fuzzy-hair-man wrote:
The toe in on the rear was factory it seems a bit of a safety tolerance thing to make sure they didn't get toe out as that has dramatic effects towards oversteer I'm told.
not really 'dramatic'... toe-in at the back promotes understeer, toe out at the back promotes oversteer, but it's not like the car is constantly trying to spin itself around. It just feels like the car is more willing to turn when you start to feed in some steering
If you think about the outside wheels when going around a corner, they're the ones doing the work...
So, when turning right, the wheels are like this:
rear toe in - the car will turn less for a given amount of steering input - the rear wheels resist the turn-in
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rear toe out - the car will turn more for a given amount of steering input - the rear wheels assist the turn-in
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The rear toe-out picture is the way *most* four wheel steering cars work. The rear wheels turn the opposite direction to the front wheels to help the car go around the corner. I once borrowed a 4WS Honda Prelude and it was great fun when turning right on roundabouts, once I got used to how it turned much sharper than I expected for the amount of steering input I was giving it. I kept bumping up the inner curb.
I say *most*, because I gather some cars at the higher price range (Mitsubishi GTO I think) actually change the direction of the rear steering at higher speeds. At low speeds the rear wheels turn in the opposite direction to make maneuvering easier, but at higher speeds the rear wheels turn in the same direction as the front wheels to lessen the direction change from small steering inputs - basically making the car more stable, but it doesn't turn in to a corner as well (but to turn in to a sharp corner you'd have slowed down enough for the steering to change modes and help you turn blah blah)
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