Petrie2001

Does anyone know if there is any way to stiffen the suspension on a 2000 RX-300? Every time I make a quick turn there is so much body roll. On my Acura, I put in thicker sway bars to reduce this body roll and loved the difference. Does anyone make sway bars for our RX? Or is there another way to make the suspension stiffer?
Thanks,
Peter.

willard west

17X8 wheels, wider +1 tires, 1" spacers.

RX300TC

That won't do much for body roll, bright boy. But of course you had to stick your opinion in.

willard west

Stiffen the suspension, it does.

RX300TC

Yea, ok Yoda.

Know the difference between sprung and un-sprung weight on a vehicle? I'm sure you do, the same way you finally got a clue what the viscous coupling is used for on the 4wd transfer case.

Pitiful.

wwest

is TC

Petrie:

The lower the tire sidewall (and the higher the tire pressure) is the less "spring" will be contributed by the tires.

RX300TC

Still more useless info from wild *****. The original point was to reduce body roll. "Every time I make a quick turn there is so much body roll. On my Acura, I put in thicker sway bars to reduce this body roll and loved the difference."

Petrie inadvertently asked to stiffen the suspension afterwards, changing the stiffness of the tires will not do much to reduce body roll, but will affect handling response. The tires/wheels are part of the unsprung components of the vehicle.

As Petrie already indicated, one solution is a stiffer sway bar. Another solution is to change the characteristics of the springs and struts (which is what a Silver Sport edition does).

Here's an idea:
http://www.tte.de/tuning/website/Acc...ring%20Springs

http://shop.store.yahoo.com/racinglab/lux98rxeibsp.html

Hope this helps,
TC

wwest

"petrie inadvertantly asked to stiffen the suspension afterwards...."


Oh, now I get it, you're criticizing ME for my lack of mind reading skills, why didn't you say so right at the begnning and leave it at that?

"Too much body roll", that's pretty much how I would have (inadvertantly, incorrectly{?}) described my first Lexus, a 92 LS with 15" OEM wheels. TC, I would swear in a court of law today that upgrading that car to 16" wheels and wider tread tires helped remove enough of that "pit of the stomach queasiness" that I would have mis-interpreted as body roll, that both my wife and I became much more enamored with the car.

In our "stable" at the time was an 85 Jeep Cherokee and a 78 911, so we had no good "standard" for comparison when we purchased the 92.

But, the question is, what does petrie think about all of this, are we both trying to be constructive and helpful?

mooretorque

I don't really have a dog in this fight, but I would point out that a wider stance could be thought of as creating a lower roll center, thereby decreasing body roll at a given yaw (turning) rate.

RX300TC

MT-

To a certain degree you're right, but not on the bullseye. Don't forget that the part of the vehcile that is rolling the most is the body, or basically all the parts of the vehicle above the suspension system. That's the trade-off for a comfy, compliant ride.

You could make the wheels infinitely wide-- but you still have the inertia of the sprung weight when going into the curves. Using your wider-stance on the wheels just means that the wheels will want to go one way (track the curve) and everything above them will want to go another way (tangent to the curve). Don't get me wrong, the wider tire stance does help some in handling, but doesn't attack the root cause of the problem (body roll).

Changing the characteristics of the springs or a anti-sway bar forces the sprung weight of the vehicle to more closely follow what the wheels are doing.

mooretorque

TC, that's much better phrased and more better correct, too. Thanks, my thinking was/is fuzzy after fun night on call.

willard west

A time when I was being towed (my 92 Jeep) behind a PU with big ballon "mud" tires. I remember watching him from behind and coming to the realization that most of his "body roll" was the result of all of the flexing of those tires.

When we arrived at our destination, I had told him which driveway to turn into, but it appeared to me he was going to overshoot to the next driveway so I started steering the Jeep to the left, "pulling" him left to "wake" him, or give him a heads up.

I remember thinking oops, I can't do this, as I watched the treads of those balloon tires roll under as the huge sidewalls "wallowing" due to my "moment" on the PU body.

Maybe 1" lower sidewalls don't help very much, but they do help.

LexRX

I'll have to agree with TC on this on, 100%. The logic is not hard to follow. Change the wheel and tire combo and all you have is tires that take the weight of the vehicle with less flex - there is still just as much body roll. All you're doing is changing the driving dynamics below the suspension - it's unsprung...doesn't help body roll.

*****, why can't you just admit you were wrong about something, in one way or another?

-Nick

RX300TC

It's his ego Nick. Folks like you, me, and others here genuinely want to help people enjoy their vehicles as much as we enjoy ours. ***** likes to hear himself talk/type. Always something to prove. Has buyer's remorse about his RX300 and wants everybody to be as pissed off as he is. Overall a pretty smart guy, but his fatal flaw is that he's not as smart as he thinks he is. Takes a big man to admit when he's wrong and ***** just ain't there.

willard west

"Every time I make a quick turn there is so much body roll."

TC, LexRX,

So, tell me, just how do you guys, setting in the drivers seat during a quick turn, tell the difference between "body roll" and tire sidewall "compression" on the outside of the turn and "lift" on the inside?

Lean out the window and have a look?