In the past month I've seen a couple examples of RSB owners losing control of their car - the back end seems easy to tail out with the RSB, particularly in evasive manuvers. In other words, oversteer. Not good.

EDIT>> Turns out this wasn't an example. My mistake. Here's one example: http://forums.maxima.org/showthread....22#post2893622

Oh, and you can select more than one option.

 

thats called oversteer right??
-J

 

i havent had the problem. but i havent had to do many evasive manuvers.
im pretty sure its just the oversteer which is caused by the RSB. drivers are used to the steering responding a certain way. with the RSB the response is diffirent and drivers need to learn that.
i guess im saying its more the drivers fault not the RSB. the RSB isnt causing the car to loose control. the driver not being used to the change in steering response is causing the loss of control.

 

Yeah it happened to me not long ago. Took me a little by surprise, but now I know the limits. I really took the turn hard, but was able to come out of it fine. I wonder if any adjustments will help the oversteer any?? I am sure the FSTB also has something to do with it.

 

always looking fro a place to brag about your coilovers haha
-J

 

I have been noticing much more oversteer in my max lately. I thought that it might be from going up an inch in size on my rims though because it was never this drastic before the rims. Today going around my freeway on-ramp at almost 50mph I thought I was going to lose it half way so had to give it a bit of braking and immediately felt it buckle down after that. When I first got my rsb (1st mod), it felt more neutral than anything. It felt "to-the-point" when I steered and I liked it a lot. Now I put all the suspension goodies on top of it, its harder to tell what the RSB is doing.

 

well with adjustable shocks and struts if i feel any oversteer or understeer i can adjust them accordingly

but do you have a FSTB and how do you think it affects this??
-J

 

and im sure it is diffirent if you are lowered or not. i think that would have more impact then the RSB or FSTB.
when lowered the springs dont have as much movement. thats good in normal cornering (car doesnt "float") but in really hard turning (evasive manuvers) the outside wheel has a less likely chance of keeping good contact with the road. the back end would slide (tail out) easier since only one tire is keeping contact with the road.

 

Thanks for the input - But where's the vote?

 

does it make a difference which RSB you have?
because the stillen or knockoff mounts different than the progress, etc.

But in answering your question I have taken evasive turns in the last few months and my car is planted. I have the stillen knockoff

 

My car seems planted but i am riding on eibach a FSTB a RSB and the new lower tie bar. the tie bar seems to bring me back to nuetral. i recommend getting one if you have problems with oversteer

 

My car has felt 100% tighter in high speed turns. I take a curve on I205 at more than double the limit, even in the rain. Before the rsb I could only take it at about 15mph over the limit. Even in rain my back end has never fish tailed.

 

Where'd you get a lower tie bar? any links?

 

no, they all do the same thing - connect the trailing arms to the cross member to make suspension on both back wheels work together

 

slow down

 

I go the lower tie bar from matt blehm or www.mattblehm.com. I am not sure if he has pictuers up yet but he goes by matt93se on the .org. my car was the prototype car it adn i have praised him ever since.

 

http://www.mattblehm.com/suspension.html

 

I think you're onto something. Unbalanced suspension = trouble, IMHO.

I posted about this here too: http://forums.maxima.org/showthread.php?t=304191

IMHO, here's the effects of too much RSB in the back and not enough up front:



Check out how much the front swayed, but the rear RSB was so stiff it pulled the rear unloaded tire off the ground.

Same thing on a maxima if you throw a RSB on the back but do nothing for the front. The axels simply won't stay sqaure. IMHO, I think it's really important to know what you're doing when you mess with suspension. If you only make changes to one axel, I feel you are messing with fire.

 

how can you have "too much" RSB? do you mean too much stiffness?
and thats the effect of being lowered and having less suspension travel not just a RSB!!

like i said above" when lowered the springs dont have as much movement. thats good in normal cornering (car doesnt "float") but in really hard turning (evasive manuvers) the outside wheel has a less likely chance of keeping good contact with the road. the back end would slide (tail out) easier since only one tire is keeping contact with the road."

stock - too much travel and sides work indepentently when cornering (floating and car leaning out of corner)
stock + RSB - same travel but both sides work together when cornering to reduce floating
lowered + RSB - NO travel PLUS sides work together when cornering

 

Hey housecor,
This is partly why i still dont have a rsb on my car. I push my maxima to the limits and im scared i will get snap oversteer with a RSB. I'd much rather straighten the wheel and brake at 100 than try to coutersteer with fwd. This seems to be a fairly common issue with fwd cars and rsbs. I bet its more of an issue if the rest of the suspension is stock, because the rear is really stiff, while the rest of the car is loose as hell. Im thinking the lower tie bar might make a rsb work better with our cars, but i dont have one so i cant say.

