For local members, the location was the 85 north on ramp from 75 south in Atlanta.

I know how big of a curve it was, and I slowed down to about 50-60. I was in third gear, and I was keeping that speed around the curve. Most cars do about 45 around it...but I guess I was goin faster than average. Anyway I start cutting the wheel and all of a sudden my back end slides out to the left....I was like OH MY GOD! Smoke filled up the cabin almost instantly from the tires burning across the pavement....I was kinda indecisive about what to do since this hasnt happened to me before...

But I just cut the wheel the opposite way, and gravity did the rest...it just kinda straightened out after a second or 2 of sliding. Whew!

 

I did the same thing, In a 1996 taurus GL in the rain. It completely caught me off guard...I did what you did, and no damage at all. Phew

 

thats why you need wide tires in the rear..

 

HA, 8.5" wheel with 245/40/18s seem wide enough - apparantly not

 

driffffft......

 

I came close to doing it myself when I first went around it. It can certainly be a white knucle surprise for those who go cookin around it for the first time.

Atlanta seems to be chock full of knarly corners. The first time I went flying up the Freedom Parkway exit off 75/85 S, I almost hip checked the bridge. The Dekalb Ave. exit off Moreland in L5P is a wicked one too.

Glad you and your rig are safe and sound, nice recovery.

 

245/40/18s and you still slid!? dang, thats crazy - glad youre ok

 

What other suspension mods do you have?
Jae

 

fwd cars rock

 

After reading the title to this thread I have one thing to say.

Did ya even stop and think, maybe your suspension set up caused the over steer and loss of control? Rear a bit to stiff, jittery ride because of added anti sway bars and such. What about those high performance low profiles your running? Shouldn't all that stuff make it handle much better?

Hummm
So why did it loose control in the first place?

Should this thread really be titled "Sprints saved my life today" or did the set up almost get ya in trouble in the first place?

 

I think if I was on stock suspension I would have lost it completely. Sprints making it lower (duh) and easier to control w/ almost no body roll to make me slip off the steering wheel or shifter

 

fstb
rsb
sprints/kyb

 

cool bijangxe, glad your safe and the max. you know you always wanted to slide around on that ramp. good job for not wrecking

 

Rest stabalizer bar on a lowered, stiff (KYB) set up.
There are multiple threads about the rear letting out early because of the RSB.

Most cars do about 45, you lost it at only 50 - 60 MPH?

My BMW could probably do a 45 mph curve comfortably at 70 totally stock.
Bet my Max does that as well.

What really caused you to loose it around that curve with a performance set up?

Think about it, you really weren't pushing the car that hard.......

 

I think the 'performance' setup helped me....meaning I didnt lose complete control of the car because it's a lot lower. If I would have lost control and/or spun out into a 180 * or 270* spin.....things coulda been a lot worse.

Am I wrong?

 

No, your statement is correct.

But find the root cause of "WHY" your car let go so soon and suddenly.
You see, if you figure that out and correct it, you woun't loose it under those conditions ever again.

See where I'm going with this?

 

good save bijan, those ramps can be killer sometimes.

 

That happened to me the other day, scared the **** outta me.

 

heck ye

 

happened to me i was going 50, on damp road, and fawken totaled the car, but hey its fixed now, just looking for some air bags.

btw i have eibachs and illuminas, the i was turning on the turn haard, and the car just oversteered into the dam curb, but hey my tires were bad

 

Is that why the new V8 powered Pontiac Grand Prix GXP uses 255/45-18 tires in the front and 225/50-18 tires in the rear?

Also, bottoming out the rear suspenion at full lateral acceleration causes the spring rate at that corner to go to near infinity, which results in massive slip angles and thus...oversteer.

 

Im not trying to argue... But - you're saying oversteer is caused by stiff suspension?

 

what brand tires you got?

maybe your rear is to stiff like posted above?

What i noticed that realy can make your car loose it is the cracks or bumps on ramps , turns, and bridges, no matter how wide a tire some of the those cracks are just huge, in my area at least.

 

Nankang SUPER duper tread

PEOPLE......this is how you spell;

lose = opposite of find
loose = opposite of tight

 

It really does sound like your modified suspension is what caused the oversteer. The stock Maxima understeers like a pig and if you were stock, the front wheels would have started squealing, you would have backed off the throttle and taken the corner with no drama.

A stiff aftermarket suspension with a RSB could have bottomed out or just been too stiff for the bumps and would definetely cause a bit more oversteer.

 

What are your front/rear kyb settings?

Like others have mentioned, I'm concerned about my setup. I've got sprints with tok illuminas set to 5/5, 17x7.5 volks, 235/45-17 kumho 712. I'm already getting some oversteer from bumps, so I wonder if I should drop the rear illumina a notch and forget getting an RSB.

When I look back, I shoulda stayed with stock springs, get Tok Illumina and rsb... fstb would be optional depending if I need it. Oh, and get the upgraded wheels/tires.

I had Nankang NS-1 before my 712. Before the Nankangs I had Azenis Sport. The Azenis can't be compared w/much, they are sticky as heck on dry, sorry as heck on wet. The Nankangs worked ok in rain (they're all-seasons, the NS-2 are summers). In terms of grip, they are pretty good, but once they slide they feel slick and it's hard to get traction again. The 712 is a compromise of the 2 other tires but I don't think the sidewalls "give" as much as the NS-1.

