susp set up

campbellju

Moderators
Staff member
The best way to setup a car is through testing, testing and more testing.

If you've done a track day before then that's a good start as you can concentrate on improvements rather than trying to work out what's going on. As I've ranted on another post, handling is subjective so just using someone elses settings won't help.

Second thing, if this your car is going to spend 99% of its miles on the road then get it setup for a good road/race biased setup.

Toe: Toe out will improve the agility of a car but it will also make it unstable. It will also completely sh*g your tyres on road driving. Unless you know what you're looking for or you tuner knows your driving style, the race track and the car then I'd avoid toe until you get a bit more advanced.

Castor: I don't think its adjustable on the R unless you've modded something. Its been a while since I looked. If it is , most racers increase castor to give you more negative camber when your turn the wheel. As above for first time out, keep it simple. Get your core settings right before you start fiddling with these.

Camber: Get a good road/race setting but nothing to drastic. The level of camber is dependant on your tyres. -2.5 or more front camber will be perfectly fine..... if you're running slicks or very sticky tryres. Even for high performance road tyres, I'd be surprised if you need more than -2.
Get the front set to -1.5 or -2 if you're feeling brave and the back set to -0.5 to -1.0 less. This will help balance out the inherent understeer in the car. How much you need depends on how much inherent understeer you as a driver feel you have. Increasing your camber also reduces your accelerative (Not so much a problem on the R) and braking grip.
Given that, as a starting point, I would put -1.5deg front and -1deg rear.
Now here's the clever bit, watch your tyres on the road, before racing and after racing. On the road , you might find the inside edge wears a bit. Ideally have new tyres for the track, partly because new tyres always have better grip (once bedded in) and also you get a blank page to examine your camber. This is also why you leave the other settings alone and have them set to neutral. If the out side edge wears on any tyre, increase the negative camber for next time. You should have a level wear pattern across the entire tread. The left will always wear a bit more as you always go round circuits clockwise. For a road used car though you should keep the settings the same on each side. If the wear is excessive around the edge, increase the canmber by -0.5 each time.

Dampers: Finally something simple, if you've not got adjustable dampers... Doh! If its wet set them on minimium or min +10% all round, If its dry, set them at 50% for a starting point. Given you've got neutral toe, nothing stupid on the castor and sensible camber, you've got a sensible platform to adjust your dampers and you'll probably be surprised at the difference it makes. If the car understeers, try increasing the back by 10% or dropiing the front by 10%. Try them both and see which feels better on fast/slow corners. Go again and see ifthe car handles the way you want. To reduce oversteer, stiffen the front by 10% or reduce the back 10%. Again , see what you prefer. Wet and dry you will probably want different setting, in the wet a more neutral setting is safer, in the dry, I personally prefer a stiffer back end. :lol: Once you've got the balance right, adjust them all up or down 10% and see which feels better. Keep doing this until its worse.

Roll Bars: Can be used in a similar way to dampers by changing the front rear bias but without affecting wheel control. Roll is not a bad thing, in the wet it is in an advantage. If your roll bar is adjustable, set your dampers neutral all round, with a given set of camber settings, balance out any inherent understeer. Doing this gives you a better platform from which to adjust your damper settings. If the dampers are too different front to back, then when you hit bumps etc they car can become unbalanced.

Tyres: The was an adver in "CAR" about some avon tyres round anglesey. The marketing men proved the the Avon slick tyres were only 1 second faster than the high performance road legal type slicks. Thi smight be true but the slicks might have worn on the inside edge whilst the next best had worn on the outside as the camber was wrong.

Overall lap time is a good way to check if things are better or worse. This is why it helps if you've already done trackdays.

Only change on thing at a time (Unless its wrong like positive camber or broken dampers etc). Someone on the Yahoo group had a tricked up car that killed understeer to the point that he went backwards in to a lamp post. My opinon on how you setup your car is as good or bad as the next person' s. There are no standard settings for optimum performance.

Just a thought :wink:
Jim
 
O

Odin

Guest
cheer's Jim that's more like it :wink: .

The main reason I'm after toe info is I'v had it all apart and it needs setting up to the standard setting's really :wink: .

As for camber I will set to -1.5 front and -1.0 rear as a good starting point
thank you for the advice mate, I will see how it feels on the road for a while, then try a track day or two :twisted: .

