<snip>

You certainly seem to have an abundance of suspension knowledge. Why ask
here? Just do what you so obviously know already.

While this car is not being prepped for autocross, I live in an area
with long, curvaceous roads with above-average speed limits. I enjoy
driving my cars fast and hard, somewhat dangling on the border of
recklessness.

I understand that a car with understeer is more predictable and
intuitive than a car with oversteer/neutral steering capability, which
is why most production cars understeer by default. However, I'd like to
achieve neutral-ness and then force myself to adapt, as an experiment
of my driving technique/vehicle capability.

******************

Tele,

As a former Lotus Europa driver I can't let this go without a warning from
my own experience. Neutral steering and hard driving are a fractious
combination. Twice I found myself pointing the wrong way in curves with
absolutely no warning; I didn't even have my foot in the accelerator very
much. At least oversteering cars give some change in feel before coming
around; a neutral steering car puts Newton in the driver's seat very
suddenly indeed. All four wheels lose traction simultaneously and it makes
not the slightest difference if you try to steer out. You may as well let go
of the wheel because it does exactly nothing when you lose traction on all
four.

The Europa is a rear mid-engine design. I understand FWD is less
controllable at the limit if the suspension is set for neutral steering,
since there is a "dead man's corner" in the throttle response where either
increasing or reducing throttle will cause loss of control. I read a book
about sports car suspension in my enthusiast days, and it mentioned a FWD
racing car (Porsche?). Only two people ever agreed to drive it a second
time - one was reputed to be able to drive anything, and the other was a
motorcycle racer who thought all race cars handled like that.

Just sayin'

Mike

if you mean compliance in terms of vertical travel, there's no
difference.  if you mean compliance in terms of geometry control and
degrees of freedom, wishbones are the way to go.  basically, you can
keep the camber appropriate to lean angle /both/ sides of the car.  with
mcpherson, you can kinda-sorta get it ok-ish for the outer wheel, but
the inner one goes to heck.  in low traction environs like rallying on
dirt, it doesn't matter, hence subaru dominance in that arena.  but on
black top, wishbone is the way to go.  somewhere on the web is a table
of cornering g's pulled by different compact sport cars from the 80's &
90's.  the crx was [is] better than than any other car in it's
class/tire width.  look at any mcpherson vs. wishbone - they all have
wider tires just to keep the thing on the road.  better yet, check out
any wide-tired car like bmw in a parking lot with the wheels at full
lock.  see how much [how little] rubber is on the road on the inside tire?

both.

that's minor.  biggest advantage is /significant/ cost saving - much
lower component count and each component that's left is /much/ cheaper
to manufacture.  look at the [forged?] knuckle on an integra - that
thing is at least 3 forming operations, each needing very expensive
tooling.  a strut just has a cast sub axle bolted on the bottom.

there's plenty of room.  mcpherson is all about cost.  end of story.

if you want a car that can be tweaked and really handle on the curves,
get a post 88, pre-2000 civic, a post 88 crx, post 89 integra or a
prelude.  the 06 si has a nice motor, but that's about it.  seriously,
if you sell that car, you'll have money to spare for a good base car
from the above, /and/ a motor like this:

http://www.theoldone.com/articles/Larryscivic/Larrys_Civic.htm