Bumpstops?!

J

Jond63

Member
:
2012 Mazda 2 Touring Liquid Silver
So last night driving home (a little more spirited than usual) I was taking a sweeping left hand turn at about 55-60mph and felt a bump from the rear and then the rear stepped out for a split second and then regained composure and I scooted out of the turn. The turn is fairly banked, the left side drops away as the right side rises. Turn is metered at 40mph, I usually take ~ 50mph.

I have H&R springs on stock shocks and bumpstops, RE-11s and a CS rear torsion bar -- could I have bottomed out onto the bumpstop causing the rear to step out, or did I just reach the limit of the tires? I've never felt the rear come out before like this so I'm scratching my head as to what happened.
 
Sounds to me like the bump upset the rear and caused it to loose traction. The torsion bar will make the rear end loose traction a little easier (a helpful thing under most circumstances).
 
I actually had the rear come out on me around a hard right turn too. I also have HRs, I just chalked it up to spirited driving lol.
 
Certainly oversteer, but a mid-corner bump as mentioned will certainly facilitate it.

Oversteer is more fun than understeer, so you should be happy! Take your car to an auto-x or track day and do it over and over again.
 
Yeah, need some auto-x time to get more used to it... missed the last one. I felt minor oversteer in the rain a few weeks ago and it felt nice and smooth, but last night it was dry and a bit more violent... guess I shouldn't let girls in modded GTIs goad me on. :D
 
Jond63 said:
Yeah, need some auto-x time to get more used to it... missed the last one. I felt minor oversteer in the rain a few weeks ago and it felt nice and smooth, but last night it was dry and a bit more violent... guess I shouldn't let girls in modded GTIs goad me on. :D
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Sounds like an interesting drive. Speaking of oversteer how far from Pacific Raceway are you Jond63? I will be racing up there at the end of May.

-Derrick
 
Jond63 said:
Yeah, need some auto-x time to get more used to it... missed the last one. I felt minor oversteer in the rain a few weeks ago and it felt nice and smooth, but last night it was dry and a bit more violent... guess I shouldn't let girls in modded GTIs goad me on. :D
Click to expand...

That's the only chance our little cars have man. Turns. Thank goodness for turns.
 
CorkSport said:
Sounds like an interesting drive. Speaking of oversteer how far from Pacific Raceway are you Jond63? I will be racing up there at the end of May.

-Derrick
Click to expand...

I'm about 40 minutes away -- let me know when it going to be I'd love to come watch the B-Specs battle it out and cheer you on.
 
Jond63 said:
I'm about 40 minutes away -- let me know when it going to be I'd love to come watch the B-Specs battle it out and cheer you on.
Click to expand...

May 25th-26th is the weekend of the races. Should be lots of fun.

-Derrick
 
eyeballs said:
Certainly oversteer, but a mid-corner bump as mentioned will certainly facilitate it.
Oversteer is more fun than understeer, so you should be happy! Take your car to an auto-x or track day and do it over and over again.
Click to expand...

Yea I didn't realize how controllable the car actually was until the rear end kicked out about 45 degrees on me around that bend. A quick adjustment in the steering and the car was right back on track like nothing happened. Def makes me want to grab that CS torsion bar and give her hell!
 
Just to let you know if you have H & R's on your car and you didn't cut the bump stops, you are basically on them as the car just sits there, front and rear. So if you turn at all you are on the stops it isn't like you hit them because of a bump or anything.

Another though is that since you are on the RE-11's depending how long you were driving you might have had heat in the front, but not the rear. That causes oversteer pretty easily.
 
zps2004 said:
Just to let you know if you have H & R's on your car and you didn't cut the bump stops, you are basically on them as the car just sits there, front and rear. So if you turn at all you are on the stops it isn't like you hit them because of a bump or anything.

Another though is that since you are on the RE-11's depending how long you were driving you might have had heat in the front, but not the rear. That causes oversteer pretty easily.
Click to expand...

How much would be good to cut off? Seems like I have a little before they hit, but probably not much more than an 1 1/2".
 
I have eibachs on my 2 for now and I cut 1/2" off the end, but you don't really need to since the end is really soft. I would actually recommend leaving them as they are. With mine I had almost 1" of compression before I hit the bumps stops after cutting the little bit off the end. It wasn't bad, but there were some times where you could notice the change in spring rate from the spring only to the spring rate and the bumps stops. It wasn't bad though. I mainly noticed it while going over speed bumps.

I actually swapped in some of the Fat Cat bump stops which are nice, but this weekend I ran the 2 for some fun runs at our autocross we were holding. It was a bumpy lot, and on one of the bumps up I was also changing direction and I believe I binded the spring on the driver side. So the Fat Cat stops are nice, but I think they might be too soft. I already have one spacer with them and I am going to add another.

For normal driving you would never normally bind the spring though, it was while throwing the car to the right and the lot bumped up right there. It also didn't hit hard, but you did notice it.
 
Ever look into those ground control bumpstops? I ran the firm linear on my koni setup when I had the miata and they were decent. There was also a softer option as well. Price was good on those too, though I don't know if they're the inner diameter matches up to the dampers on the 2 on any of those. There were at least 2 different diameters IIRC.
 
So, is the consensus just to trim the rear and leave the front alone? I'll be on h&rs soon, so I'll probably just order a set of firmer/shorter stops.
 
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