niccer

Wow, it's hard to imagine all of that damage to the quarter is from that hit, although I'm sure the shear force of the impact isn't translated well through the video. 

Do you have a video that shows the front driver's side impact? 

Loved watching and showing that last video to some friends over the holidays.  Please upload more if you get chance. 

To add to Scotts post, and yes it is a personal experience thing.

 

Tire pressure is important in getting the correct tire temperature. You need hot tyres for grip.  Too cold and there is no grip.  I have run tyres as low as 18 psi in the rear to heat them up in the rain.  I'm not game to go lower, and wish I could.  In terms of your desire for rotation, it is controlable rotation you are after.  You need to start with grip in order to have control.

 

Your sway bar/spring combination needs to keep the tyre surface flat.  Again, to  maximise and control grip.

 

Like Scott, I can dial in understeer or oversteer.  I have hit a balance point - in my case 31 mm torsion bar and civic 4 wd front sway bar, and 600 lb springs and 14mm DC2 interga standard sway bar and no internal bar and no locked swing arm. And camber adjustment front and rear (but the camber is dialled in to maximise grip, which is measured by equalising  tyre temperature over the tyre.)   By altering the damper rates at the front and rear I can have the rear move out or in through corners by differences in the natural slip of the front and rear tyres over the road surface.  Note that - natural slip as the tyre surface interacts with the road, not artifical slip. The tyres will slip at about 5-7% and still maintain excellent grip.

 

You want more than natural slip then you are wanting tyre breakaway. You may be a good enough driver to be able to control that in a fwd car.  I'm not that good.

 

Last point.  I used to have snap oversteer. That was caused by the rear sway bar bushes binding, allowing the sway bar to store compression until it overcame the friction at which point it released suddenly.   Look up 'Porsche tuning day excitement' on you-tube.  Thats me airborne and backwards into a corner. Not fun.  I grease those bushes now.

 

Hope this helps

How do you like your stiff setup and what struts are you on?  I'm not 100% what mine is, but I think the torsion bars are at most 24mm w/ disconnected front sway bar.  Rears are probably 350lb springs with a ~1" (25mm) sway bar.  I've been on Tokico Illuminas and am now switching to Koni Yellows.  I left the car exactly as the previous owner, who raced it, had it setup since I'm a novice at suspension tuning.  The car feels very neutral and I can introduce over or understeer with gas pedal modulation.  I'm looking into the future and will be getting the Koni's rebuilt, which will probably include revalving.  The thing is, I don't know what spring rates I want to run.  I've had 27mm T bars in a car before and thought they felt pretty good, but never tracked it.  Are they equivalent to 350lb springs?  

Hope the OP doesn't mind my asking a question too, but figured since this site is so inactive we can share threads.   

Great discussion, guys.  I remember reading one like this on HT yeaarrrsss ago and pretty much forgot all the little nuances but retained the meat of the subject.  I have little real world experience, with only a handful of track events under my belt, but I'll chime in.

Are you autox'ing or racing on a track?  Sounds like autox since you're trying to engineer/math the shit out of this problem!     

What tires are you running?  Could be a really sticky tire that's not giving you good enough warning when its about to let go?

Do you have any in-car video showing the snap-overstreer?

What's your current setup?

Sway bar endlink binding is apparently a pretty common issue and should be considered before you go diving into completely changing your setup.  From what I recall, there wasn't a complete pecking order of importance between the three individual parts, but a symbiosis.  Sway bars and springs are cheap and easy enough to swap out to where you can buy two or three sizes/spring rates to test with.  I'd love to hear the results.

Well the one from O'reilly has the larger holes too... WTF?  I don't need spacers in the rear like I do the front, so I'll just run one hub with standard lugs and just space the fronts. 

I also found that none of the wheel studs on one of the front hubs were pressed in all the way.  Probably not a big deal since tightening the lug nuts will seat them all the way. 

So I decided to sign up for one last event of the year rather late and am now in panic mode trying to get the car back together for an inspection on Saturday and the track event on Sunday. 

First off, a little venting, in two parts.  I needed to get bearings pressed into the front knuckles and extended studs pressed into each hub.  Called a 'performance' shop that did some cage work for me last year to get their estimate.  The guy figured it'd take about 3 hours, which would total over $300.  I thought 3 hours seemed a little excessive so I told him I could do the rears myself and that I'd just need them to do the fronts.  Went over to their shop to drop the stuff off and found out that their press was stored away while they were remodeling and that it'd take 3-4 days for them to dig it out and do the job.  Considering my lack of time to get these back I decided to call another local mom and pop shop down the road.  They were able to do all four corners for $100 in just over an hour. 

Second part of the vent:  When I went to pick up the parts they said one of the rear hub's wheel stud bore size was larger than the others and the new extended wheel studs wouldn't seat.  Sure enough, the holes were just slightly larger than the OD of the stud base, so now I'm going to pick up another pretty much brand new hub in a bit.  I know this isn't RockAuto's fault at all and is something I need to accept when I'm buying hubs for pennies, but it's the second time I've been burned by parts that aren't to OEM specs.  Fingers crossed the hub I get has the right sized holes. 

Hope to have another update before the weekend as I button things back up.  Koni struts, bumpsteer kit, extended studs and 15mm spacers will be installed.