I know there are a few function>form guys out there.

Anyone know what the optimum height is for our cars to handle the best? I'm dropped on Supra Eibach springs right now, but I'm a little concerned it may be too low. Any help/suggestions would be awesome. Thanks!

 

Closer to stock height, the better it is as far as suspension geometry goes. Lots of supra guys out there are at stock height but with stiffer springs and their cars handle far better than most with lowering springs.

If I ever had to track my car, I'll be raising my car up to stock height for the sake of not killing the balljoints

 

3/4 of an inch to an inch lower is about ideal- I buddy of mine out here did a lot of experimentation on this with his supra with coilovers and had his best results around the circuit at that height.

 

Well I guess coilovers are next on the list then. After stickier tires of course. My fronts killed me yesterday. 320 treadwear is just awful.

 

how low is your car now from stock?

 

I'm running a Supra Eibach pro kit. It lowers the supra 1.2" in front and 1" in the rear.

 

There is no "best" height. As mentioned above, a lot is dependent on the suspension geometry. If you are serious about handling, you're going to want to end up going a lot further than just a spring swap. You should say your intentions for the car...are you going to track it regularly? Autocross? For a complete set of adjustable arms, coilovers, and sway bars, you're looking at around 7g's. That would be for a complete track ready set-up...you can subtract parts from their to get to the level of competition that you are going to use if you're not going to go all out.

 

I just daily drive it and do autocross pretty regularly (every couple weeks or so). Right now it does ok...it has lots of understeer, but I think that just has to do with the crappy front tires (Nexen N3000's with 320 treadwear). In the rear I'm running Hankook Ventus V12 Evo's and they're a bit better.

I was looking into picking up some 17" RPF1's or FN01RC's and some grippy tires as a track setup. I'm probably going to try out the Federal 595R-SR's. They're 140 treadwear and supposed to be about as good as the Kumho XS, but about 100 bucks less per tire!


I also heard they heat cycle pretty well, unlike many other soft tires (cough azenis cough) that get greasy after a few runs.

 

Lots of understeer? What is your current alignment spec? The stock alignment numbers allow quite a bit of understeer because of the somewhat large toe-in. Of course you can play around with your tires since it virtually cost you no money to pump/release air. Increase the rear tire pressure and decrease the front. Lots of things you can do to your car to make it understeer less.

 

I'm not sure. I haven't gotten it realigned since I put the Eibachs on. I was planning on getting a more aggressive alignment in the next couple weeks, but turns out I have to go to DC on Sunday until the end of August for an internship. I was thinking about doing around -3º in the front and -2º in the rear. Or however close they can get to those with no toe. Also, I heard I should max out the caster? Something about the wheels staying more level during cornering. I'll look into this too.

I have one more autocross on Saturday with this crappy setup, but hopefully I can get some tires and whatnot ordered and save up for an alignment and other things while I'm in DC.

EDIT: As far as tire pressures, on the last autocross I was running around 40 rear and 35 front and all four were wearing right to about the tips of the little arrows/wear indicator things.

 

Ended up getting a used set of Azenis on craigslist for 100 bucks, so I got some extra wheels to throw them on and painted them too!




I heard these don't heat cycle all that well and get pretty greasy if you take multiple runs back to back, or do a few laps on a track, but for my budget they should be fine. At least they're better than the UHP's I have for daily driving.