I'm at a track day right now. DE4. Second session car is suddenly loose. Even at low speeds I almost spun twice. Put it up on jacks. Can't find anything wrong. Diff bushing looks fine. Tire pressures and tires look fine. No weird noises. Any ideas? I'll go out next session under yellow and see what I can tell but I think my weekend is over.

 

Sudden oversteer is reason to worry. It usually means a swaybar link or something critical has broken. Not sure which track you're at, but keep looking, it'll be something that really needs to be repaired before going out again.

 

Went back out and it still feels a little loose but not like it did initially. Added a few more pounds of tire pressure (back to where I like it) and it is pretty close to normal now but still a slight tendency to get loose under acceleration that was not there before.

Not sure what the issue is. Thorough inspection underneath is normal.

My tires are old. They were cold when it first happened. A very light rain earlier (but track looked dry) but maybe a little wet left. Big oil spill in previous session but it was cleaned up and no one else having trouble.

Anyway I've done two sessions since the issue. Biggest problem is that now it's in gotten in my head and lap times are down. Running with the Miatas. Tomorrow is supposed to be warm and dry and dry. We'll see.

 

Do you have aftermarket sway bars installed? So often I see guys saying they just got a set of adjustable bars, and right away they think setting them on full stiff is the ideal setup.

 

No. They're stock. I've done two sessions today. Same as yesterday. Slightly more loose than usual but track times back to normal. I think the problem was mostly psychiatric.

 

You may still have learned something. If the track was wet, or even slightly wet, it can bring oils to the surface and together with old tires, make it feel more slippery. Do you prefer a bit of oversteer in your Z? Maybe your suspension setup is biased a bit too heavily in that direction.

 

Its totally stock. My impression of the car in this (stock) configuration is that it understeers going into a turn and slight oversteer with acceleration coming out. I'm used to it that way since I've never driven anything else. I think a big part of the problem was track conditions, cold tires and a heavy right foot. I'm on Hankook RS-3s (3 years old and almost worn out) which, in my experience, like a good bit of heat and don't like the cold or even cool at all. I misjudged the problem at the time and it all went to my head. It was just bad driving.

It got a good bit warmer for the last few sessions today and everything seemed pretty much back to normal.

But, to answer your question, I do not particularly like it loose. I know some folks like it and use it to their advantage but in the case of my issue yesterday it was only loose accelerating out of a turn and I'm not sure that is ever useful.

In the future, some camber adjustment, new bushings and some new, hopefully stickier, tires would improve things. But the truth is I can have fun in DE-4 all day long with the car unmodified and I'm probably going to leave it that way...except for tires...next set will hopefully be stickier.

Thanks for the replies