.

aren't our cars supposedly neutral handling? anyway you can just perform corrective understeering. oversteer into the turn and then power out. braking actually induces more oversteer.

Bruce, brutha...you KNOW that shit is still the Interboro.

I've got old-school parents from old-school Queens/Bronx. That damn road has been the Jackie Robinson for like 10 years or more, and I STILL call it the Interboro ;)

Crazy stretch of pavement though - think they could make those lanes a little narrower?

And tonkabui:

Definitely the uneven pavement that gave you the issues. There are things you can do to combat it some, but even the best-handling cars in the world will start to step out if the rear bounces a little bit.

And - that wouldn't have been the road up to Mount Lemmon, now would it? I went up there to that little lodge for some awesome pie when I visited Tucson a few months back. Crazy shit - my sea-level-living ass was dizzy as hell being at 8,000 ft. elevation - thought I was gonna fall over! And it's 75 degrees on the floor in Tucson, yet up there it was 40. You live in a beautiful part of our country.

~HH

thanks guys, for the recommendations. i agree, this whole driving fast around corners thing is a whole new concept for me. i went from sharing a 93 corrolla to owning an 02 protege5, so there's a bit of a learning curve as to what this car can do. i've never been able to push the corolla this much before. there are a few more autocross events at the tucson race track, so i'll have to hit those up to learn how to drive properly.

i never knew that accelerating through a curve would actually help me straighten out... whodathunkit? i'm slapping on some mille miglia action sports in the morning and will be running roller coaster soon thereafter. let's see if that helps. and with your tips, i think i'll be able to handle the curves a little better.

and i don't think i want it to understeer more. sounds like it's counter productive. i think i'll just stick to what i have and learn how to use it to its fullest potential. autocross, here i come!

thanks again everyone for the tips. i'll keep them all in mind. and damn... that supra sure was nice. and fast. and loud (but in a sexy way). nothing better than hearing that "pshhhhhhh."

hihosilva--> if i kept driving up river it would have eventually led me to a road up to mt. lemmon. it is definitely nice up there. over the summer when i first moved here, we went up there and it was 80 degrees. down in tucson it was 110. it's definitely a nice getaway. and that pie place... if you ever come back, get the apple cheese cake pie. or the cream cheese apple pie. or whatever it is they call it. that's some good pie right there.

If you want to read more on racing techniques head on over to turnfast. But if someone can make an article with tips specific to our proteges then that would be even better :)

nono, stickier tires first as this is fundamentals. from there change suspension components and or geometry. you need
the solid foundation first (tires), then change your settings.

for tires, i would recommend S03, S02, Dunlop SP8000 (if you
can find them), AVS Sport for canyon carving.

i carved canyons every weekend on my 98 prelude in LA
for ages. those tires work. ive yet to try the azenis and
Toyo's. i've heard some decent results from them used on
autox.

that's a characteristic of FWD cars.

on a RWD car you can 'powersteer' the car around a corner by stomping on the gas and make the tail come around faster :D

Z, H, V, H ratings on tires are just the speed ratings. The later alphabets meaning higher speed capabilities.