Starlets handling in the wet.

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hga05

Member +
What are starlets handling like generally in the wet as my seems to be pretty poor. When i go round a corner the front wheels feel like there slipping and wen i go over a drain or through standing water the car moves with it. My current set up is Apex coilovers: camber plates set in the centre as i got them, whitline 24mm front arb and then 195/45 toyo px4 on the front and t1r's on the back. Any ideas?? i think my tracking may be out but didnt think it would affect this much. thanks
 
C

CMR

Member +
If you have too much toe in / out it will feel like the wheels are slipping when you turn, it will be even worse in the wet.

Starlets arnt the best in the wet, but there isnt many fwd cars that are if your cornering at reasonable speeds.
 
C

CMR

Member +
With standard suspension maybe, but with a few dollar spent they can be quite good handling fwd cars..
 
madman

madman

Member +
DAVID 96 GLANZA V said:
starlets/glanza are complete bollox in the corners full stop:(
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that statement is a load of crap as has already bein said... but when ya spend a little on choice suppension mods they are like go karts and two people who will agree with me are Franza1 and Kerian.s_gt
 
pc18

pc18

North West England Area Rep.
dont know about the px4 but t1r's seemed decent in the wet on my last starlet which was 210bhp, before i had those fitted it had t1s which were crap, i couldn't use boost at all in damp weather, but the t1r's where much better and the car felt alot more stable.
 
richglanzav

richglanzav

Member +
starlets r not crap at handling at all lol standard maybe but get sum coilovers and gd tyres and u got gd handling fwd car there. in the wet tho i gta admit mine dnt feel safe lol and boosting it on the td04 i might aswell forget it 2bh. just wait till the sun comes out ;)
 
S

si-87

Member +
not much of statement to say they handle crap, what do you define crap handling exactly?? a lot depends on the driver and how you respond to the car, i dont think you need to spend a lot to get the handling good, im happy with mine :p
 
kieran.s gt

kieran.s gt

Member +
madman said:
that statement is a load of crap as has already bein said... but when ya spend a little on choice suppension mods they are like go karts and two people who will agree with me are Franza1 and Kerian.s_gt
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have to agree with the correct handling mods they handle very good
 
M

MWP

Member +
Put some Bridgestone Adrenalin RE001's on it.
They are a brilliant wet weather tyre, and very good in the dry too.
 
GTti

GTti

Member +
CMR said:
If you have too much toe in / out it will feel like the wheels are slipping when you turn, it will be even worse in the wet.

Starlets arnt the best in the wet, but there isnt many fwd cars that are if your cornering at reasonable speeds.
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Toe out aids with cornering... but toe should be more neutral than anything else on a FWD.


Anyway, I'd suggest the tyres are the issue, FWD cars are designed to understeer when grip starts to degrade. They're safe.

I have to say T1R's are very good in the wet, there's so many mixed reviews about these tyres but they certainly work well on my car.
 
Texx

Texx

Super Moderator
GTti said:
I have to say T1R's are very good in the wet, there's so many mixed reviews about these tyres but they certainly work well on my car.
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I've been through about 10 T1-R's in the last 2 years and to be fair, for the price I probably wouldn't buy anything else. They're far from the best tyre available, but certainly not the worst. Generally a good all rounder.

I have found though, T1-R's give good levels of grip and control when new, but after they wear down to less than 4 or 5mm they tend to develop a serious lack of traction, especially in the wet. I've lost count of the times the car has lost traction when trying to accelerate up a motorway slip road in the wet and that's at 0.7bar on a stock CT9a.

They also take a fair bit to warm up and perform well, the down side is they can over heat and start to tear quite quickly when given some hard abuse.

Oh, just for reference, my tyre size is 195/45/15.
 
GTti

GTti

Member +
Texx said:
I've been through about 10 T1-R's in the last 2 years and to be fair, for the price I probably wouldn't buy anything else. They're far from the best tyre available, but certainly not the worst. Generally a good all rounder.

I have found though, T1-R's give good levels of grip and control when new, but after they wear down to less than 4 or 5mm they tend to develop a serious lack of traction, especially in the wet. I've lost count of the times the car has lost traction when trying to accelerate up a motorway slip road in the wet and that's at 0.7bar on a stock CT9a.

They also take a fair bit to warm up and perform well, the down side is they can over heat and start to tear quite quickly when given some hard abuse.

Oh, just for reference, my tyre size is 195/45/15.
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All the Toyo tires do seem quite a soft compound, and I think the lower weight cars benefit the most from these tyres. My GTxx is about 820KG stock weight, I used high pressures in Llandow to reduce sidewall flex and my tyres didn't show that much wear after the day.

Hence why so many mixed reviews, different pressures, different weight cars.
 
C

CMR

Member +
GTti said:
Toe out aids with cornering... but toe should be more neutral than anything else on a FWD.
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Ah right, I couldnt remember which way it was.. when I swapped to coilovers my toe was quite a bit out whichever way and it felt the wheels 'skipped' when turning!
 
H

hga05

Member +
Yeh that is how mine is feelin. My swap the front wheels with the back and get the tracking checked. I assume its best to make sure the rear axle is central before the trackings done??
 
munday

munday

Member +
hga05 said:
Yeh that is how mine is feelin. My swap the front wheels with the back and get the tracking checked. I assume its best to make sure the rear axle is central before the trackings done??
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Just watch you dont get caught out if the tyres arent too great you could be getting some oversteery moments :p
 
dac69er

dac69er

Super Moderator
get some decent springs. apex springs are lethal death trap springs. had them on my 1st GT and they were utter crap.

once thats sorted, get it all aligned properly. get some decent tires that perform well in the wet and the dry (not proxes). make sure all your tire pressures are correct and equal and you should be fine.
 
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