Autocrossing my spit, it still tends to get loose at inappropriate times.
That is with race shocks, swaybars, springs, and R tires.
With street tires, I could regularly go end for end at will. I kind of miss
those days.
First and foremost, never lift the throttle in the middle of the turn, as
was suggested before. The car is very sensitive to throttle off oversteer,
which can actually be quite helpful in come corners.
Second, stiffer front springs are the only way that the oversteer can be
corrected. Playing with increased negative camber to ~2deg may help, but it
is tire dependant. I am running 480lb/inch springs right now which almost
correct the oversteer but puts me very close to understeer situations in
some corners. [stock spitfire springs are 180lb/in for reference]. So
really I took a big step up in stiffness, which really really shows up on
the street. This close to what all of my math suggested would be the ideal
front spring rate, depending on what you pick as the ideal wheel rate and
the adequacy of the motion ratio calculations. I don't think I will go
stiffer, although I have had some math suggest that 530lb/in is ideal.
If anyone has a good way to stiffen the rear, I would be interested in
hearing it.
Third. If you installed a new rear spring or had it re-arched, put the old
one back on. The "DREADED SPITFIRE SAG" is really the best thing you can do
for the spitfire's handling. I am running at about ~4deg neg rear camber
currently. The lower the rear gets, the faster I go.
The spit rear has that dreaded jacking problem that only Joe Currey fixes if
you don't want to go lower.
Finally: bigger tires, bigger tires, bigger tires. The stickier, the
better. Spitfires should be nowhere near anything that comes with a M+S
rating or is stamped with those dreaded all season markings.
I hope this helps.
jim
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