amongmany

We're discussing how same width F/R wheels affect handling, but seem to be having trouble getting answers. Can anyone shed some more light on the subject for us?

Thread is here:
http://forums.s2ki.com/forums/showthread.p...threadid=168551

amongmany

Does no one know, or does no one care? I thought we had a reasonably interesting discussion going, but apparently I'm the only one.

Triple-H

If you take a stock set up S2000 and put the same width tires and wheels on all 4 corners, the car is going to be very tail happy, that is it will have a big tendency for oversteer.

The reason for this is simple, the extra rubber on the front (or the less rubber on the rear depending on what end gets changed) is going to allow the front to corner faster than it does now, and at the limit of the rear tires traction, the front will still have grip, therefore the back end will slide, or step out, thus oversteer.

Trust me, given enough time, you will get all the answers you want from this group of people. The knowledge base is amazing and it is based upon tangible experience.

amongmany

Yeah, I understand that. My question is two-fold:

How much extra sway-bar in the front would be necessary to bring the car back to neutral, or at least back to where it is stock? Would a Saner bar at 90% stiffer do it? Would you have to run the Saner bar on the middle setting?

AND

Assuming you could neutralize the added oversteer with a stiffer front sway bar, would there be an advantage to having more rubber on the ground?

Thanks for the help. I understand that the knowledge base here is out of this world. Unfortunately, I find that sometimes my elementary questions go unanswered, I guess because they're not as interesting to the more experienced guys here. Just trying to figure out the ideas as they bounce through my head.

rlaifatt

As the front cannot accomodate 245's (even 235's rub some), you would have to go with narrower rears (225) to accomplish this. It will obviously have less overall tracton than 225 front and 245 rear, regardless of swaybar, so why would you do it? BTW, the rear will handle 275's without rubbing, so you can get much more overall grip going the other way.

Gregg Lee

[QUOTE]Originally posted by munckee
How much extra sway-bar in the front would be necessary to bring the car back to neutral, or at least back to where it is stock?

Gregg Lee

Assuming you could increase front rather than decrease rear, it would seem like it, since total tire capacity would be greater. But this assumes that the load is distributed among the tires well enough to actually use the capacity. The first tire to reach its individual limit determines corner breakaway limit. You don't get to average them.

The reason a heavier front swaybar reduces oversteer (AKA increases understeer), is that it shifts side-to-side weight transfer from rear to front. This loads the front outside tire more compared to the original set up. So although the tire is larger and has more grip at a given load, it also has to carry more load than before. Whether you get a net gain depends on which is greater, the increase in grip limit of the tire, or the increase in weight transfer required to balance handling. This could vary with tire brand, size , and tread type.

Gregg

amongmany

Thanks for the input guys! Very interesting info. What is the widest wheel and widest tire that the front wells will accomodate without rolling the fenders? Does this change at all if the car is lowered 1/2 - 1"?

rlaifatt

[QUOTE]Originally posted by munckee
Thanks for the input guys!

amongmany

[QUOTE]Originally posted by rlaifatt