Suspension setup advice?

[bobdylan]

I am thinking about runing between 1 and 2 degrees of total toe out in the rear of my car. am thinking about runing 2.5degrees camber front and rear.

I don't care about tyre life too much... Also don't mind it being twitchy on the straights for better turning.

Car already runs mrp race coilovers.

Can anyone recommend a better setup or what they use? When it comes to suspension setup I am lost!!

[Bling]

So it's a race car? Only going off the race coilovers. What the car is used for will make a big difference to setup suggestions people might have.

[bobdylan]

Its a duel purpose car. Will be driven on the road, but needs to be happy at Hampton downs.

I am willing to be uncomfortable on the road for better performance.

[ANT]

Only you can decide what will work. As you are the one who will be driving it, and you will drive it differently to everyone else.

Btw, you haven't even said what kind of car it is.. what tyres its using, and what suspension mods it has other than coilovers..

[bobdylan]

1984 ae82 fxgt. Silvertop 20v, blacktop ecu, 5speed lsd box, ae111 front and rear brakes. whiteline 18mm rear swaybar. nuthraine bushes, half cage,

[Truenotch]

My only advice is to find a good race alignment shop and try things to see what works. Are you auckland?

[bobdylan]

My only advice is to find a good race alignment shop and try things to see what works. Are you auckland?

i am up there a lot. prefer closer to hb but aucks is fine.

[Bling]

Do you have a cert for the car then? I know there are limitations for camber etc with certs, I just don't know what they are off the top of my head.

[ANT]

I would say, buy the best tyres you can for starters. Get a basic alignment. Im sure there is another fxgt track car out there you can get hints from.
I know nothing about setting up Fwd cars, but i always thought you ran the rear stiffer that the front to promote turn in and ran slight toe out all around to aid turn also?
Once you find the limit's of the tyres, you will know what you need to change..
/someone can gladly correct me if im wrong.

[Brock-Lee]

I have no idea how to setup a car but if you have a motor sport authority card you can run whatever camber etc setting you like compared to the tiny adjustment available to road cars/cert rules.

[bobdylan]

So this is correct:

Toe out= quicker turn in, then earlier tendancy to 'break' and understeer
Toe in= More sluggish turn in, but less tendancy to understeer and more warning before 'break' understeer.
 

 

Was given this, know its for a Escort but its a FWD rally one, could the same setup work for the corolla????

[Rookie]

Almost certainly not. just give it a general alignment and play with it.

[ANT]

Yeah that's not even going to be close. As i said, every car and driver is different. You need to give it some basic alignment as a starting point. then find the limit of your tyres and once you do that, you can then change things to go faster. 

well that's what i think/would do anyways.

[bobdylan]

Yeah. Ant i have a 1.6km gravel track (driveway) to train on for the next 3 days.

Will report tomorrow

[ta63-1uzze]

RWD and front wheel drive and four wheel drive all have completely different alignment setups. toe is something that I believe is more important than camber or caster as it feels to me to have the most effect on how the car feels under heavy driving conditions, so with that in mind here is some shit to think about. this is right out of my wheel alignment book. I have been doing wheel alignments for the past 3 years and still I don't feel like I know enough to hand out advice.

 

Positive toe occurs when the front of both tires begins to face each other. Positive toe permits both wheels to constantly generate force against one another, which reduces turning ability. However, positive tow creates straighter driving characteristics.

 

Typically, rear wheel drive vehicles have slightly positive tow in the rear due to rolling resistance – causing outward drag in the suspension arms. The slight positive toe straightens out the wheels at speed, effectively evening them out and preventing excessive tire wear.

 

Negative toe is often used in front wheel drive vehicles for the opposite reason. Their suspension arms pull slightly inward, so a slight negative toe will compensate for the drag and level out the wheels at speed.

 

Negative toe increases a cars cornering ability. When the vehicle begins to turn inward towards a corner, the inner wheel will be angled more aggressively. Since its turning radius is smaller than the outer wheel due to the angle, it will pull the car in that direction.

 

Negative toe decreases straight line stability as a result. Any slight change in direction will cause the car to hint towards one direction or the other.

 

 

you need to get an alignment that is for your car. This is the building blocks of your adjustment.  then you can set it up as to your driving style , so if you find you turn late and hard then more camber will help bite in and stop under steer etc. get friendly with your alignment specialist . take a video camera to the track , install one in the car, and look at what's happening when your driving . this will help diagnose any issues so you can attack them when it comes time for alignment .  

[Rhyscar]

If your looking close to hawkes bay you won't find anyone decent in hawkes bay, if I have to find one over there I just get them to set up machine and do it myself, most guys who do road car alignments all day long just don't understand the technicalities of a racecar alignment. We bring the ae82 down to Nick at mag and turbo palmerston north for all its wheel alignments/corner weighting etc etc. knows how to set ae82's up well from all the learning we have done with ours. 

 

the old man started off in the ae82 as a novice driver so Nick gradually changed the alignment as he got better so he got to know what it should feel like. now we run a normal FWD type race alignment (still on the mild side compared to what I prefer on my ae101) but the old man knows when its out by1-2mm now cause he's learnt how it should feel and handle. Means if he hits a curb a bit hard and can notice it, we can remedy it by the next race rather than having laptimes go backwards and wondering what you are doing wrong/whats wrong with car. Gives the driver added confidence to push hard. 

 

 

 

alignment settings are determined largely by your spring rates/swaybars/weight transfer (side to side) and front/rear balance. how the car loads/unloads under certain situations depends on what to set the toe and camber at. Also as much castor as possible makes these things handle. Have a close look at your spring rates first, they should be about 450-500lb front and 550lb rear with those shocks and swaybar if you are running a good quality semi or slick. maybe back those numbers off by 50lb for running a good road tyre. I know Barry likes to run lower spring rates in the rear for some reason, but this isn't the way to make a fwd car handle on the road or track so it would be worth checking out.