yesti

Read on some online review that the tC rear end tends to kick out if you lift throttle exiting a fast sweeping turn. Anyone care to comment on their experiences with this? I got the trd rear sway bar and it is on 'street' for now until I get more info. Thanks.

Otocan

I don't even know what this "lift throttle over-steer" is, never experienced it in my life in my tC, even before I installed the TRD springs, shocks and rear sway bar - I'm guessing it's exactly what it sounds like though, the back end comes out while turning when you stop accelerating suddenly in a turn - but going by the laws of physics, that would obviously happen in any car because of the weight shift forward and gravity, maybe it's just more noticeable compared to the modena's and the ME 412's and Volta's the reviewers are used to driving

but I can tell you I take corners in my car faster and harder than any other car I've ever driven with that setup, and I'm getting to the point of control where I can feel the stock tires quitting on me.... kinda sad really, you end up adapting to the conditions and then you see a weak point that needs to be fixed.... but, that's the human body for you =)

yesti

Thanks, here's one review that mentioned it, though not the original one I read:

http://www.automobilemag.com/reviews...2005_scion_tc/

"That double-control-arm, independent rear suspension contributes to entertaining handling that allows some lift-throttle oversteer at the limit."

I came from an 85 civic with springs, shocks, strut bar and no rear sway bar so I'm used to understeer at the limit where you let up a little on the gas and everything is just fine. And since the stock tires on the tC suck in the wet weather we have been having I'm a little weary about flying the car around like I did the civic. I just gotta get more used to the car.

PS love the sig. how creative the mind is at filling in the gaps.

sdparks

yesti, as you may know, oversteer can be useful in setting up for a turn or for a correction in mid-turn. The idea is to bring the back end of the car out some, rotating the car to point in the right direction. Most cars are designed to understeer so badly that oversteer cannot be induced. With a fairly neutral front wheel drive car, however, oversteer can be induced by lifting off of the throttle, especially at higher rpm with a manual transmission (greater engine braking will cause more load to transfer to the front, reducing grip in the rear). In a rear wheel drive car, this can also be achieved by adding enough power to cause the rear wheels to slip, which is much more fun.

Unless you are entering turns too fast, and then reacting poorly by lifting, you shouldn't have an oversteer problem. But this is why cars are designed with so much understeer in the first place. Remember, slow in, fast out.

As far as lifting at the exit of a fast sweeping turn, that just sounds like trouble to me.

I have the TRD suspension, with the bar on the 'race' setting, and haven't had any oversteer problem on the street. I plan on taking the tC to the track in February, so I'll have a chance to experiment with oversteer there.

You are right, the stock tires are junk. A good, inexpensive upgrade is the Fuzion ZRi. Made by Bridgestone and roughly equivalent to the RE-750. You can get them for about $80 for the stock size.

yesti

thanks, hope to read a post after you've taken it to the track. i'm guessing the auto is far less prone to oversteer than manual? <embarassed> probably worrying for nothing. can't wait to change these tires, thanks for the suggestion.

mfbenson

I wouldn't say the rear end lifts so much as the front end dives. Maybe its just semantics, but that's the seat-of-the-pants feel that I get from it. It induces oversteer because suddenly the front end is getting a lot more traction than it was under throttle.

I have the stock suspension, and I can feel the back end being just a bit on the verge of coming out. I haven't actually had the back end come out, but maybe I'm not quite driving it hard enough.

The car I test drove had the TRD springs and struts, and had been lowered. It was pretty harsh on bumps, but it was PLANTED in the curves...

yesti

Hey thanks for the informal review of the trd struts/springs. I want to lower the car an inch or so, probably with prokits, but i don't want to worsen the already bumpy ride (there i go blaming the rims/tires again) with stiff struts/shocks. But I need to upgrade them or else the springs will make short work of the stock shocks. Such a dilemma...hopefully tokico or koni will come out with adjustable shocks for our cars soon.

mfbenson

I drove it pretty hard in my test drive. Made the tires squeal in the curves and I couldn't get it to feel like it was even close skidding either the front or the rear and actually losing traction. I also braked in straight-line hard enough to engage the ABS and the front end didn't dive as much as the stock suspension does on mine, although in stopping distance I think it makes no difference. As far as the harshness of the bumps all I can say is consider how the roads are in the area you usually drive in. If the roads are bad I'd say forget about the suspension mods. If the roads are pretty good then go for it. The roads where I am are so bad that even with the stock suspension its a bit of a jolting ride. The tC is heavy enough that it glides over the big bumps better than a lot of cars, but the suspension is sporty enough that you feel every single little bump..

.

pkoule

Most any car will kick the tail out if you lift the throttle at the cornering limit. That's just the way it is. Front drive, rear drive all wheel drive..it's vehicle dynamics and weight transfer wanting to make your car swap ends.

yesti

I would have to agree with sdparks:

Our cars seem to be setup more towards neutral than most fwd's with a little understeer for safety. But me changing only the rear sway bar set me up to possibly cross that threshold and venture into the possibility of oversteer if driven carelessly at the limit, especially at the stiffer setting.

Mfbenson drove a car with springs/shocks (but not the sway bar, right?) and the car was more firmly planted as can be expected and showed no tendency to break loose--so like stock, but stickier.