I cant seem to find the video, but I had this vid of a civic with a RSB loosing control. Basically he swerved, put the back end out, fishtailed both ways, spun and ran a divider. The guy was going around 50, maybe less. It was really pathetic. The kid was probably a crapy driver, but a fwd car shouldnt fishtail like that.

 

2kGLE - I hear you. I've been very near purchase of a RSB more than once but have decided against it due to stories like those you just mentioned. Of course, it also helps that I can crank up the Illuminas if I really want precise neutral handling.

 

and im saying, you illuminas will cause more problems then an RSB in extreme cornering. the wheels have no play to keep contact with the road. if the corner of the car starts to come up, the tire is coming with it

 

Eversince I had the subframe connectors installed on my car, the handling is much more neutral. My car model is the GXE's, so the front sway bar is not as thick as the SE's from stock. But, the stage 3-SFC's does help somewhat stiffen the front end which helping to counteract the oversteer problem, mainly cause by the rsb's. I am waiting for Matt to finish fabricating the lower tight bar for the 5th generation. Anyone know of his progress?

 

I guess i wont be getting a RSB ill just save up for illuminas

 

he has a built prototype and i am pretty sure he has started to make them. He stated to me that he already had orders place and that he needed to work on them this past weekend so he is well on his way if not already there.

 

I'm not trying to instill some sort of panic here. I just posted a poll to see if this is a common issue. Judging by the responses so far, it's difficult to tell. Please don't jump to conclusions here - Many have RSB's and LOVE 'em.

 

What are illuminas?

 

y do you say illuminas will cause more problems?? elaborate
-J

 

For a car already equiped with a RSB, putting in a thicker one will increase the chance of a dog walk because it will twist less and transfer more spring rate from the unloaded corner. That's what I mean by "too much" RSB. Basically going past the orginal design. For a Max, since it wasn't designed with a RSB, just putting one on might be too much, especially for a trailing arm / single axel design like that on a Max.

Here's what I'm thinking:
We know that a sway bar basically transfers spring rate from an unloaded side to a loaded side. I'm guessing that any good suspension design will balance the spring rate on the axels. As soon as you change spring rate on a given axel, such as putting in a SB or a thicker one, you mess up the spring rate balance, so you end up with the front and rear axels leaning differently, you basically screw up the handling geometry as the car starts to sway. That will cause more over or under steer, and might even lessen traction. If you're an expert driver this might be desireable. If you put in a RSB and the first time you really dig into it is in an emergency, the car might behave unexpectedly.

I guess what it all boils down to is that it's very important to keep spring rates the same on all corners. If the front axel can sawy more than the rear, you might actually lessen traction on the rear because it will take more weight off the unloaded rear tire than stock.

I'm just throwing this out there, feel free to berate me if you think I'm a nut.

On the lowering part, I thought lowering helped with corneing by lowering the CG.

 

I got a Progress RSB complementing a Cattman FSTB. No problems. Car is planted on every high speed turn. Didn't notice what the car was doing in the back cuz I was so focus on making sure the car went in the direction I wanted it to and making sure I didn't hit anything or anyone.

 

when you corner, centrifugal force is pulling the car to the outside of the turn. the suspension will "lift" the side of the car that is on the inside of the turn. so outside springs are depressed and inside springs are at its most "open" or "expanded". if you see the car from the back you will see it leaning. this is suspension articulation and it ensures all four tires maintain contact with the road.

here is how that all works different on a lowered car
the springs are shorter and have less play. the difference in distance from depressed to open is a lot less. so when you corner the centrifugal force pulls the car to the outside of the turn. the car leans and the inside springs open up. but they have less distance that they can travel. when they hit the most expanded point, the centrifugal force is still pulling the car and the tires have no choice but to go with it will lose contact with the ground (LIKE THE ABOVE PIC OF THE VW ) . they might now leave the ground but they don’t have good contact.

