I have posted this in "tech mods" previously but still after some more opinions. I want to get a decent alignment done on my BJ front S/axle rear beetle and would like to know what caster, camber and toe settings to use for a street car that hopes to see a little bit of track work in the future. So far Ive found the following ,
Front
camber 1.5 - 2 Deg. negative
caster 3 - 5 Deg pos.
toe - anywhere from 20' toe in, to 5mm toe out
Rear
Camber 2 deg. neg.
toe - up to 5mm toe in
I have read both Jeff Unwins article on clubvdubs website and Greg Wards on aircooled.net as well as searches on here and the german look forums and found alsorts of various settings, does it all come down to how you like the car to react or is there a base settings that will give me a decent starting point?
Also when telling the wheel alignment shop what settings I'm after do I ask for toe to be set in "mm/inches" or "degrees/minutes" as I have seen it quoted as both.
And yes I realise the swinger is not the best staring point for a car that will go on the track but it will have to do for now.
Thanks in advance for your advice
Cheers
SAS
Thanks Craig now i'll be coming to get ya. lol.
Anyone else going to give me there secrets?
Caster shims NOT YET, how much extra caster does a pair give you over standard?
Swaybars 19mm F+R
Upper trailing arms bent for extra camber
I realise Height of the car governs amount of camber on the rear, but I thought I would work it in reverse ie. amount of camber required will determine ride height of car if you get my drift , no point having a super low vehicle if it doesnt handle decently.
Cheers
SAS😎
on my super i run
front
-2 chamber
caster, what ever it sits at (less thanstandard due to be lowered, needt o get a sway bar with more adjustment!!)
5mm toe in
rear
-2 chamber
i think it may be 2 degrees toe in
One it is twitchy
two- tires last about 6000 of street and track work
but with semi slicks it turns and grips like you wouldn't believe.
but also you must choose your settings dependant on
how much street vs race
spring rate
shock
ride height
tire specs
driving style
how much tire wear do you want!!!
condition of bushes etc
what type of race
I have no sympathy for my car, only the wallet that pays for it!
Go hard or go home!!!!
You will find that specs that 'work' on the street DO NOT work on the track and vice versa. Steering effort, tyre wear, straight-line stability etc are all compromised by 'track' settings. If it's a street car, set it up for street, with a bit less camber and toe than suggested above
The biggest gain will come from caster added to the front, especially if lowered. ie: shims between the bottom tube and the chassis. This gives better steering feel, and without getting too technical with explanations here, gives you car added 'camber gain' when the car needs it - during corners. Many late-model cars run 9 or 10 or more degrees pos caster - radial tyres love it and it improves stability and response without rock-solid swaybars etc
I've got my car set up with a tame alignment because I wanted to get the suspension right first.
Drive your car to the limit and find out what it does then try and tune out the evils.
My oval has suffered from snap oversteer and coming onto the straight at both Oran Park and Eastern Creek. You can see from the in car footage that it just happens without any steering or throttle input.
The car has also suffered from mid corner understeer after a strong turn-in.
I'm working with the spring and sway bar settings first to tune out the evils.
To increase oversteer or decrease understeer do the following:
Increase the rear spring rate or soften the front.
Increase the rear sway bar stiffness and decrese the front.
Increase the rear shock stiffness or soften the front
Increse toe out and decrease toe in.
The same applies in reverse to increase understeer and decrease oversteer.
Oversteer applies more to high speed corners and understeer to low speed corners. For example a hillclimb car set up for tight turns is likely to oversteer on a circuit and a circuit car is likely to understeer on a hillclimb.
The best way to set tyre pressures and camber settings is on the track by measuring hot tyre temps across the face or the tread with a pyrometer.
Good on ya Craig for posting your alignment settings. The way your car handles really looks the goods. It looks very balanced and responsive. The weight also seems to transfer well from front to rear and side to side.
Your spin at wakefield start the moment you turned rigt. I think that was just the pendulum effect becasue the car couldn't settle between the close left then right-hand corners.
My point is find out what your car does and what you want it to do and use a variety of suspension settings to get it to handle how you want it.
fullnoise wrote:Your spin at wakefield start the moment you turned rigt. I think that was just the pendulum effect becasue the car couldn't settle between the close left then right-hand corners.
CYA CT
Actually I think it was poor tyre choice,they're a good road tyre but not up to hard track work. This is also evident with the times recorded being some 1-2 seconds slower than previous years, unfortunately too much wheel spin out of corners
......................My new Dunlop formulae R's work a treat.
I drove my car yesterday with a mystery front alignment and it felt awful. I've rebuilt the front suspension with drop spindles and exta castor shims. It's aligned as it was bolted together. I won't be driving far like that. I just had to drive around the block (a couple of times) to see what the new engine combo felt like.
Has anyone ever had to rotate their steering box after fitting shims? I had to to ease the strain on the steering column. I just elongated the aligning tabs on the steering box bracket and tightened it bit by bit and let the box sit where it wanted to (with everything bolted together and the car sitting with it's weight on the wheels).
Yep 2 sets of shims. That's pushing the bottom tube out from the chassis by 12mm. And I used the long bolts.
Like you said it Glen it increases stability and increases neg camber on the outside wheel and reduces the neg on the inside wheel as you turn.
I don't know of anyone else who using drop spindles for racing so I could be barking up the wrong tree. At least the steering arms, ball joints and springs are all operating as intended by the factory.
Hopefully the wheels will tuck inside the guards slightly to give me enough suspension travel.
I'll know when I get the alignment.
When I first bolted up the beam with the shims I wound the steering from lock to lock and heard a few creaks. I could see the strain on the rubber coupling between the column and the box. The column was also close to the bottom of the steering column tube.
I remembered Berg mentioning writing about rotating the steering box acter setting his castor so I thought it was the right thing to do. Mind you he also mentioned pounding the column up into the body (not hanks).
I bolted my caster shims on this weekend and there is a noticable improvement in straight line stability right away and not to much difference in how heavy the steering is. So I'm now wondering about jamming another set in there as well, is increased weight of the steering the only trade-off or is there something else I'm not aware of?