So doing the entire spring/shock/swaybar package should raise the cornering limit, but at that higher limit the car should break loose in the rear depending on the sway bar setting and driver input. Maybe we'll hear definitive results from sdparks when he takes it to the track in February.

Thanks all for the posts, they've been most helpful! :D

mfbenson

It was springs, shocks, and lowered, but no sway bar. Much crisper than the stock setup.

I don't know that the sway bar would have done much for a car that already had performance springs and shocks and was lowered. The sway bar helps cars that lean in the curves, and this one already leaned less (in fact, it barely leaned at all - in the curves the sensation was a true lateral g force, not a leaning sensation at all) than the stock setup. If everything else is stock then of course its a different story, the sway bar ought to be a noticeable improvement.

Some cars a sway bar doesn't do that much for it. I used to have a '73 mustang mach 1 that I actually *broke* the sway bar on, and I barely noticed any difference. Scared the heck out of the guy in car with me when it happened, and thinking back on it I should have been scared too. I remember him commenting that he thought I was going to roll it, and at the time I was just trying to figure out why I suddenly had so much more body lean than I was used to... that car was set up for straight-line runs, not curves anyway.

mfbenson

Oh, and before anyone calls BS on breaking a sway bar, a few details: This wasn't like a modern 3/4 inch sway bar, it was about 3/8ths, and it wasn't the sway bar itself that gave - I sheared one of the bolts on the end link. There was an aftermarket kit to put one on that was about 5/8ths that was supposed to be able to transfer more load than the one I had but I never got around to getting it. I just repaired the one I had and stuck with it.

uncompiled

Otocan: Do you happen to study linguistics at all? I studied it at the University of Maryland, College Park. They have some very bright faculty over there, i.e. Lasnik & Crain. Maybe you just heard the quote in your signature from somewhere, but it was worth a shot. ;)

yesti

With springs and shocks you will get some degree of roll control, mostly due to the stiffer shocks (especially since the trd springs are progressive). The civic i had before has a stock front sway bar, adjustable shocks/springs (progressive in the rear) all around and no rear sway bar. Stock, the car had gobs of understeer. With the front shocks set to 2 (out of 5) and the rears set to 4 the car was almost neutral. BUT the only problem with controlling lean with your shocks is the ride gets HARSH. I wouldn't even think to put the rear shocks on 5 to see if I could get it more neutral as various essential organs were already complaning with them set to 4 after 2 weeks. For the most part I had the rears set to 3 and it was stiff, but bearable. Sway bars accomplish the same thing but are far less intrusive to ride quality as they only do anything when one side of the car is higher/lower than the other. If you are just going over a bump the bar simply moves up and down with everything else.

Since the tC is kinda bumpy already (or maybe I'm just getting too old) I wanted to control lean with the sway bar and have the rear shocks set to stock stiffness so that I don't kill the ride quality. Don't get me wrong, stiff is fun but sometimes i just want to get where i'm going without being forced to do a mental pebble count as I drive there

Pete

Nobody's going to call BS for breaking _anything_ on a 73 Mustang. Sorry, couldn't resist.

mfbenson

"Nobody's going to call BS for breaking _anything_ on a 73 Mustang. Sorry, couldn't resist."

Ha Ha. My best quarter-mile run ever in that car was 13.92 @ 101 MPH... beat it in a tC and I'll be impressed.

The mustang didn't get truly bastardized until '74 when the mustang II came out. '73 was past the true glory years, but it wasn't horrible, not by a long shot.

Although in honesty that car had as many replacement and aftermarket parts on it as it did original equipment... had to fix so many broken things on it that eventually it wasn't fun to work on anymore it just became a chore. So yeah, your joke has some truth to it...

mfbenson

Update:

Found it!

Yes, if you take a tight turn WAY too fast while your tires are wet and the road is slick, you can indeed have the back end come out with nearly no warning. "Twitchy" is a perfect word to describe it. Even then, it recovered quite quickly. Of course, I looked like a fool trying to keep up with the 350Z (that presumably had dry tires, I had JUST finished washing my car) that was having no problem.

yesti

So basically you have to do everything in your power to get the a$$ to swing loose. You have stock suspension? Guess one could fiddle with tire pressures to increase rear grip a tad. Wonder if the tire pressure monitoring system will approve of the constant tinkering ;)

mfbenson

Oh I was asking for trouble alright... but like I say it recovered just as quickly as I got in trouble in the first place. Come to think of it the water on the tires might have been a tad soapy... that would make it really slick.

If I ever have this problem with dry tires I think a tire upgrade will be my first step, before the suspension upgrades.

I guess what surprises most about it is that I was expecting understeer, and instead I got oversteer...

yesti

I am slowly feeling a little more daring and I took a turn just a little faster than I otherwise would and I :think: the back end creeped just a bit then got back down. So if that is true it is pretty easy to get it to rotate even with the trd bar on 'street'. Seeing how you got it to break traction stock it is only more oversteer from here on unless I stiffen up the front.

I can't complain enough about the stock tires. :oops: Just waiting to scrub down the fronts so I can use the backs for spares and get some better stuff on there.

Seeing how the tC is aimed at first time car buyers, one wonders why it is set up to spin (well, rotate) bone stock??? Hopefully people don't go on too many unexpected rides thinking they are 'safe' with a FWD car.

I added 4psi to my rear tires since they were all at 33psi from the dealer. Firmed up the handling a little as well as the ride.