back end wants to pass
- Thread starter 2002yellowpro5
- Start date
Mazda P5 driver said:
What you are experiencing has nothing to do with the front suspension. It's actually the back suspension and tires that is causing your understeer. Mazda set up the Proteges, as most all cars are set up, to understeer. The average driver in America has absolutely no idea what to do when a car oversteers in a corner, but pretty much anyone can control understeer. If Mazda had set the car up to be more neutral or leaning toward the oversteer side of the spectrum people who bought them as a family car/daily driver would complain that the car is too unstable.
Protege5's are cornering monsters when set up properly. Their suspension is based off of the MP3/MSP setup which has already been touted as the best handling FWD car tested by several magazines. The Pro5 suspension is a slight downgrade from that, but it's still not a slouch at all. I had my Pro5 at Deal's Gap on the stock setup and it performed excellent.
Here is a little food for thought. Getting the Protege to oversteer is pretty easy on the right setup. More rear springrate is the key. I called Ground Control to ask them what springrates they send with the Pro5 kit. The front springs are 350lbs and the rear springs are 200lbs. On my Ground Control setup I'm running a 375lbs front and a 450lbs rear. I can make my car oversteer at will just by lifting up on the throttle mid corner.
Also you stated that the front end slid on you twice. Once in the rain and once in the snow. That would be more a problem with your tires than with your suspension. If you are still on the stock Dunlops then it is definitely your tires.
I'm not sure what problems you are having with long sweepers, but I haven't found a stock econobox import yet that could keep up with a stock Protege around a long sweeper. I have a perfect turn near my house. It's a 2 lane on ramp from one highway to the other. The recommended speed is 55mph , but I've been through it at 90+ in my girlfriends bone stock auto Pro5. It has a few midcorner pavement changes too that could get ugly, but I've never had it upset the Protege.
This is the only real way to get your ass locked down ... Kevin Ford from Lokar motorsports and I custom designed this for the p5 ... I out cornered z3's with this and my 18's with factory suspension none the less. called it the Stability cage ... it was neat too i could still fit my box with 2 10's it in and my daughters stroller .. or some groceries in it too hehe
Last edited:
TX Speed Demon
Member
It probably is your tires. I've got the same issues running newer Proxes 4 on the front and worn Bridgestones on the back. Under brake truning the back end just slides right around. Picked up a new pair of Proxes yesterday and will swap them out this afternoon.
Check the treadwear of your back tires. If they are pretty worn down and your fronts are good, rotate your tires to see if that helps. If it does, replace your back ones and you'll be fine.
Check the treadwear of your back tires. If they are pretty worn down and your fronts are good, rotate your tires to see if that helps. If it does, replace your back ones and you'll be fine.
nice
tht should be sweet .. the thing i like about this is yet like al my other mods .. it is fully reversable so if i needed to sell the car i could remove it and you would never know it was there .. and also it is fully adjustable .., paintable, so you can customize it to your liking
xelderx said:
tht should be sweet .. the thing i like about this is yet like al my other mods .. it is fully reversable so if i needed to sell the car i could remove it and you would never know it was there .. and also it is fully adjustable .., paintable, so you can customize it to your liking
2002yellowpro5 said:
Most passenger cars' suspension is tuned to always push (understeer) rather than be loose (oversteer) because a push condition is much more managable for an inexperienced driver.
By letting the clutch out in the middle of the corner without blipping the gas to match engine revs, your engine is doing additional braking while your transmission turns your RPM's up to match the new gear. This causes additional weight transfer forward and to the left or right, depending on which way you're turning. This in turn lightens the weight on the rear tires and without enough weight to grip the road, they lose traction.
If you can master heel-toe technique (here's a decent article, there are more: http://www.edmunds.com/ownership/howto/articles/45792/article.html), then you can blip the throttle to bring the engine revs up before releasing the clutch, and not upset the car in the middle of the turn. For those that can't or don't want to do this, it's best to get your braking and downshifting done before putting steering input for the turn.
The reality is that by sliding through the corner, you're scrubbing speed off your car and losing momentum, and thus being slower than someone who brakes and downshifts before the turn. If two cars run up to a turn with equal speed, one slides through and loses speed, and the other completes braking before the turn and has power down through it, the second car will have more speed at the end of the next straight.
So it may feel like you're on the edge, but it's actually faster to downshift before the turn. If you're still braking into the turn (an advanced technique called trailbraking), then you can get away with shifting in the turn and exiting cleanly with more speed than braking and downshifting before the turn. But, you need to have heel-toe down to the point where it's completely natural, or again you're sliding and actually slower - especially in a low horsepower car like a Pro5. Basically, anything that slides the tires in a low HP car is bad because you lose precious momentum.
Hope this helps. I learned all this in SCCA and NASA race series with my '85 RX-7 (another low HP car, though RWD).
--AJ
