Handling question????

[Bomber Denton]

I've posted this on the General Forum as there might be a Griff owner who can shed some light on this query for my Chimaera.

I have a 98 500 Chimaera with AVOs and 17" rims, on the twisties if I am travelling in uber-rapid mode I have twice in the last two days felt a light skip on full power from the turning in wheel in a corner.

Example, I taking a right hand bend using the lateral grip on full power and a light skip was felt through the right front wheel almost like the car was trying a little understeer (a similar sensation as you would get going over pothole in the same situation)

What would cause this, is it normal?


Corin

[the gazman]

Its possible the tyre may be rolling over and giving intermitant grip, I'd re-visit the camber on the front.

[GarryM]

Full power through a corner... did you notice the skip before or after you went through the hedge?

Unless you can repeat this in differnet conditions it may just be that the front wheels are scrabbling for grip and skip over a small bump. With your foot down there will be a lot less weight on the front wheels making this more likely. Also agree with gazman that you may need more neg camber on the front wheels. Keep it shiny side up!

[the gazman]

All agreed, also with these soft walled tyres like toyo's we have had to pump them up on trackdays to lesson the tendancy to roll over particularly at Brands and put mountains of neg camber, in fact every bit of adjustment we had on the Cerb and we wanted more.

[trackcar]

How stiff are your front dampers? you can generate similar effects by running a stiff rebound damper towards the end of it's droop (as happens on the unloaded inside damper) at which point the relaxed spring doesn't have enough pressure to push the damper out to follow a falling road surface against firm rebound resistence .. result is the tyre leaves the road surface or at least has a dramatic grip level reduction which could cause it to skip

another common cause is a worn bottom ball joint .. as the loading on it reduces as the inner wheel picks up then the ball joint knocks especially if the above scenario is also happening, because the stiff damper effectively lifts the wheel off the gruond and so the lower ball joint goes from carrying load on it's upper surface to it's lower surface IYSWIM

Edited by trackcar on Wednesday 9th August 14:15

[TimmyArt]

If its a fairly tight corner and on full power then you may just be starting to lift the inside front off the ground(or at least making it very light) and therefore as said is probably bumping/skidding over bumps All the pressure on the front will be on the outside leaving the inside scrabbling

[Bomber Denton]

Thanks for all the valuable input guys. When I said full power It woud be probably better to describe it as full torque.

What Jools said makes a lot of sense, it is always the most relaxed side I feel the skip from.

Just a bit of background, the car is running well scrubbed in Toyos the springs are the factory Eibach and it does sit a little lower than normal which I presume can only help matters. The geometry has not had a proper corner weight check since the suspension was fitted but I am very happy with the ride and cornering.
The ride height and shock damping pressures have been tweaked since the suspension bedded in but only by the donut behind the wheel!

As the Gazman mentions etc, should I be looking at camber etc??

I am happy with the rest of it but that doesn't mean that it is right - therefore any input to make it better is welome.

Corin