Glanza - GT Handling?

[valentino]

Okay,

So here my 2nd post topic to this forum, Iâ??ve observed Ecksjay mentioning about the handling of the little Glanza â?? GT I quote! ''handling ability of a cheese sandwich.'' Which I found very amusing this got me thinking is the handling really that dreadful? Or is this generally an judgment of Ecksjay?

I personally found the handling to be excellent, but I didnâ??t actually get to manoeuvre the car that fast in different situations while I had the chance!

Iâ??d like to be apologetic if Iâ??ve offended Ecksjay in anyway! His opinion got me thinking

Whats you thoughts?

[Idrees]

I think thats just generally a judgement of his, but then again the handling is quite shit!

[valentino]

For some reason am incredibly stunned, I always thought the car itself would handle extremely well? So what kind of dreadful handling will I be expecting to get once I purchase one? Will it surrender as I take a fairly tight corner at some speed and leave me in a bush with an extremely fuming elderly lady swearing at me various remarks?!

To be honest this is putting me off reasonably big portion of purchasing one am not a speed freak, but I like to know at the back of my head that am in a car that can handle well in certain situations.

[ste91]

I wouldn't say it's shit, but it's definately nothing amazing.

It is front wheel drive after all...

[Spoonz]

i would say its shit its like a boat

[Rich]

Standard its like running on your hands which are tied together but of course there are plenty of mods to sort it out ;)

[Idrees]

I personally think the rear end is too twitchy, and I get loadsa wheel hop too. Got a few handling mods to sort the rear end, but can't be arsed fitting them!

[Guest Enzo]

hey bro im just copying this from another thred but it should help a wee bit,

It takes a very skilled driver to get the most out of an ep chassis regardless of what spring and dampers are in place. The starlet chassis is exploitable but to the average Joe punter,(or cal) safe also with rakes of understear on the limit & with lift off overstear there if you want it,

you could describe the handling as timid plus ultimate cornering speeds are bellow par. these are all facts (as gayboy ecsjay would put it more bluntly in a condisening knowit all fassion,)

dont get me wrong, eps are Still chuckable enough to have fun with but not the last word in ultimate handling, in a way thats good as you dont have to be goin as fast to have fun,

any of us ep guys will know, uve been ragging it across you favorit twisty road getting the banter in your turbo ep with a mate whos pulling just pulling away in a car that shines out of the box, apart from driving out of your skin to keep u[ you ul realise the inherint weeknesses within the chassis. not to reitoerate i say this id down to a poorly set up chassis, some resected ep junkys on this forum would say this is down to the beam axle at the back,(our guru starletrick once said"they are used on trucks for fucksake"my reply, aye on the front aswell as the back axles) the ep does have a half decent chassis macpherson struts at the front(where the stearing happens) its just not setup correctly.

there are a whole heap of modifications out there that canrestore the balance. This is quite an interesting subject to discus if you are into how your ep handles. every part mentioned here can be obtained from Toytuning within the forum but as toby is anal about speakin on the phone + always has too much on his plate maybe try dave at starletgtturbo.co.uk, hes always helpfull and loves to craic on the phone:)

The first two suspension additions you should add to any starlet as soon as you buy it are

• a rear anti roll bar
  
• Front anti lift/castor kit
  

rear anti rollbar (a must)

all hot hatchbacks come with a rear anti roll bar as standard(one of a few reason why the ek9 handles so well is becauseof this) why Toyota never decided to fit one to the mighty ep is a mystery to me. The job of the anti roll bar is to increase roll stiffness of the chassis the right way. so abit of detail, i think you probably know this as your pretty clued up.........Fitting an uprated front arb will promote more understeer(great for drift cars to hone your setup). Fitting an uprated rear arb has the reverse tendancy to reduce understeer and increase overstear.

* i a must do modification to any ep

Fitting a rear arb will drastically reduce the understear any starlet is plagued with making the ep a lot more neutral bringing the car more in touch with its French counter parts. It will make the car feel allot more planted to the road and chuckable at higher speeds.

It is worth noting that the illusion of travelling at speed will disappear. So you will find yourself entering corners a lot faster than normal due to the car feeling less nervous as roll stiffness is increased. This is the best way I can describe the positive affects of fitting a rear anti roll bar.

Experienced drivers would have fun on the thicker settings that are available on some of the adjustable arb kits out there. Think of lift off overseer on demand around any nice sweeping radius roundabout then you get the picture. Not too dissimilar to any of the fluid handling French hot hatches that also share similar dated but supremely effective technology.

most people will wade in with stiff coilovers to improve handling and increasing roll stifness after experiencing a fair share of set ups I strongly believe this is the wrong answer to getting the most out of the starlet chassis when you consider the state of roads in certain parts of the country.so a quality set of matched springs and shox should suffice, .but as u will be trackin it ignore that, just pay some attention to the spring rates on the coylys ma man

unless you have driven ep’s for years and your in touch with the handling capability of an ep you will constantly find yourself guessing how much adhesion you have available at the front of your starlet every time you jump in or a ragging session, very anoying, this is mainly due to the lack of steering feel. Ask any decent Racing driver how to improve steering feel and they will tell you to increase the caster

Anti lift castor kit. (a must)

It’s a written rule the more castor to a certain point you have on a car will increase the steering feel giving you much more information to your finger tips as to what the front of the car is actually doing.

