TRACK OG's ONLY!!

Originally Posted by OptionZero

Man there's alot there, and most of it is wrong.

If your car is going to be 99% daily driver, why are you gearing your plans for "track driving"? It also sounds like you're spending alot of time bench racing in your head with lots of assumptions (wrong assumptions, to boot)


First, if you're driving for the first time on a track, all this suspension tuning ******** doesn't matter. Get your *** in the seat, strap on a helmet, and just drive the damn car. Nothing you do to the suspension will matter as much as the education of actual track time.

There's SOME stuff you should do, like changing your fluids and pads, adding an oil cooler, and making sure you have some decent rubber, but this is primarily for your safety and for the protection of your car. But other than that, "performance mods" are worthless when you have literally no track experience. You aren't racing for time anyways, you're driving for fun and to learn.

Stiffer rear bar = relatively more grip in front = less understeer, so i don't know what the heck you were talking about with stiffer rear bar inducing understeer. Stiffer rear bar will induce more oversteer. There are also limits to sway bars do, and you need to understand what function they serve. They control weight transfer/roll side to side by connecting the two sides if your suspension; stiffer overall is better to a point, but you also have to manage your spring/shock settings. Super duper stiff sway bars made of the fanciest material might not be such a good idea if you hit a curb blasting around some corner; all of a sudden your car is upset and you're dead. There is such a thing as too stiff a sway bar (that's probably not the case here, just saying).

The Z *is* set up with understeer in front for "safety", and thats why the track guys are slapping on 285 and larger tires up front and going for a more square set up. Broadly speaking, more front tire = more front grip = less understeer. Track guys here are also getting bigger rear sway bars to get that rear end to turn.

Those settings look fine, but tire compound is just as important as size. If you're going 18's, its gonna look like crap on the street (way to small for a Z) but for the track there will be plenty of tire options. Are you running a dedicate track wheel set up with a diff wheel set up for street? Are you running the same set of tires on both track and street? This would matter if you were driving to actually go fast, since the best track tires are not good street tires (duh?)

But again, since you are a complete notice, you just want some summer tires and call it a day, No need for Pilot Sport Cups or anything

Also - i have no idea who this tire engineer from Continental was, but it's extremely . . . shortsighted? immature? presumptuous? of you to write him off because he drives a Lexus instead of a "race car" to work. You know what Lexus's are good for? Driving to work. You know what race cars aren't good for? Driving to work. Do you think F1 race car drivers drive F1 race cars home, to drop their kids off from school, and to dinner? Nah. He could be a scrub poser. Or he could be an actual tire engineer and car enthusiast with some Cayman GT4 in his garage next to his Lexus, fully capable of smoking your ****. Can't judge a dude based on what he rolls as a daily. Maybe you should also listen more closely to what he's talking about instead of writing off what he says as "stuff that won't make a difference" based on your . . . not that extensive knowledge.

Originally Posted by Eagle

Minor correction to what was said here...everything else makes sense. 18's looking crappy on a Z is totally subjective though (I love my 18x10 VMR 810's).

Although this sounds counter intuitive, 370z's need the stiffest swaybar possible in the front and least stiff/no sway bar whatsoever in the rear. This has been confirmed by several sources here, Doran Racing (campaigned the 370z in the Grand AM/IMSA Continental Tire Series), BJ Zacharias(user: Dwnshift), former Nissan GT Academy Winner and Driver for Doran/Nissan (Steven Doherty), users: ClintFocus, martin82, GS1388, myself and a few others are running this setup and it works well.

My understanding is that this is done because of the suspension geometry of the Z34, it's just different than most other FR cars. I don't know the exact science behind it, but my theory is that what happens is a big sway up front neutralizes the roll by keeping those front wheels planted when loading up the suspension on turn in and under deceleration.

Reducing the stiffness in the rear allows the body to roll and probably keeps wight transfer more progressive...perhaps the Z34 is stiff enough in the rear as it is? Feedback from guys running stiff rear sways is that the car oversteers hard and becomes a handful.

My recommendation is to run the stock setup first see how it feels...get a front sway bar or a front and rear pair (i recommend Hotchkis). Try it with the front bar on the car, then try it with the rear.

Hope this helps.

Originally Posted by Jhill

and yes poster above lift off oversteer is scary as hell lol but I kind of got used to it in old car as that is how you can cut the turn in FWD which actually seems more tail happy than my Z, but it is a slide for live feel and thankfully have not had it happen in the Z.