Driving Impressions: B14 Bent Beam

[Wade Jackson]

As Steve Foltz posted earlier, we bent our B14 beams using the fixture
that he had made.  Both of our rear beams were bent to zero toe.  On
Monday and Tuesday, I instructed for an Audi Club event at VIR
(www.virclub.com) so I could finally try it out!  Over two days, I put
on 250 track miles on both the 3.27-mile Full Course and 2.25-mile North
Course.

For reference, my car (daily driver) is a 96 SE-R with GC/AGX 375/300,
stock front bar, ST rear bar, front & rear strut tower bars, 3.0 deg of
neg. front camber, 1/16 inch toe out in front, Kumho race tires, corner
weighted, and a freshly bent beam to 0 toe.

A few weeks ago, I was having snap oversteer problems at the track which
I believe was caused by a blown/leaking AGX so I just installed new rear
shocks.  I initially set the front AGX on 4 and the rears on 5 to be
conservative.  I typically take the Uphill Esses at 105 mph and was
worried about oversteer problems at that speed since the rear of the car
gets very light during the off-camber section.

Anyway, Im very happy to report that the car handled better than ever
without any negative side effects!  It was really amazing how well the
rear would help the car rotate in the turns.  The rear would come out
smoothly and in a very controllable manner (no snapping out!).  This
allowed me turn the wheel less and accelerate out of the turns much
earlier than before which really improved my exit speeds!  My front tire
wear also improved since the rear of the car was finally helping me out
in the turns.  Im still really amazed how this small change made such a
huge improvement in the overall handling of my car.  Even when I entered
a turn too fast, I was able safely scrub speed with all four tires
instead of just the fronts. On Tuesday, I turned up the rear shocks to
6, and things got even better!

I would not recommend doing this if you are a novice at the track.
Having lots of understeer allows you to recover from mistakes without
spinning.  Im sure the bent beam would help out a huge amount for autocrossing.

Now with the bent beam, I hope we can all agree that the B14 is the
superior version of the SE-R!   :)

Wade
List member since 1992