Dude don't let them grow up, it goes by tooooo fast

 

The farther the point in front of the tire where the caster axis intersects the ground the stronger the self centering. Strong self centering will at some point hurt turn-in...a couple of degrees probably won't matter. But the heft Jason notes is directly related to a stronger castering affect...the difference between the fork on a chopper and a racing motorcycle. A chopper, all else equal, will never keep up due to extremely strong castering...ie, terrible turn-in.

I added about 5 deg to my Si a few years back to help overcome the ultra light and vague steering. All this did was make the steering worse since the Si's steering ration is 19:1...or worse. The Mini's is what, 13:1?

 

I know man...I can't believe my little man is 2 already.

now back to our regular programming

meb, thanks for your input to the thread.

 

Good info, as usual, thanks Michael. Yes, the MINI is 13.18:1. Not sure what the original Mini was though

 

The 99 and 2000 Civic Si had a horrid steering gear...at the time we also owned a honda Odyssey Mini van...it's steering felt better and was noticable faster. Unfortunately, this Si model shared none of the pick up points in any Honda/Acura models...every other model was interchangable. Perhaps honda did this to keep young boys from over-doing it...but us old dogs like fast steering

A couple more points to keep your fingers on...caster will help camber gain as we know. But, because caster raises the outside wheel and lowers the inside wheel while turning, the self centering affect we get from SAI or King pin is diluted. Also, because the outside front tire raises in a turn, it throws weight transfer to the wrong rear wheel if you happen to be in an opposite-lock condition...you may find that after a given caster value turn-in is diluted, SAI is diluted and that any opposite-lock attempt will actual result in a non-recoverable spin. As Greg Said, Jason's car is tight and turn-in crisp...but over doing a good thing, you know, is not a good thing.

Oh...lots of caster will give you Popye fore arms...that's a good thing