nderwater wrote:
The only Nubira I've ever had the chance to flog was a '98 like yours, but I found it to be prone to snap-oversteer at the limit. Unsettling, compared to the Lanos and Leganza I drove at the same time. What mods have you made to your suspension so far?
I have full poly bushings front and rear. I run 1.5 degrees negative in the front, 1 degree in the back. Front is zero toe and rear is 2mm toe out. Next time I go to the track, I'm probably going to double that rear toe out figure.
I run non adjustable Bilstein shocks along with 500 lb springs at all four corners. I don't run any swaybars front or rear. And no, the car doesn't have that much body roll. I have never achieved more than 2.7 degrees, and that was in a very high mu, cambered corner.
The front is lowered about 1 inch and the rear is lowered .5 inches. Next time I go to the track I'm going to lower the rear a little more as well. With the new, better tires, it is on the edge of jacking during sudden transitions.
I have modeled the suspension too, if that helps. The one thing I've noticed in particular is that my car seems to have abnormally high roll centers, particularly in the rear. The roll center axis is also pretty steep, which could explain the snappiness you experienced.
As it sits, the car is very stable and it's killer through transitions, but unless I do a Scandanavian flick or trail brake from high speeds, it's just not very adjustable. And it never plows unless I have people in the back seat.
As far as grip, I seem to have higher cornering speeds than the other guys on street tires that I run against.
... all this was with very stiff rear springs ( at least stiff for a street driven car )
To the point that at rest it has 1 degree of positive camber on all four corners.
