I installed H&R sport springs and they lowered my car exactly one inch front and rear. Since the install my car seems to spin the wheels more and feel less planted in the rear on acceleration... especially accelerating out of a corner. If I installed LCA relocation brackets would this control the power oversteer and wheelspin or would it make it worse? I noticed that the BMR brackets lower the mounting point 2 inches down even in the middle setting. If I were to install these and am already lowered one inch and installed the BMR kit it would be like lowering the axle side mounting point 1 inch down from stock, right? Would this cause any handling problems or imbalance having the LCA 1 inch lower at the axle side than stock? I don't drag race the car, just daily driving, autocross, and the occasional open track day. Any insight is appreciated...

Thanks,
Blair

 

they will make a drastic improvement

 

Roger that!

 

Hey Blair,

Ideally you wouldset your LCA's to be parallel to the ground for best road course and street handling. The problem is that BMR's LCA relocation brackets don't allow you to do this because they lack enough holes and holes in the correct place to set the LCA'sat the optimum angle for road course or street handling.This is why Steeda's LCA relocation brackets are a better choice for a road oriented setup like yours.Steeda's LCArelocation brackets have more holes and they start higher up to allow making the adjustment you need. BMR's brackets are designed for drag racers who are willing to give upbetterhandling to gain much more range in IC adjustments and launch time grip.

O.K. here is the trick, your carwith stock anti-roll bars, struts and rear dampers is normallyan understeering car when pushedat allincorners. The springs you installed are not going to change this balance much soyour car is going to push (understeer),a little or a lot depending on your speed. Your choice in springs is pretty tame and does not lower the car excessively. The S197's basic handling is mildly understeering when pushed and your car will have this basic attitude unless we change the anti-roll bar rates or settings.

Let get some information, look under your car and note the angle of the LCA's, do your LCA's point towards the rear of the car at an upward angle or are they parallel with the ground? If your LCA's are not parallel with the ground a very slight upward angle, say 2-3 degreestowards the rear of the car is preferable to the LCA's running down hill or pointing at the ground. The reason is the geometry of the S197's 3-link rear suspension will behave differently depending on this angle, up neutral or down. Ifyour LCA's point downward towards the rear of the car you will havean aggressive and unstable car that wants to turnhard into the corneras you entera turn at high speeds. As you exit the car will displayincreasing roll oversteer as you exit a turn when cornering hard. This means that you cannot get on the gas until the car is pointed in a straight line or the additional power will use up some of the grip available for cornering andthe back of the car will oversteer. A nervous cardoes not make forsmoothdriving when cornering fast andthis is bad for corner exit speed which is the secret to fast driving.

If the LCA's are parallel your rear axle will contribute a neutral steering feel and yaw throughout the corner and on exit willbe willing to rotate but not oversteer unless yiou are insensitive and hamfisted with the steering wheel and throttle pedal. This isideal for a street driven car and will be fast on the street and track because you can use throttle early in the exit of the corner and correct your cornering angle with the throttle pedal.

If the LCA's are pointed upward the car will have a very predictable solid feel because the rear axle isin a roll understeer condition.This means thatwhen the carenters a corner at high speedit will feel stable and resist turning in suddenlybut you will need to turn thesteering wheel more soonerto get thecar to rotate because the car wants to go straight and because it's basically an understeering car and the roll understeer makes the chassis slower to initiate turns. This is not ideal but it is also safeand faster than the roll oversteering rear axle because while you will be understeering you can still get on thethrottle sooner than the roll overstreering car setup but not as early as the neutral steer axel setup.

Hope this helps!


Cheers/Chip

 

Thanks for the reply F1Fan, that really helps. With the H&R springs the lower control arms are only slightly higher on the axle end. My concern was that if I installed the relocation brackets I would end up with a very loose, tail happy car. Seems like that will be that case with the BMR brackets so I will avoid this. This is my first rear wheel drive car so I an still learning how to handle oversteer. My first was a front wheel drive Nissan Sentra SE-R that wouldn't oversteer no matter what you did. My second was a Subaru WRX... I learned a few bad habits in that car that need unlearning such as hitting the gas too early in a corner. You can get away with that in an AWD car, not so much in a high powered rear wheel drive.

Thanks
Blair

 

Hi Blair,

You are quite welcome! The springs sound like they have your car at almost the perfect height to place the LCA's near theideal geometry. You should have a nice stable feeling rear end in a corner with no bad habits and a smooth slow breakaway at the limit. Just as you had suspected the BMR LCA relocation brackets would make your car nervous and somewhat unstable at high speeds when entering a corner. Leave your LCA brackets alone unless you change the springs to alower ride height. The only real problemwith the LCA's having changed their angle so much is that you have lost quite a bit of off the line traction or grip. This cannot be avoided but you can restore the rearend grip under accelleration by altering the suspension geometry. BMR makes a nice LCA mounting bracket thathas an additional mounting point to achive exactly this objective. By installing BMR's UCA mounting bracket and a fixed UCA and adjustable LCA's you will be killing two birds with one stone. The BMR UCA improves your rear tractionby moving the IC rearward and also controls wheel-hop with the improved bushings.
I hope this helps!

Cheers