I installed Tein RAs on my '03 sedan and I have 225/45-17s tires. Everything else suspension wise is stock. I'm planning on getting the rear sway bar, and probably the front and replacing the stock end links.

Maybe the understeer is the same, and the coilovers just allow me to push harder in corners and that's why it feels like the understeer is worse, when it isn't really?

 

how did you set the ride height on your coilovers? i'd think that if the front was set higher than the rear, that it would cause the car to understeer more. otherwise i'd say that it shouldn't really do much to increase understeer.

 

You need a complete alignment done. Study up on specs and what the effect of changing each parameter does and have it custom aligned.

 

I took it to Wheel Works to get it aligned. I suppose that I can still go back to fine tune adjustments, but what to change? The following are the specs after the alignment:

LF RF
-.5 deg Camber -.8 deg
3.3 deg Caster 3.2
-.03 Toe 0.00

LR RR
- 1.7 Camber -1.8
-0.03 Toe -0.01

Could probably go a little more negative Camber on the front, but it should be okay.

 

The ride height was not adjusted by me. They are unchanged from when I received them from the previous owner. It doesn't appear that the front is higher than the rear. I will doublecheck this again.

 

looking at your alignment specs i suspect he problem is largely due to the camber settings you have. i run -1 in the front, and less in the rear (something like .5-ish). it also seems like they weren't able to get both sides of the car very close. i'd try auto innovations, they got mine within like 1/100th of a degree.

 

Wheel works is crap. I've had so many problems with them losing lug nuts, screwing up alignments and scratching my wheels. And beyond that, they will only align to stock specs... at least this is what the manager at he downtown-ish WheelWorks/TiresPlus in San Francisco told me.

Take it to a local, private business that you know has a good reputation. Then you can sit down with someone, explain what you've done to your suspension and work with them.

jason

 

i'd reccomend Auto Innovations in Milpitas, i had a really good experience with them and their prices are very reasonable.

 

Has any one with coilovers played with this parameter? Dropkick's answer seems to be the intuitive one but it could go the other way, more weight on the front could worsen things. Why does factory setup have so much more fender gap in front?

And a 3rd vote for Auto Innovations, for a cheap but good alignment.

 

i think the reason that there is such a large gap between the fender and tire in the front has to do with the ammount of suspension travel in the front. if you have the struts off the car, the rear struts are shorter than the fronts. i think that the stroke in the rear is shorter than the front.

 

yeah, i am. i didn't take any measurements when i installed my struts and springs, but i'm pretty sure it's the case.