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Originally Posted by John V
Jim you always have to think in terms of dynamics and weight transfer. When driving spiritedly, you're always either braking into a turn or accelerating out of it. The overall balance of the car determines how it handles this combination of inputs.
If one were to create a car which was perfectly neutral during steady-state cornering, it would be so loose as to be dangerous. Nobody would even want to race such a car because it would be so difficult to drive.
So overall, I disagree in that I don't think the Boxster really has any inherent built-in understeer. More frequently, the driver does.
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Hi,
Well of course I think in terms of Dynamics. Oversteer/Understeer is a dynamic phenomena, you cannot have it if the car is static.
But, you can have the car statically setup to produce either condition by the selection of Spring Rates, Tire sizes and pressures, Anti-Roll Bar size and deflection, etc.
The Boxster uses a larger Rear tire than Front as an OEM spec., this will create understeer. Higher Tire pressures in the Rear than the Front, again OEM spec and inducing understeer. It uses a smaller Anti-Roll bar in OEM spec than say the M030 suspension, again favoring understeer. Chassis Ride Height is higher in the stock setup than say the M030 one, again creating a higher CGH and thus greater understeer.
It doesn't matter that you
think or
feel the car doesn't understeer, it does, it
must, that's the way it was set up. Chassis Dynamics is a well understood science with predictable results. The US Market suspension settings, in fact, including those of the Sport Pkg., favor understeer much more than those of the ROW and ROW Sport Pkg. models do, just look at the differences in the alignment specs.
I'm not saying you cannot defeat or overcome this tendency toward understeer by changing some of the variables, or by driving style. What I am saying is that if you don't, the car will understeer...
Happy Motoring!... Jim'99
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