here is how that all works different with a RSB
the springs are the same size and have the same amount of play. the RSB just makes both rear wheels depress and expand together. so when you corner the centrifugal force pulls the car to the outside of the turn. the car wants to lean but the RSB only lets the inside springs open up as much as the outside. this essentially “pulls down” the inside of the car and flattens out the turn.
the RSB "could" cause problem but you would have to corner ALOT harder.

here is another example. jack up one side of your car (this would simulate very hard cornering). the wheels on a lowered car will leave the ground sooner then normal springs because they have less travel. on a car with stock springs and a RSB, since the springs work together the springs on the other side would actually depress all the way to make up for it. it would take longer for the wheels to leave the ground

and after i typed all this i found this thats says the exact same thing (just better words )
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/question432.htm

 

I'm still not sure how this relates to the Tokico Illumina struts specifically. I'm using Illumina struts with stock springs, currently running the rears 1 step higher (feels better "balanced" IMHO), how would this affect me?
I'm also curious as to whether or not you truly can "balance out" the suspension by changing the Illumina setting... the Illumina setting adjusts the damping of the suspension, not the spring rate/stiffness itself right?

 

Good stuff, but one thing doesn't add up to me: Lowering springs do decrease the amount of available compression (since they allow the car to sit lower), but they don't lower the amount of available rebound. The suspension can still safely extend just as far as before the lowering. Therefore, I disagree with the claim that the lowered cars wheel would leave the ground before a stock car.

As you can see, the OEM spring and my Progress spring are the same height - the Progress spring is just designed to naturally compress more under the initial weight of the car. Again, the amount of available rebound isn't effected since the spring height itself remains the same.

 

shaddup!

 

This is my takes on this topic:

The key word is “weight transfer”. The rear sway bar that is design for our car is more or less a brace that tie the trailing arms together. Since most front wheel drive cars are "nose" heavy (60+% of distributed weight in front)...this so called rear wheel lifting effect under hard cornering is unavoidable especially w/aftermarket rsb's. The 4th-5th generation’s rear suspension is not an independent setup and was tuned for more under steer. Altering the OEM's design will produce unpredictable over steer that makes the rear to lift off ground causing the driver to loose control of the vehicle. This is why most manufactures tune the front wheel drive to have more under steer for safety reason.

IMO, the best compromise in handling would be to stiffen the entire structure of the car. Stronger structure results in better input to the driver therefore making the handling performance to be more predictable. AND that's just one of the many benefits of a rigid platform. There are much more but I am not going to list them here (research if you're interested).

You probably have read or seen advertising from car's manufacture to proudly brag about the "rigidity" of the new platform of their vehicle. The more rigid the structure, the better the car will communicate w/the driver. This statement pretty much applies to all objects that require one's input/control. I had done a lot of researches on this topic and this is why I'd done and will continue to install any "good" products that will enhance the overall structure of my car.

 

VMaximus02 - Good input. Where'd you pick up your SFC's and what $? Lemme guess: Blehmco? I'm interested.

 

I knew you didn't know much about cars, and you just proved it again. How does a FSTB help reduce torque steer again? Ah huh....yeah


~limsandy

 

Go to their website and check it out:
http://www.warpspeedperformance.com
I think they are still working on fitment issues w/the 5th gen.

 

I have no idea what you're talking about with the FSTB, get your facts straight. The voices in your head don't count as facts.

How did I prove I don't know anything about cars?

Let's see your proof that unbalanced spring rates *don't* affect handling.

Here's proof that they do:

http://forums.vwvortex.com/zerothread?id=573866

 

My RSB (Stillen) improved handling dramatically. Stiffening up the rear through a RSB alone CAN result in oversteer when "pushed". Car manufacturer's typically design a car to have understeer when pushed as it is easier / safer to control, particularly with inexperienced drivers.

You can reduce the oversteer by transferring weight to the back of the vehicle...accelerate. This is counter-intuitive to most people (you naturally want to brake, transferring weight to the FRONT of the vehicle, which will INCREASE oversteer). Again, another good reason for car manufacturer's to naturally favor understeer.

I've read that an independent front suspension with a solid rear axle (read: 5th generation Maxima) are particularly difficult to balance.

Sway bars (or, rather, better described as ANTISWAY bars) are typically replaced in PAIRS, so that both the stiffness of the front AND rear are increased proportionally. I have only seen the RSB offered by Stillen.

Find your limits (and how to control) by PRACTICE, ideally on a skid pad rather than on the street. Autocrossing is another good way to quickly learn your vehicle's (and your) limits safely, such as through SCCA sanctioned events.