The way this kit actually works is by placing a 10-12mm block under the front control arm bushes pushing the radius of the wheels back,

The anti lift properties come from the new offset bushes that come within the kit…………..

* note - when fitting make sure the mounting hole is positioned to the outside of the car

Think of a primitive lsd then you get the picture. This is a very noticeable modification that will heighten the confidence in any persons driving ability as you will have more of an idea of front adhesion levels . Especially in greasy and wet conditions.

ps bro uve posted this in the wrong section so il move it once everyons had a deek

[StarletRick]

the handling on stock starlets, in my opinion, are dangerously bad.

its like, a mix of horrible swaying, understeer, liftoff oversteer and sliding. and to top it off the brakes are pretty piss poor aswell.

you have to spend a good deal of money getting them handling "well".

and idrees, wheelhop is just poor throttle control ^^

[Guest Enzo]

the handling on stock starlets, in my opinion, are dangerously bad.

you have to spend a good deal of money getting them handling "well".

id agree with that especialy in wet condtions, and the way some of those early nas came out of the factory with 13" steelys is asking for trouble

on the second note id say £300 on basic mods to get it up to scratch then ul obviusly need to spend more to fine tune it - please dont be put off though

i was blatting away in athena this morning(30 mins ago) having some banter with my boss in his 330d (£33grand and 12 years newer), we were holding the same entry and exit speeds in and out of corners - he was tryin like f*ck to get away and he couldent,

my setup

budyclubs on the front (16kgs stiff)

d2s on the back and (5kgs stiff)

an one of my antilift castor kits like shown above

so they defo cant be that bad

[StarletRick]

16 on the front, fuck me that must be wrist breaking over bumps :\

[Sparky]

They are very arse end twitchy but I love it, must be my driving style

Although I have coilovers and strut braces, I have never driven a standard Starlet suspension wise so cant really comment

[SpeedFreak]

Same as above - I havent ever driven a standard suspension starlet so I dont know what they are like.

In my own opinion, I like how my starlet handles. This could be down to the suspension I have. I agree with Rick in what he said in the other post, that maybe I believe this to be good handling because I havent driven a massive amount of varied cars.

I also believe, that every body drives differently and everyone has a certain style. It depends on how confident and comfortable you are with driving your car.

[Rich]

Now I have added the rear antiroll bar it feels a lot more "Attatched" to the rest of the car. Roundabouts are now fun and not hard work, driving in the wet is still scary sometimes

[paul w]

Stop posting questions and go drive one!

1 Standard and 1 modded and make up your own mind. Any decent importer will have both examples in stock.

That is the only way that you'll find out for yourself.

[Guest Enzo]

^ totaly then draw your own conclusions

[Rotary Solutions Ltd]

My missus has a totally standard Glanza and it was shocking to say the least, regardless of how good of a driver you are. I put some RS*R springs on and its sorted it out quite alot, but its still pretty pants, but saying that i drive a rex which is pretty amazing at handling so its swings and roundabouts i suppose.

[valentino]

Enzo,

Your post was enormously useful to be truthful they would have been the modification I would have had in mind to do to originally and a brake-kit upgrade. But that post reassured me that would have been the right ones to do Iâ??ll most likely look out for one with these modifications or so. As well as further respect to paul w I ought to in actual fact go out and drive one properly to get the idea of how the car feels.

Bad thoughts â?? Nill!

Sorry about posting it in the wrong place 2!

P.S Iâ??ve got a teddy like yours Enzo 2!

[Guest Enzo]

lolz no problem at all man im here to help

16 on the front, fuck me that must be wrist breaking over bumps :\

yea theres alot of kick back on bumpy roads around my way

its a definatate no no to rag it on roads i dont know, but on the smooth ones i do its sublime

[ecksjay]

Hahaha! it is certainly my opinion, however as above, there is truth behind the comments.

As stock, they are appalling. When modded, they can be made alot better, but they will still be inherently flawed and when compared with something that has a brilliant chassis from the factory (civic, focus etc, or anything else with control blade type suspension), they will never be as good as the competition.

Thats with the same drivers ofcourse, as at the end of the day, its the drivers that make all the difference.

The money you have to spend on them to get them going round corners is silly, it really shouldn't be needed, thats why its so damn frustrating, because it shouldn't be that difficult.

An important thing to remember, the worst driver in the world can make the BEST handling car in the world handle (and look) like a complete piece of shit.

also, 16kg on the front? racing spec bc's? thats fucking madness. what were the bc rears??

[Mad Matt]

I wonder how I will experience the handling.

Driven a MR2 turbo with Koni shocks and Eibach springs, this thing was bizar in cornering.

Then a Celica T-sport with Tanabe springs, great ride aswell.

And the the mother of all tuner-cars a Nissan Almera (2001), damn that was sucky.

[monka]

i personly love the handling on my gt, trd suspension,

stiff as hell ass hand, twitchy, but i like it.