Opel GT handling improvements

[rocknroll]

Hey Hey Hey! I always hear people joshin the handling of the GT. Why is that? I love the way my 70 gt 1900 handles! I put bigger radial tires on it and it handles amazingly ... i take tight corners at close to 60 and the tires never pick up at all.

Rock on
Dan
P.S. any one selling gt dash mine is all cracked

[jeff denton]

What a coincidence, I put bigger tires on and drive like that, too!
I had to do an awful lot of spring rate tinkering, though. Testing on Saturday evenings was done in bumper to bumper, door to door traffic.
I'm very pleased with the handling now, and think there will be more improvement in the future. The cars need to be stiffened up a bunch with harder bushings everywhere, I've only done a few so far. A new Addco front sway bar is awaiting installation too, this is supposedly a big improvement for the GTs.
I think the people who knock the GT's handling are taking it to the very farthest limits, you know when you are there when you exceed the limits, BAZ put a picture in a thread somewhere of me doing that, I call it my "double nickel backwards shot".
Don't try this at home without a good solid rollcage, safety seat, harness, helmet, window net, fire extinguisher, flagman, tow truck, and cheering section.
For a real thrill, try a 720 degree spinout in heavy traffic. I have no idea how it's done, it just happened.
The biggest complaint I've heard is the understeer characteristics, also known as pushing. It is very fixable, some rear roll oversteer helped mine quit doing that. GT's have some already but more did the trick for me. ANother factor is the front spring rate, stock isn't stiff enough when put to the test.

[greensmurf20]

my findings with a stock GT, with 205/60 series tires on stock rims were it pushes hard throught he corners when you try to play too rough, lots of body lean for a "sports car" and on a sharp enough corner, it will lift the inside rear tire off the ground and spin it hard. all it has now is the addco swaybars, nothing more or less. its a more neutral car, similar to the manta. it has about the same amount of body roll as the manta does, it wont lift the rear tire anymore....it will still push if you really try to take the curve too fast, but i think you can do that with any car if pushed hard enough.

[gottcha]

When in the middle of the turn and accelerating through the turn, my front end wants to slide. I can turn the wheel more but it doesn't help. I have to let off the gas and then it gains grip again. What can I do to fix this? It still takes a corner fast, but it seems that it should do better than this.

Mike

[Thom71GT]

Anti-sway bars?

[Paul]

What are your alignment specs? Adding some negative camber will help and maybe a little more air pressure too. Take a little white shoe polish and paint a 1 inch wide spot just at the edge of the tread where it begins to move away from the contact patch towards the side wall where its smooth. As the tire rolls over from cornering the shoe polish will be scuffed off. You can then see the changes roll over from the changes in tire air pressure and/or camber.

[Killer Texas GT]

Ya'll probably heard enough of this but the Impulse suspension under my GT is one awesome handling go-kart. 225-50 front 295-50 rear, no body roll if any at all, through the turns its flat tracken' at what ever speed your pucker factor can handle, and when it does break loose, its a four wheel drift, either let off or give it more gas to get it out of the drift and back on track. Has a 7/8" front sway bar front and a 1/2" rear. Then add power assist steering on top of that its so quick to respond its takes some getting use to. The steering wheel from full turn to turn is 3 revolutions, or from straight to hard right or left is 1 1/2 turns. I can't wait till I get a chance to build another one and make it even better.

[rocknroll]

Are sway bars hard to install? if not where can i find em ?

Rock
Dan

[Nathan Acree]

Rodney,

Do you have any details/pictures of the front suspension install?

[jeff denton]

My new sway bar was $140 with shipping.
When a car won't steer into the corner, front slides out instead, a popuar term for that is "pushing".
The opposite of pushing is "loose". That's when the rear end wants to get around the corner first!
To fix push you start doing things to make it loose. And the other way around. A little bit at a time! Somewhere in there is a happy setup that works.
I've learned that the best start is good solid suspension bushings. So things don't move around under the heavy stress of ripping around a corner, under throttle...
You can make the rear of a GT help steer the car away from a pushing condition by converting its body roll into "rear roll oversteer".