recently i removed the spare tire and i performed an ecu reset. car felt peppier and lighter but with undesirable handling characteristics...

i feel the car oversteers way too much. even when i'm doing a straight line and i'm flooring it, it 1st gear and sometimes second, as i approach 4500+ rpm, i feel like the rear end is startng to fish tail quite a bit. the car feels like its floating and i have to make quick steering adjustments to compensate.

its kinda dangerous.

does lightening the rear end (~40lbs? removing spare) cause this drastic change??? whats up?

 

totaly know what your talking about. right now i have the hole back totaly stripped down to the metal and that tail end is squirly as a nut under power then if i let off the power in a turn the tale end comes in to much and the car under steers.

 

so this is what others with STOCK ssuspension and reduced rear end, are experiencing?

i thought it could also be the fact that i mucked around with my suspension by lowering it with rsr ti2000+stock shocks. i was thinkin maybe my shocks are worn but thats too early.

i lowered my car last year but didnt have a chance to get realignment. i'm going in next week to get it done. theres a post i searched in here as well as advice some a local Z'r to get it aligned for about 2deg toe out front, and 2deg toe in rear... but i am thinking that wont solve the floaty feeling in 1st-2nd gear high rev power band...

at any rate. i'm gonna put the spare tire back in and try it out again

 

The weight of the spare is less than the difference in weight between a full tank of gas and an empty one...But the combination of the two would definitely start to make a noticeable difference, IMO.

Also, your tires could simply be worn.

 

jkoc,

I had more time to think about the oversteering you/I are having and a couple of ideas came to mind.

First I think alignment is needed and rear toe-in is ideal.

Second, in Solo2, I always found the LSD to be quite non linear in the first 1/2 of a run. It's almost like the unit required a little heat to start to work better. This 'heat' would stick around long enough that the typical break between runs wasn't too long. Either way, as the day progressed I was able to get on the throttle harder and harder existing a corner. Perhaps we're feeling the cold diff and not giving it a chance to become more linear.

Third, and this I noticed yesterday, it seems like the car responds well to rear stiffening. Last year when I installed my rear lower GT spec bar, I could have sworn the rear bit harder. Yesterday, I reinstalled my Avalon harness bar (really stiffens up the car) and the rear seemed to be quite a bit more stable.

 

thanks fritz.
#1 im' going in on monday to realign based on your recommendations. (2deg toe out front, and 2deg toe in rear, match rear's camber to fronts).

#2 interesting thought. i did noticed anytime i had tried testing the car, it was a few minutes after i had just started it up... maybe i'll give it more time

#3 i dont have thicker swaybars like you... you have hotchkis ? where does the avalon harness bar actually go? in the trunk?


on another note, i put my spare tire back in the car and the car seems more stable now at high rpm, straight line. prior to that when i removed the spare, my car felt "floaty" and highly unstable.