Wheel hop!

[mac.mogul]

Wheel hop is 100% suspension... When it's too soft or poorly aligned, wheel hop happens.

Stiffen the springs, stiffen the bushings, adjust the damping, and keep a slight toe-in alignment. That'll take care of wheel hop.

Tires and engine mounts have nothing to do with it.

[BaconZombie]

I disagree. Wheel hop is not necessarily 100% suspension. When the engine moves enough on a hard launch, it can cause a feeling like wheel hop, and cause actual wheel hop as well. I had every suspension upgrade available on my SpecV excluding coilovers, and it still "hopped" until I got engine mount inserts.

While what you said, mac.mogul, can definitely help, it's not ALWAYS the total solution.

P.S. It happens with the Michelin Sport PS3's, too. Just happened to me this morning.

[Albarry]

I installed the CFM Rear motor mount, its fixed my wheel hop for a week. And now its hopping again. But the issue is the mount and I'm convinced,

[StingRay]

Originally Posted by mac.mogul

Wheel hop is 100% suspension... When it's too soft or poorly aligned, wheel hop happens.

Stiffen the springs, stiffen the bushings, adjust the damping, and keep a slight toe-in alignment. That'll take care of wheel hop.

Tires and engine mounts have nothing to do with it.

That's odd, my poly RMM completely got rid of wheel hop.

[mac.mogul]

In our cars, being so underpowered, a motor mount might make the front end feel more solid, but its not the cure for wheel hop.

Wheel hop occurs when the tires accelerate faster than the mass of the vehicle. When they grip, they toe-out and lose grip. When the tires spin, they aren't accelerating so they toe-in and get grip again. Wheel hop is that process of the wheels toeing in and out, getting grip and losing grip.

When you beef up your suspension, you eliminate wheel hop. That is a fact. Motor mounts don't have anything to do with the root cause of wheel hop.

[JL330]

Originally Posted by mac.mogul

In our cars, being so underpowered, a motor mount might make the front end feel more solid, but its not the cure for wheel hop.

Wheel hop occurs when the tires accelerate faster than the mass of the vehicle. When they grip, they toe-out and lose grip. When the tires spin, they aren't accelerating so they toe-in and get grip again. Wheel hop is that process of the wheels toeing in and out, getting grip and losing grip.

When you beef up your suspension, you eliminate wheel hop. That is a fact. Motor mounts don't have anything to do with the root cause of wheel hop.

I figured something along those lines. I just don't know how fwd suspension geometry works. I'm assuming stiffer rear suspension would keep the back from squatting and the front from lifting as bad but it would take stiffer fronts too to keep everything working right.

I wish I could just convert to rwd, that's easy stuff.

[BaconZombie]

Originally Posted by mac.mogul

In our cars, being so underpowered, a motor mount might make the front end feel more solid, but its not the cure for wheel hop.

Wheel hop occurs when the tires accelerate faster than the mass of the vehicle. When they grip, they toe-out and lose grip. When the tires spin, they aren't accelerating so they toe-in and get grip again. Wheel hop is that process of the wheels toeing in and out, getting grip and losing grip.

When you beef up your suspension, you eliminate wheel hop. That is a fact. Motor mounts don't have anything to do with the root cause of wheel hop.

Hmm, interesting. I figured my 10+ years in automotive sales and service would at least teach me something. Turns out I can learn a lot more on the internet.

Not trying to be a prick here, but you're not wrong and you're not right. Engine mounts can and will cause issues with wheel hop. This isn't something I'm speculating, it's something I've experienced first hand.

I'm not going to argue anymore, as I'm not one to start online wars. Just stating something from personal experience.

[mac.mogul]

I'm going to keep arguing because I know I'm right. Engine mounts might seem to help in situations where FWD passenger cars are concerned as the factory mounts are SO soft, but it has nothing to do with what actually causes wheel hop. When the suspension parts are stressed beyond their capability under hard acceleration and deceleration, wheel hop happens. That is 100% fact and simply adding a stiffer motor mount won't solve anything.

If you've got C5 Corvette and the rear end hops around like a bunny rabbit with its head on fire, It isn't because you've got soft motor mounts...

[Brabs_Weather]

Originally Posted by mac.mogul

I'm going to keep arguing because I know I'm right. Engine mounts might seem to help in situations where FWD passenger cars are concerned as the factory mounts are SO soft, but it has nothing to do with what actually causes wheel hop. When the suspension parts are stressed beyond their capability under hard acceleration and deceleration, wheel hop happens. That is 100% fact and simply adding a stiffer motor mount won't solve anything.

If you've got C5 Corvette and the rear end hops around like a bunny rabbit with its head on fire, It isn't because you've got soft motor mounts...

I have wheel hop and the only thing that cured it in my other FWD car was to eliminate any toe change on acceleration. Buy changing all the stock rubber bushings with better ones. Shocks that do not dampen well will perpetuate the wheel hop but is not the cause. Wheel hop is more your suspension but not 100% but really close.

[mac.mogul]

Originally Posted by Brabs_Weather

I have wheel hop and the only thing that cured it in my other FWD car was to eliminate any toe change on acceleration. Buy changing all the stock rubber bushings with better ones. Shocks that do not dampen well will perpetuate the wheel hop but is not the cause. Wheel hop is more your suspension but not 100% but really close.

Suspension bushings are part of your suspension.

Wheel hop is 100% suspension related. You can do lots of things that will trick you into believing you have gotten rid of wheel hop, but only adjusting/tuning suspension components will have any real effect.

Tires with stiff sidewalls will succumb to wheel hop at a lower threshold than tires with a soft sidewall. Wheel hop is still possible, but your tires are now soft enough that you won't see it. The caveat to soft sidewalls is less responsive handling.

You can change to a stiffer motor mount which keeps the engine from bucking around under hard acceleration/deceleration. In a low-powered car you might not experience wheel hop after changing the motor mount, but start adding power or change to racier clutch/flywheel and you could be seeing wheel hop again even worse than before.

Wider tires actually will help to prevent wheel hop because the larger footprint keeps the tire from losing grip when the geometry of the suspension changes. The problem here is that if you're running high power and wide sticky tires on a stock suspension, you're going to break something.

The only way to get rid of wheel hop and prevent breakage is to adjust/tune your suspension components properly. Under hard acceleration, wheels on independent axles will pull towards each other so a slight amount of toe-out is beneficial.
(A RWD solid axle car like a Mustang will need aftermarket LCAs to get rid of wheel hop [driver mod helps, too])