Quote:
Originally Posted by Volk Racing
Could you just add some sway bars and shock tower bars to remedy the understeer while keeping all 4 rims/tires the same, and still come out with the same effect as the reverse stagger?
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Those modifications will certainly help but also don't forget that most Legends don't have terribly bad understeer to begin with. My impression of FWD cars is that the vast majority can get away with same-size tires all around because the heavier front 'squishes' the front tires down for more contact patch anyways. I'm sure this helps quite a bit in most normal driving situations ~ the handling is only overwhelmed when the front tire grip is devoted more towards braking or accelerating (you can imagine why).
Keith is set up with most of the modifications you listed and he has described his Legend as wanting to oversteer so I imagine it doesn't take a radical wheel setup to get things going.
My setup is a pretty extreme case; I'll measure the contact patches (front and rear) tomorrow just to get a measure, but I estimate the front contact patches are nearly twice the size of the rears. I originally did NOT plan on such a huge stagger but since I managed to procure a full set of NSX wheels, I figured I'd give it a try.
I've driven around with it a bit and under normal driving conditions, it drives like any normal Legend minus the fact that rough roads are more punishing now (the wide wheels tend to pull left or right with cracks in the road) but this isn't the fault of the stagger ~ I think any wide wheels would tend to do this. However when the car is pushed (even moderately) it's completely different.
For starters (as I mentioned before) the car veers into oversteer pretty easily. It's not extreme sideways sliding or anything but there's a considerably different feel to the car, like the back is not following quite where the front wheels are. Accelerating brings it all back in line. Since this is all during daily driving so far, I can't tell how much an improvement it will be when I go to the mountains this weekend where I'll be accelerating/braking/turning up and downhill. The MAJOR improvement I've noticed is in braking although I can probably attribute this as much to the better tires as I can to the bigger wider wheels.
As far as looks go, absolutely no one has commented on the car yet except my girlfriend (yes the girl in the avatar
) and all she said is that my car looks smaller now
Maybe no one has said anything because there's nothing to notice or maybe everyone is horrified but is just keeping their mouth shut. I'll take pics with my camera phone tomorrow morning for a preview hahaha