Any ride possible ride improvements for cars reaction to gusty wind?

Good evening guys!

How y'll doing for a Friday?

Last night and today, with a bit of a cross breeze over the highway the baja seems to catch it like a sail, and in turn the body rolls a bit, suspension at front squats a little to one side and thus some counter steer has to be made rather than just tracking straight.

I understand that everything done to make it a baja (jacked up, body kit, super light front end, no sway bar etc) puts everything against it... but is there adjustments to the steering that could be made? like camber, caster or toe?

I can handle it... its just annoying.

Thanks in advance! Chris.

You could probaly check ther castor angle and if it is below 4 degrees you could fit a set of castor wedges, the only downside would be a increase steering effort.

Firstly put a sway bar back on the front.
Secondly, you are getting more air under the car due to the shape of the front.
thirdly, how big are the tyres on the rear?

Bag of sand under bonnet to add weight. Sucks but weight settles that prob give it a go with 1, 2 or 3 bags to check the difference

lower it to the weeds and hella flush rollers all round
no more cross breeze probs 😀

bajachris88 wrote:Good evening guys!

How y'll doing for a Friday?

Last night and today, with a bit of a cross breeze over the highway the baja seems to catch it like a sail, and in turn the body rolls a bit, suspension at front squats a little to one side and thus some counter steer has to be made rather than just tracking straight.

I understand that everything done to make it a baja (jacked up, body kit, super light front end, no sway bar etc) puts everything against it... but is there adjustments to the steering that could be made? like camber, caster or toe?

I can handle it... its just annoying.

Thanks in advance! Chris.

Early standard [no mods[ beetles were like that.... lol

but the later beetles were much better...

it does depend on the wind gusts though..

We have had up around 48kmh gusty winds lately and it does tend to blow Your beetle around...
I keep thinking about what the truck drivers coming towards Me are thinking as I correct and correct again...

slight wind gusts aren't as bad as the early beetles were..
and the bag of sand is probably right to add weight to Your steering wheels.
Is camber and castor correct...?

I thought Mine was OK, but fitted another front end and steering box and its now excellent...
Sway bars do also help if You don't have one fitted..

cheers

LEE

PS: its probably more windy when You are sitting up high in the winds... lol

Hey Chris.

Firstly, don't fit a swaybar to the front. The car is an offroad vehicle first and a highway flyer second. No point in making it worst at what you have built it for.
I would be checking the above mentioned wheel alignment figures that people have suggested above.
Firstly the front castor. If that is out it's going to add to the wandering feeling at all speeds, but especially with a crosswind. As vwo60 has said you want more than 4° castor in the front bit probably no more than 6° or your steering will start getting too heavy. If you keep it in that range your steering isn't going to be too bad, especially cause you don't have super big tyres on the front. If it turns out that you need more castor then let me know, as I'm sure I have a spare set of beam shims lying around here somewhere.

Second thing to check is the rear toe. This is very important on a VW especially one with large rear tyres.
Too much toe out and you and going to get wandering, but too much toe in is just as bad and can also cause handling issues. You want a slight bit of toe in on the rear, but not too much.

Next thing that can give you issues is your wheel offset on the front. too much negative offset and you can get handling issues. With a VW front end there is an imaginary line that either goes through both the balls in your balljoints or it's through the centre of your kingpin. If you follow this line it will point to a spot on the ground, this spot is where the centre of your front tyre should contact the ground. Having large amounts of negative offset in your front rims will move your contact patch further out than this point, which will effect your handling.
This also has a big effect offroad, say on the rough inland tracks of Fraser. When your tyres hit the bumps it will cause your steering to kick from side to side, sort of like bump steer but it's being caused by your rim offset. This is not good for steering box health. If you want to travel fast offroad you need to try and get your trad patch over that invisible mark on the ground.

I hope some of these ramblings have helped.


Smiley 🙂

Smiley you are refering to scrub radius, it is important as you said with the feed back through the steering wheel, another problem is with tram lining under brakes, following ruts in the road, it is over looked by most people, narrow a beam and fit the wrong off set wheels as seams to be popular and it becomes a major problem.

vwo60 wrote:Smiley you are refering to scrub radius, it is important as you said with the feed back through the steering wheel, another problem is with tram lining under brakes, following ruts in the road, it is over looked by most people, narrow a beam and fit the wrong off set wheels as seams to be popular and it becomes a major problem.

Thanks man! I couldn't remember the proper word for it!

Yeah, a lot of things get overlooked when people modify their cars, often because they have no idea about them. And then when it's done they wonder why their car drives like shit (not referring to you here BTW Chris)

The scrub radius on my Baja still isn't quite right. I would actually like to widen my beam and fit some front wheels with even more positive offset to make it perfect. So the wheels will stay where they are under the guards. Just the important bits will be moving around.



Smiley 🙂