Quote:
Originally Posted by thstone
Can you give me some suspension mod suggestions to help with the understeer? The car already has the full JCW suspension upgrade.
And to be fair, the first place to start might be the tires, the car currently has a set of nice Toyo Proxes4 all-season tires but they really aren't meant to get the most out of the car in the corners.
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Tires certainly matter, but for a FWD car a way to improve the handling is through a larger and/or stiffer rear sway bar. Not sure if the JCW package has one already, but if it does you'll want to find out if the rear bar is solid or hollow. A hollow sway bar has to be significantly larger in overall diameter in order to match the torsional stiffness of a smaller diameter bar that is solid. Hollow bars are usually used to save on weight, but the compromise tends to be some stiffness loss to keep from having to make it huge and essentially negate the weight savings.
It's pretty safe to assume that a JCW package for the car likely already has some sway bars added front and rear, but it doesn't mean one could not still improve here. Seeing as the Cooper is already incredibly lightweight and not short on power, it wouldn't hurt to add a larger diameter solid rear sway bar than what may or may not already be there, if there is one available.
I found some options available on THMotorsports' website. You may want to have a look around to see what's available. 19mm seems to be the most common size available for the rear and in the $200-250 range, and I am assuming they're solid because a hollow one that size would basically be worthless. Some are adjustable.
This should significantly improve the handling, make the car more neutral, and actually can increase its ability to oversteer rather than push.
