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FR-S Suspension part 1 Getting the Basics with KW Suspension, Cusco and Race Comp Engineering
By Mike Kojima
With the FR-S engine giving us fits we decided to turn our attention to something different on the car, that we understand fully, the suspension. We were surprised with the FR-S from the factory, the ride in stock form was pretty darned stiff for a stock car, the car felt oversprung for the amount of low speed damping from the stock shocks but the ride still felt harsh, even without the damping.
The car was also really tail happy, fun to drive but not the fast way around turns, especially on corner exit. The stock suspension calibration was biased towards oversteer with electronic nannies keeping things in check for average drivers. With the nannies turned off, wow, the stock car could actually drift. This is not what we really wanted as we prefer a more balanced chassis for all around use. Perhaps the worst fault the stock FR-S had was an odd shimmy on the freeway. The car felt like it was following the rain grooves much like a motorcycle does. It was a very unsettling feeling.
This first step in fiddling with the suspension is us laying in the base for more parts to come. When this story was written, we were rushing to complete the car for the SEMA show. Parts were just being released for the car and fortunately there were already some quality parts out on the market.
KW was one of the few companies making coilovers for the car at the time and the best on the market. Even now a few months later, they are still on top of the heap. Currently KW only offers the street friendly double adjustable Variant III dampers for the FR-S. For our intended track use we would have preferred something like Clubsports but they are not released yet (They are coming soon, we have seen some of the prototypes).
CONTINUE HERE (FULL FEATURE)
Scion FR-S Suspension Feature - Part 1
http://www.motoiq.com/magazine_artic...gineering.aspx