At Topeka this year I had a major bicycling experience in my EP Civic. All
summer long I had been chasing a set up. Kept making little adjustments
each event trying to cure a low speed push. Since bias ply slicks don't
like camber, I kept taking negative out of the front, and kept cranking
rear sway bar in. In the beginning of the year I had changed camber
plates, moving the upper strut mount considerably higher. I was also
raising ride height, since torsion bar Civics like suspension travel. Of
course I was doing all of this without thinking one bit about what this
fiddling was doing to the roll center.
Weeeeelllllllll, on the slowest corner on the North Course (decreasing
radius right hander, with a bump at the apex) I went up at about what felt
like 30-45 degrees from horizontal. John Thomas saw it and said it was up
two or three feet. In my case it was totally slow motion. It felt like
being in a plane lifting off the runway. Only it wasn't. I had time to
consciously think....OK, I'm WAY up...steer out SLOWLY. I came down so
gently it wouldn't have even spilled a drink. I was way off course, but in
one piece, to be able to go thrash before the next run to put camber in and
lower the ride height to get the CG down.
One of the winter projects is to take weight out of the car to be able to
put more ballast on the right side. My 210 lbs is alot on the left side,
especially with the motor in the left front corner too. One look at the
roll center diagram in my Fred Puhn book and I knew what I had to do fix
the geometry.
My only advice is if you get two up, be prepared to toss the run. Don't
even think of being a hero. Steer downhill, and good luck.
Rob Foley
|