I have brand new tyre's fitted also which will let me see how the setting are effecting the tyre's :wink:


rob
 

youngsyp

Active Member
From all the bits and pieces I have read on the subject, I would go for as much positive castor at the front, as you can get. With the Whiteline kit, this can be as much as 3.5 degrees. This has only positive traits, like sharper turn in etc and a lot of people (racers) say you can never have enough castor. For camber I would go for 1.5- degrees up front and 1 - 1.25- degrees at the back. This will crispen up the turn in and provide better grip on the cornering limits. This shouldn't result in the inner shoulder wearing either as, the angle of the wheel aren't very large. As for toe, set the front to parallel i.e. 0 toe in or out and the back to 2-3mm total toe out. This will give you excellent stability, due to the fronts being parallel and a responsive rear that will follow the front round corners better. Of course, these settings will be ideal for road and everyday driving. With track work, you could go a bid madder with the camber :twisted:

HTH

Cheers

Paul
 
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Odin

Guest
thanks very much chaps :D :wink: .

well I'm all sorted now many thanks to the people that gave info 8) .

It's booked in for next tuesday :D


rob
 

campbellju

Moderators
Staff member
youngsyp said:
From all the bits and pieces I have read on the subject, I would go for as much positive castor at the front... This has only positive traits, like sharper turn in etc and a lot of people (racers) say you can never have enough castor.
Agreed with what you say but I shyed away from saying this. I've not adjusted my own castor in the Sunny so couldn't say when it goes from good to awful. Race cars do use a lot of castor... and camber and stiff dampers/springs but there is a balance to everything. My first punt would be to go to the maximum standard Nissan setting rather than the maximum available through the whiteline kit.


youngsyp said:
As for toe, set the front to parallel i.e. 0 toe in or out and the back to 2-3mm total toe out. This will give you excellent stability, due to the fronts being parallel and a responsive rear that will follow the front round corners better.
.... and more prone to power on oversteer. Its all shades of grey rather than a right or wrong answer. A 350bhp Sunny will be significantly more prone to mid corner oversteer than a standard 220bhp. You might find a toe out at the front of 2-3mm with a stiffer back end, so the car turns in fast, drags the back end through, use toe in on the rear to give stability so when you power down you can hold all the horses in the direction you want. This also could be complete c**p but it depends on the car and drivers style. Nigel Mansell used to set his F1 car to understeer as in the days before traction control, he prefered to pile fast into a corner on understeer rather than worry about going backwards through it. Anyone seen a modern F1 car when the traction control fails :lol:

Its all such a balancing act the more you get into it that IMO, changing everything in one go to someone elses standard settings who doesn't know your driving style, tyres etc. can only be less than perfect.

Quick thought, If you're running 17" wheels with 225 tyres, you will have fantastic outright grip but pants turn in. Someone with 14" wheels with 195 tyres will have great turn in but pants understeer. How can you have a standard setting for all a race track?

Keep it simple and build up to the advanced stuff so you understand the changes you've made what works and what doesn't. Get your camber set at the garage (everyone agrees on sensible settings.) then play arouind on the roads with your dampers and roll bars. With it being a road rather tahn a race track I would suggest you try the mad extremes on your dampers and roll bar so you can see first hand that if more is good then even more is bad. Pick a setting and if it feels right drive around on it for a few days in the rain and dry. Change it slightly and do the same. Then you will know if it feels better or worse. When I put new adjustable dampers on my other car, it took me about a month to have settings that I liked. The gargae recommended 50% all round (which is always a good starting point) but on that car I prefered 60% front and 70% rear.

:oops:

You may have noticed I get quite passionate over handling setups :roll:
 
O

Odin

Guest
Yes I did notice :wink: but if you where not I'd have no one to help me with the set up of my car 8) ...

I found that I like the rear of the car fairly stiff and the front set at about 50% on setting number 2, But I will have a play now I have the extra whiteline sway bar's/bumpsteer kit/anti-dive kit and the rear axle kit, So I would think it's going to feel totally dif now :D .



rob
 

Nad

Active Member
Jim said exactly what I said just with some figures and some bulking out ;) Too much castor and u will be cornering on the sidewall and have no grip and no lock either as u will hit the suspension turret :lol:

Nad
 
O

Odin

Guest
Yeah but it's allway's the same with you mate plenty of woffle and no content :roll: :cry: . So i'm glad there are people on hear who can and
WILL answer my question's :wink:



rob
 

Nad

Active Member
I didnt want to give u too much info incase I confused u :lol:

Nad

P.S. I will remember that cold hearted comment next time u ring :cry:
 

Nad

Active Member
On that note though I posted all the handling info a few yrs back but it got lost in the archives and I havent the time to try and find it all again.

