2006 Xa Handling

[bonosurf]

Okay I like this car as a daily driver/commuter but the handling is ... well, in need of improvement. I bought the car new and it is stock - I did order the 16" wheels.

I have a 63' Porsche 356 which handles better than this car (assuming you understand the term trailing throttle oversteer). Actually the Xa seems to have a touch of overstreer on wide seeping turns, it can get unstable at freeway speeds when changing lanes/direction very quickly and it really gets pushed around in windy conditions.

I don't want to turn this poor little car into a street racer just want some ideas on making it handle beter. So with that said.........what about tires (must be all season), sway bar, tower struts, shocks, etc,etc??????

THX

[HATEnFATE]

Honestly, wider tires make a LOT of difference with an xA.

The Stock suspension is usually pretty sufficiant for a DD. You can do the usual Sway bars and new shocks and springs.....that will stiffen it up a little and maybe keep the tail under control a little better.

[Southern_Boy]

I am on Tanabe DF210's, a 2.2" drop all around. Hotckis Front Sway Bar. And the springs alone helped me alot! The Front Sway Bar is a PAIN!!!! to put on. Go with a Strut Tower Bar instead. You will go through less Tylonol that way. Also a Rear Sway Bar helps major. Gets rid of ALOT of body roll in the bar because there is no support back there to help it out.


Hopes this helps

[Ne0z31]

K-sport coilovers are cheap and effective. I love mine. and it gets rid of the DSM wheel gap look

[blu3diamonds514]

ummm southern boy theres some things wrong with ur statement. first never substitute a strut bar for a sway bar. and second sway dont really help with body roll(I will explain). with that said strut bars are just a support to keep the chassis from twisting. these cars gave uni bodies so there not as strong. stut bars help the chassis from twisting an excess amount. a sway bar, is a bar that conects to ur lower control arms. sway bars are one of the best modifications u can do to car suspension wise. the sway bar keeps the wheels stay on the ground. the thicker the sway bars, the more force it will take to make the cars weight shift to the opposing side. so skip strut bars there in a sense useless because half the ones they sell twist. if u want a good bar i know DC makes a good one for the fact that its ONE PIECE!!! more than one piece just means extra stress and twisting points. but sway bars a DEFF. MUST because u can strap a million strut bars to a car...the weight is still going to transfer to the other throwing it off balance. sway bars minimize that force meaning less SUSPENSION LEAN rather than body lean. also u can sub. strut bars for really stiffer shocks and springs because the body will roll less

SUMMARY IF UR LAZY::
sway bars= less suspension movement and weight shifting is minimalized
strut bars= less chassis twisting because of connections with unibody but still allow for body roll
If u want less body roll= stiffer springs and shocks

[HATEnFATE]

^^^
A sway bar is not going to minimalize weight shifting as the weight of the car is constant and unless something inside it moves...the weight will not shift but rather transfer to a specific corner based on the direction of the front wheels in relation to the direction of the vehicle(i.e. turning)

A sway bar is often refered to as an Anti-roll bar. Stiffer springs and shock will help but ultimately, the sway bar will make the largest difference.

Originally Posted by wikipeda

A sway bar is usually a torsion spring that resists body roll motions. It is usually constructed out of a U-shaped piece of tubular steel that connects to the body at two points, and at the left and right sides of the suspension. If the left and right wheels move together, the bar just rotates about its mounting points and does not bend. If the wheels move relative to each other, the bar is subjected to torsion and forced to twist.

The bar resists the torsion through its stiffness. The stiffness of an anti-roll bar is based on the fourth power of its radius, the stiffness of the material, the inverse of the length of the lever arms (i.e., the shorter the lever arm, the stiffer the bar), the geometry of the mounting points, and the rigidity of the bar's mounting points. Some anti-roll bars, particularly those intended for use in auto racing, are adjustable, allowing their stiffness to be altered by increasing or reducing the length of the lever arms. This permits the roll stiffness to be tuned for different situations without replacing the entire bar. The stiffer the bar, the more force required to move the left and right wheels relative to each other. This increases the amount of force required to make the body roll.

Anti-roll bars provide two main functions. The first function is the reduction of body lean. The reduction of body lean is dependent on the total roll stiffness of the vehicle. Increasing the total roll stiffness of a vehicle does not change the steady state total load (weight) transfer from the inside wheels to the outside wheels, it only reduces body lean. The total lateral load transfer is determined by the CG height and track width.

lowering springs reduce the center of gravity of a vehicle and stiffer shocks just decrese the rate at which the wheel assembly will compress and rebound. Too stiff of a setup and you will lose traction because your wheel cann't keep up with the road surface changes. Too soft and you'll have too much bounce in your suspension causing a loss of traction.

A stiffer spring will just push the tires back down to the road faster to compensate for the stiffer shocks/struts. The only problem is they are harder to compress which creates a rough ride.

You are correct about the strut tower brace but they do make a noticable difference to the driver so they make the improvment much more noticable. It creates the feeling of a GREAT value for the money spent.