Roll Center Adjustment

[gofer03]

After reading a tech article in this months issue of modified, I noticed that after intsalling coilovers the editor installed a roll center adjustment kit to his evo x (basically different ball joints and outer tie rods) to reduce body roll. According to the article; "The Evo x's front strut-based setup will induce more roll after lowering the car, which is detrimental to handling because it provides less grip to the front tires"

My question is has anyone used a kit like this after lowering thier car, I'm curious because I have gr2's and tein s-tech's and have not.

[Reelax]

you would be better off upgrading your rear sway bar first and getting STB and chassis bracing.

[gofer03]

Thanks alot Reelax, yeah I planned on going the rear sway bar route regardless.

[eclipsh]

Roll center changes can make a very big difference to handling. The reasons why are complicated and if you want more info on it you should read some suspension tuning/design books. A story one of my buddies loves to tell is about the Gallas Indy racing team. The crew decided to change the roll centers on their car to improve the handling. Their driver could barely qualify for the races. They put the roll centers back to stock and he was doing podium finishes. Long story short: keep your roll centers stock. The easiest way is keeping your ride height stock. Otherwise you need to do like this guy did and change the ball joints so the control arm angles are the same after the drop as they were before the drop.