Tires questions/opinions and their effects.

[joecheez]

I posted two questions in the same thread and am thinking that was a viewability miscue. Please give me your opinions and or facts(stating which you think is which would help too) about tires and how they effect the way a car rolls over uneven/painted/screwed up road. Thanks for anything.

Along with all the things I wanted tweaked to be just right is the handling, especially up high mph's, I know tires roll over painted lines and grooved lines but mine is acting more skidish then it ever was or most cars I drive anyway. I feel as if in the turns the wheel gets to a certain point and the car will easily just flip around and the back end will start doing circles, is this under or oversteer anyhow, and how do I fix it??? Could the FS GTS be that bad, I will buy some faulkens but I just thought they handled fine but lasted allot less miles or time then other tires. Also had shop guys say those tires wil lnever stay on the ground after the turbo either.

"You mean like it wants to go both directions, had a guy say that won't go away unless you change those crummy tires." Also said I should have the alignment out of wack, so the tires don't wear right, for best handling setups.

[BullShifter]

If the back wants to come around(loose) that is oversteer. I would start by an alignment. If your rear struts are set stiff you may wish to soften them for reduced oversteer.

[joecheez]

Originally Posted by jackasssi

If the back wants to come around(loose) that is oversteer. I would start by an alignment. If your rear struts are set stiff you may wish to soften them for reduced oversteer.

I was told this was understeer last night so now I am confused again. How can I have the struts too stiff when they were regular tokikos until last night as well, we just put in illuminas whioch have high adjustment but I am not sure if that is ride adjustment as wel on them. I have had the car aligned more times then I care too and the guy last night said you need to wear tires incorrectly to handle the best. I am really looking for some input on the firestone GTS tires and whether they are crap or not and or could be causing some of the skiddishness.

[BullShifter]

Understeer=front end pushes, does not want to turn
Oversteer=rear end wants to come around, wants to turn easily

Well looking @ your sig it says Illuminas & that is why I said too stiff! Illuminas have dampening adjustablitly.

Yea for the best handling you want negative camber which wears tires. Why do you need the max handling when you cant even drive your car safely @ it's limits on the street? Race alignment & street alignment should be kept seperate unless you like replacing tires too often.

If you want good handling, the first thing I would suggest is driver training - www.racingschools.com www.scca.org or a wonderful book called How to Make Your Car Handle

[joecheez]

Thanks Jack I understood why you mentioned the back being too stiff but drove the car Saturday after the rears were replaced and it is much better on the stiffest setting(5) according to Russ the guy who put them in. He is helping me and the previous struts were tokiko but not illuminas, it did seem a bit stiff but I could probably live with it that way.. We got rid of 98% of all the cutting out and stuttering and jumping forward that was going on with repklacing the wires and msd products. It is running good, has allot of torque but with 9.5 to 1 is is lazy yet and just not strong enough until the damn turbo goes in.

No opinion on the firestone tires though??????????