Corolla / Hotchkis Q - Toyota Nation Forum : Toyota Car and Truck Forums

Buurin · 10-06-2011, 06:35 PM

Took my Corolla to the track and fishtailed and spun out on the first lap

I have the Hotchkis sway bar set with 3 holes on each end of the rear bar, for 3 levels of stiffness. The end links are bolted to the middle of 3 holes. I did not use the stiffest hole because I have read that struts may break. What could happen if I moved the links to the stiffest hole? Would it help with what I experienced?

On the front I also have the TRD strut bar.

gold94corolla · 10-06-2011, 08:03 PM

So you oversteered? You need to stiffen the front sway bar and/or soften the rear.

***Salty_Dog*** · 10-07-2011, 07:35 AM

I have the Hotchkis's on mine as well, and when I was driving home from the shop that installed them, the tendency to oversteer was the first thing I noticed.

Solution? Practice my driving so when I did a turn, I took the oversteer into consideration. Now that I'm used to it, I no longer have a problem.

Oversteer: You hit the wall with the rear of your car.
Understeer: You hit the wall with the front of your car.
Neutral steer: You hit the wall with both ends of the car.

***PhatRoyale*** · 10-07-2011, 09:14 AM

Your tire choice will play a large role as well.

gold94corolla · 10-07-2011, 09:25 AM

as well as tire pressure, springs/suspension, weight distribution, etc.

Schubeedoobee · 10-07-2011, 12:06 PM

tire stagger, off throttle turn in, large rear/small front can all contribute.

it really depends on what part of the corner your spin initiated... give us a better description of the event.

Buurin · 10-10-2011, 08:47 AM

I have a ride video when this happened.

Let me figure out how to cut/upload it (it's recorded in 1080p

) and I'll post it for your opinions.

Map of the track

Schubeedoobee · 10-10-2011, 02:47 PM

which corner?
love to see the video... I can probably make the claim that if you have not been out to the track much, you probably got caught out by the of throttle lift... on a FWD car it loads the rear end and induces over steer. on a FWD car if your over steering because of excessive speed/over rotation, you are suppose to give the car as much throttle on as possible. this is counter intuitive and has the effect of PULLING the car through the corner and out of the over steer situation.

diametrically if you give a RWD car throttle at over steer, you induce more rotation.

Here is one of me in an over steering FWD situation where cold tires(I had just come out of the pits) and to much corner speed caused me to lift which caused to much rotation... the correct thing to do would have been to mash the throttle, but I had already run out of road so thing only thing to do was to try and manage the spin and come out inline with the road...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDOcNX1hJkQ

Press22 · 10-10-2011, 09:41 PM

I'd like to see the video :P

1jzdreamer · 11-28-2011, 12:07 AM

I know im a little behind, but Im running that setup and have been competing competitvely for years with it. If you want my alignment specs to dial in the car, pm me. the stock alignment with those bars will no doubt do that.