Nad
 
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Odin

Guest
Nad said:
P.S. I will remember that cold hearted comment next time u ring :cry:
It could of been a lot worth matey, I thought I was being nice :lol:


rob
 
M

mozza

Guest
The guy who had my car before me spent an arm and a leg getting the suspension setup just right (has most of the stuff V pulsar has)

Handling for road use is superb, although think the camber could be slightly out now, so gonna get that checked out pretty soon.

Any Mids places that ppl would recommend??


Crazy said:
[

By the way V, does have you got a Mongoose on your R

If so does the cusco lower 2 point brace vibrate on it at idle :?:

Humm that happens on mine too on tickover :roll: at least I know what it is now :wink:
 

Fast Guy

Moderators
Staff member
Campbellju, could you run without anti roll bars with stiff suspension? or would you advise leaving them on?
 

Fast Guy

Moderators
Staff member
I was thinkig that I could remove them both with the efdc and set it hard for dry and soft for wet to control the body roll. :?:
 

skiddusmarkus

Active Member
Seems a good idea in the wet but I wouldn't do it in the dry-whole point of having coilovers to me is that you once you've created a nice stiff platform that doesn't move the coilovers are the icing on the cake and you set the ride height and corner weights with them.Removing them will take away stiffness.
If the coilovers are moving about on cornering then they're not holding the geometry so you'll lose out in the dry.In the wet it will allow the car to lean more instead of sliding so beneficial there.
 

campbellju

Moderators
Staff member
Fast Guy said:
Campbellju, could you run without anti roll bars with stiff suspension? or would you advise leaving them on?
:?: Interesting question

Removing them would get a big no from me as they contribute towards maintinaing the lateral geometry of the lower arm. You might find getting rid of it creates unknown geometry changes whilst driving

A roll bar works by lifting the wheel up that's being pushed down and transferring the force to the other wheel. Their might be a marginal difference in the wet but in general the car has the same level of grip but spread across the 2 wheels.

Stiffer dampers/springs will absorb the downward force rather than re-distribute it.

Even if you had a really thin anti roll bar, you might find your car doesn't roll at normal cornering speeds becasue your suspension is too stiff.

If you have too much roll then one tyres grip is exceeded whilst the other is doing nothing. Alternativley, the advantage is that loading up the suspension in one direction will fire the car in the other dicerction. Fantastic for chicanes and roundabouts, pants for 110mph sweeping corners.

Some racers might remove the roll bar but I'd have thought that is for specific types of track or style. Autocross maybe?

The thing to get your head round is for handling, soft(er) suspension is not all bad.

If you've got coil overs, you can perfectly balance your weights. For a race car this is essential, for a road car I think most coil overs are too stiff. Once at Elvington (airfield) there was an MR2 driver who had a really stiff and low car. He was bragging about how good it would be before the track day and how he would smite everyone. Above 80mph, his car was so stiff it became unstable on corners. My car of that time had standard dampers and some PI springs (A combination I wouldn't repeat incidentally) but was quite happy cornering 30mph faster :D

Waffle waffle blah blah, another chip on my shoulder. :oops:

Back to your question, An EDFC is a very cool device to have. I normally adjust my dampers according to season. If you can do it instantly to the weather its very cool.

By all means balance your weights with the coil overs by try not to go too low and stiff as you might feel more stable until you hit a pot hole halfway round a bend at 90mph. A 30-40mm drop should be about right for UK roads. Where I live, a lot of the roads a poor condition so 30mm is max. If you like beasting it on dual cariage ways, 40mm might be more appropriate. Lotus who do some of the best UK handling road cars have relativley high ride heights and and softer springs with stiff dampers. Incidentally, Lotus Esprits are corner weight balanced for 2 people so with one in the car it leans slightly!! Is that attention to detail or what.

If you've got understeer, balance things with your dampers, 10% difference front to back does make a difference. Before you remove your ARB, I would try removing the front strut brace first as this will also soften the front and change the balance.

Its all subjective though so do what feels better to you, not what you think should be better.

Jim
 

campbellju

Moderators
Staff member
Don't know if that last comment makes any sense. What I mean is use your dampers to find your own balance between stability and grip, front and back, wet and dry.
 
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