rlets

Tire are 25 cold and 36 hot.

rlm328

You may want to try a little lower (1 or 2 psi) pressure in the rears. This might give them a little more grip.

J richard

On a square setup 450lb front springs and 30mm rear bars will make this car handle like A pig. It will push badly, so taking off the rear helpers will be going the wrong direction. If it was well balanced before it should still work. A stiffer bushing/monoball setup will be much more sensitive to corner balance. I'm guessing your alignment is fine but your corners are jacked. The tough thing with the helpers in the rear is you have the added issue of two different springs (the bar and the helper) that have to be adjusted in sequence to get a combined rate or you will have some weird things happening. I'd check corners before I'd make any changes....

333pg333

Yeah, something isn't adding up. I would have said add rear spring, not remove on your current setup. Most guys run anywhere between 5-20% more spring on the rear than the front but that is mostly all coilover. We've just put extra on our front as we have some solid Aero pulling the nose down but it's still more on the rear. (1370/1490) I've got a list of a dozen guys' setup and it's all more on the rear by at least 10%. Don't forget this isn't effective ratio, but if you're dealing with outright spring rates this is what I mean. Oh, 30mm TBar is just under 340lb/in. Going to full coilover will make life easier too. What shocks do you run? Oh, I see you run Bilstien Escort Cups. A lot of people over the years have made these work ok. Personally I think they're a bit old school tech but it is what it is. Might be worth having them checked over though. I've heard they can ride very stiffly which might explain some of the breakaway under certain circumstances. What settings do you have them at and have you played around with them much at the track?

If you've already got the rear bearings/bushings done then to me it sounds like setup. As J.R. mentions; Jacking. What tyres are you using? 36lb might be a bit hot but I used to find some were ok at this temp. What does your car weigh?

kurt M

first thing that comes to mind is "are you sure?" meaning is this something that you noted after taking the car out one afternoon or is it from a weekend at the track and you were careful in dealing with tire pressures, age, temps and all the other stuff. Is/was the work done right? Same shop, same settings intended does not mean they are right. A decimal might have been dropped or something.

IMO a 944 with maxed sways is begging for something else to be corected. Use the sway lightly to fine tune not corect for something else that is not right.

JustinL

Would you mind posting the actual specs of your alignment?

StoogeMoe

I would guess your rear rubber bushings on the spring plate are shot. That will definitely cause loose and squirrelly handling.

mark kibort

Ok, first of all, you cant go off "others " assessment of spring rates. all cars are differnet, especially when comparing coilover vs struts, 911s vs 944, etc.
I always crack up when someone asks what springs im running... like they know the geometry of the 928 and what is a correct ratio. I run 800/450lb (F/R) but that means nothing for a 924 or 944 even though the cars have way more in common than a 911.

these cars are pretty neutral and usually its hard to make a 944 or 928 ever become squirely unless you really crank everything down and pump everything up.

yep, he is all tight up front and needs to loosen it up or tighten up the rear even more, but that might just give him a slidey car. that's why when you start looking at tires, that becomes the obvious thing. 245s are way too small for this car, if it is putting down some non stock power.

he has a front push problem.. this would make the problem worse



yep, sounds like he needs more rubber up front and a few ticks off the swaybar up front.... that's obvious.

that could be the problem if you are running DOT slicks. 30psi hot is where you usually want hoosiers, toyos, etc to be. 36 makes the car very skatey, especially with a relatively small up front tire.

rlets

Thanks for all the thoughts, Guys. There are poly bushings in the spring plates. This was done first along with an entry level SPEC 944 setup from Paragon, that's Koni single adjustables. I have expressed interest in the Escort Cup setup, wild you found that Patrick. This was all before I bought the car and it came to me on staggered tires, 225/255, and it pushed badly. "Pig" is a good way to describe it.

The first thing I did was go square, 255/40/17 Nitto NT-01 on 17x9 CupII all around and got a good corner balance and alignment. Specs are zero toe front and rear, 5.5* castor, 2.7* camber in front and 2* in back. Corner weights are dead on, 52% weight in front, 2850 lbs wet with driver. This helped a bunch but made the manual steering rack a bit of a bear. And still I felt like the car wouldn't turn-in properly. Also I blew one of the rear shocks so I installed the Koni 30 series coilover on the rear with a 100 lb helper spring. While I was in there I put RE spherical bearings in the rear banana arms. I got another pro corner balance and alignment at the same shop and the car handled great! That was this spring.

But last month I found a torn tie rod end boot so I finally yanked that manual rack and installed power steering. While I was in there I put RE spherical bearings in the front control arms and castor blocks. I had noticed the front tires would get rounded with wear. Tire tread temps, even seemingly overinflated, would be higher at the inner and outer edges in the front. The rear wore nice and flat. So I thought this was from bushing deflection and did the bearings. Another pro corner balance and alignment, same tech at the same shop and Wow! what a difference in front-end grip.

So now I've got brand new NT-01s and done 2 lapping days in good weather. In trying to get a good balance I've maxed out the bars and agree something else needs to change. So hence the question: tires or springs? I'm thinking from all of this input that increasing front spring rate is the way to go. I've ordered some 500 lb springs, 10% stiffer, and will give that a shot.

Thanks again for all of the thoughts.
Rich

rlm328

[QUOTE=mark kibort;11694972]

he has a front push problem.. this would make the problem worse


[QUOTE]

Please note in Post #3 he said he had an oversteer problem.

rlm328

How much money are you willing to throw at this problem and over what type of time frame?

rlets

I want it for CHEAP and I want it NOW!

Heh, kidding. I was looking at a local set of staggered wheels for 1500 or so and another grand to put tires on 'em. Only spending a hundred bucks on springs is sweet. I tend to change things incrementally, doing the work myself and getting to the track once a month. Eventually I'd like to work on aero as it looks like you've done rim328. Great looking car you've got.

Steve113

Stiffer rear springs will not help entry oversteer

rlets

I'm gonna change the front springs.

333pg333

I'd also agree with this Rich. There's something missing in your equation to my thinking.

As for Aero, it's a black art and it is highly undervalued and misunderstood. I've been lucky enough to have dealt with two highly regarded people and would be lucky to know about as much as they'd scrape off the bottom of their shoes, but it's well worth doing if you're serious about making massive inroads in your car's performance. In terms of return on investment it can't be beaten. There are a lot of mistakes being made out there though so it's definitely worth doing some research Or ask some other schmucks who've paid to do this themselves.