Jae

 

I see somebody is on track with what I'm trying to say.

We modify our car's suspension to make the car handle better, but in some cases we go to far and cause a condition that truly makes the car handle worse or makes it handle unpredictably. An understeer is much easier to control then an oversteer. In reality you want the car to be neutral and let you know when it's going to loose it via feedback. A sudden loss of control caused by the rear simply letting go is a problem with the suspension set up.

If you retune your set up by removing or adjusting components, you can make the car more neutral. That might make it handle better and give you the feedback you need in order to know when you've hit the handling limits of the vehicle.

bijangxe, try this..
Take the RSB off and drive the car around for a while. Take that same curve several times and really pay attention to how stable it tracks. You might have just a slight bit more body roll, but the rear beam set up keeps the wheels completely parallel to the road regardless of body angle. The reduced unsprung weight of the suspension and the ability for it to be slightly more active really can help it work better at controlling your vehicle.

That might be all you need to do to keep your car from spinnng out unpredictably like that. You might enjoy the better ride quality as well.

 

You may have simply hit something slippery like oil or coolant, especially if you have taken that ramp before with NO issues. Do you remember the LINE you took thru the turn? IF you're trying to hug the inside all the way around AND MAINTAIN your speed, you CAN get the car loose, because it wants to go to the OUTSIDE. So even if you're in your lane, if you by any chance got your inside wheels over the yellow line (where there's all manner of trash and debris) that could cause it too.

 

If you recall MING an OG member here had an unfortunate accident from the same situation happening and I believe it was blamed all on the RSB. I could be mistaken about the culprit of that accident but as Tom was saying in this thread RSB's are known to allow the car to give far to early than it should have if it werent installed. You made your rear suspension unnecessarily stiff making it easier for it to come around if it was put in a situation it couldnt handle.

+1 Tom, does this type of thing for a living I would take his word for it.

 

I agree with taking the RSB off to give a little more flex to the back. Should make enough of a difference.



Driftin on 85 must have been scary. Those off ramp bumps are serious, they need to smooth them out, especially some on 400 North.

 

Listen to NJMax. Clearly the RSB is the problem. It's a widely acknowledged problem that the RSB causes "snap" oversteer. No one else on this thread seems to know this. Without RSB, the rear will gradually start to lose traction and let you know so you can catch it in plenty of time. With RSB, you lose the margin of error and suddenly you'll find your self skidding as you did. Take off the damn RSB, it's a terrible mod.

 

It was actually on the car when I bought it, but yea its comin off now.

 

^^^^^ nice 2000 posts

dang, i love my RSB.... its seems to make a big difference at lower speed turns - ive never encountered a situation like bijan tho. i remember the thread one of the Daves on this site posted about the RSB saying something like if you are lowered beyond like 1.5 (approx) it could cause problems. am i correct in saying this? i have progress springs (1.7 and 1.5) rsb and fstb and i think the setup is pretty neutral - ive never lost control taking some pretty aggressive turns. whats the consensus on this RSB. im speaking from my limited experience in other modded maxes. thanks guys

 

I have run the RSB on the stock SE suspension for a while. It did give the whole car a bit more of a stable feel around nice sweepers and such. The rear did however become jittery. This remains the same even when your lowered on sport springs. The jittery handling and ride is actually the rear suspension being bound up to tight. Sport springs tightens it up even more and makes it even worse as far as I'm concerned.

The best "improvement" I've done to my car's H&R set up was to take off my rear stabalizer bar. The ride is far better, much less darty and the car lets you know when it's reaching it's limits.

 

RSB's aren't good for beam axles. There's not a lot of body roll with beam axles from the start so when you add stiffer springs, it magnifies the handling effects. Add the RSB and you get what a lot of people have gotten. They aren't needed on our car.

 

very true. I believer the RSB on my 98 max cause me to total it. My lack of experience contributed to it but the if i didnt have the RSB on it would have been able to recovery it.

The maxs rear end slide out as i was comming around a turn and ran into some black ice. The back kicked right out. i was able to get it back straight but as soon as it got straight, it snapped back the other way. Sent me into a telephone pole and onto the roof the car. This was going no faster then 40mph. Yes if i was a more experienced driver i would have thought of ice in advance, but being 16 and having a full car after the schools rival basketball game it just wasnt on my mind. Thankfully every 1 was fine.

I havent put a rsb on my this max. im debating on it though.

 

aren't you comparing apples to oranges?

 

Umm You can also get the maxima to oversteer WITHOUT a rear sway bar...

 

alot of people don't realize that with susp. mods you gain more control on the car at high speeds however traction becomes a problem that arises more and more the stiffer your car becomes {stiffer springs,shocks,rsb,undercar links}especially when turning why? ok,, on a stock susp. there is soft springs flexable body so when you turn alot of the weight transfer effect gets absorbed by the springs and the body leans to the other way by the time that effect reaches the tires you're allready turning back but with stiff susp. springs absorb so little of the weight transfer and most of it gets transferred to the tires on the opposite side of your turn really quick and stress builds up till your tires lose traction or your car isn't turning anymore,, so the more you modify your suspension the more attention you should pay to tires quality and wheels width i hope i make any sense

 

oh i forgot,, sprints might actually be the reason why this happened