I AutoX my RX8 in CS and totally love how it drives. The one thing I want to improve is steering feel - I mean in comparison with cars like the Miata and FRS/BRZ - the front end kind of feels numb. I brought this up in other threads and tweaked my suspension according to suggestions - here is my current setup:
* Front Camber: -1.3; Rear camber: - 1.1; Front Toe: 1/8'' Toe Out; Rear Toe: 1/16'' Toe In; Suspension (Koni single adjustable): Front: Full soft, Rear: ~50%
* Tire: ZII 245/40/18

The car feels pretty neutral with this setup (with square tire pressures) - bit on the pushy side. I switched from Rival's to ZII in pursuit of better steering feel - but not too much better.

Wondering if others have gone down this path and tried different options - need not be within the confines of CS. Is there a way to get to get the steering feel to something close to a Miata?

 

a thought,

If it is pushy, chase that. The steering will lighten up when it is pushing. When the steering gets light, lift.

Are the front tires rolling over, if so raise the tire pressure a few PSI.

The front toe out seems odd to me. My track alignment is actually the factory one, with a little more toe-in, and a little more negative camber. (track wheel have less negative offset, and that changes alignment). My biggest problem is waiting for rotation before feeding power. I can teach it, I just cannot do it.

 

Thanks for the tips. I have kind of the same problem - I feed in too much steering and then have to unwind and apply power - and ofcourse I am not very skilful too :-( But really dig the "on the rails" feeling I got with the Miata.

The reason I have the bit of toe-out is to make the turn-in easier. So do you think it makes the steering feel vague - because it does not have the self-centering forces of the toe-in anymore?

 

toe does not self center, Castor self centers.

That is all I know.

The rest is here. The Ultimate Guide to Suspension & Handling

One reason you do not see this issue in a miata is that you do not have the power on tap you have with the 8.

Turn, then power. use the tires for one thing a a time, weight forward, turn, then weight back, power. The LSD on the 8 makes it easy to hook up and lift the weight off the front tires in a corner. No wieght, no turn.

 

What is your caster set to? That has the biggest effect on centering force.

I am running neutral toe at the front, and slight in at the rear.

The wider tires will also take away some feel around center

 

I learned this quite by accident at an autocross before I "fixed" my power steering.

Simply remove the fuse @ the battery and you'll get all the steering feel you will ever want. It made me alot faster since I wasn't inputting too much steering anymore on corners. I fixed the "drip hose" via relocation and cleaned all the terminals on the power steering which permanently fixed this issue. Now anytime I want to make myself faster at an autocross I simply pull that fuse. It's not really all that much steering effort when moving. The nice thing is one has totally manual steering all the time. Try it you'll like it everywhere other than a parking lot. Take a couple runs with it on first then unplug it and look at your times.

 

i raised my front camber to like 1.6 and added like .5 to my caster, made the wheel heavier but response and feedback is improved for me at least

 

HMM, Thanks Twisted. That may be an option for the next track event.

 

You won't want to run without power steering...unless you have very strong arms.....

 

Are you running stock wheels? If not, are what's the width and offset like? If so, have you thought about going with something lighter? I'm not sure alignment alone are going to change the feel significantly -- but it also depends what you mean by feel

 

Try stiffening the front shocks. In addition to stiffening the suspension this will add dynamic camber by pulling down the front end. We found the car was fasted in CS with the shocks full stiff all around.

Jim

 

++ shocks.

that way you get the transients without them being soaked up by the suspension....

 

Thanks for all the great suggestions !