DAZZASPEED

Some further set-up tweeks (courtesy of Tony): Front Castor changed from 3.0 degrees to 4.0 degrees. Camber and toe unchanged. The intention was to leave the Rear unchanged, but a few tweeks were needed to remove an unwanted rear thrust angle! So rear camber changed from -1.0 to -1.5 degrees (both sides equal) Rear toe changed from -1mm to 0 (parallel). So the new setup is….. LEFT / RIGHT / Average FR Toe: 0mm / 0mm / 0mm FR Camber: -2.3deg / -2.3deg / -2.3deg Castor: 4.0deg / 4.0deg / 4.0 RR Toe: 0.0mm / 0.0mm / 0.0mm RR Camber: -1.5deg / -1.5deg / -1.5deg Toe could have been preserved at the cost of camber, but it was decied to minimise any change to camber. Its also worth noting out that due to how low the car is, I'm now running minimum camber and maximum toe out at the rear as allowed for in the standard adjustments (eek!). Tyre pressures were set to 32FR / 34RR hot (as before). The first things I noticed was how much easier transitions are - the increased castor really coming into effect helping the car steer itself quickly and easily. However the car seemed to grip up mid drift and switch into understeer, making the longer 180+ degree corners quite difficult. A play with the pressures: 30FR / 34RR hot, sorted that out. The initial breakaway was still very easy and controllable, (I guess due to the reduction in toe) and then when the camber kicked in I had more grip through the drift. Slowly I got the hang of the increased mid drfit grip levels and it allowed me get back on the power earlier - previously I was waiting to see if I span out on the entry before bringing the power in, but now it was a much more fluid slide. Interestingly, I've checked out photos from the day (thanks to dori-stars.com!) and you can see that the outside rear wheel is vertical mid drift - confirming the above theory. All in all an improvement - for drifting..., but I think the tendancy to oversteer might make very difficult to drive safely on track. Right at this moment I'm thinking I might have to develop a separate track setup for the rear wheels. I'll see how it goes…. Next steps... eccentric poly bushes (to give a bit more room to play around with the settings, especially rear toe and camber) Steering rack mods are almost ready to go on. See if there is any way to increase the castor even more!

Well I did 4 runs, 2 going for a hoon, and 2 against the clock.... The 2 drift runs were more fun though! But even against the clock I couldn't keep the rear end in, just goes to show the effect of a good drift set-up! Glad you enjoyed it, hopefully it'll tempt a few more 5's into drifting....

What I would give for some space like that to play in.....

I have both - saves the hassle/stupid questions!

That explains a lot - my head hurts less now

Just missed out on the double post Are you running the same toe in front and rear? does that give you mild understeer or still quite balanced? Also you're running almost the opposite to me on camber, far more on the rear than the front. I must admit I've seen quite a few Roadsters running camber like this... whats the reasoning behind this? is it something unique to roadsters/5's or a set-up trick I'm missing out on? hmm, this is making my head hurt As for tyre pressures, I was running 32/34 on track, but settled on 30/32 for drift (as the rears were overheating and giving up all the grip, so I dropped them by 2 to get some grip back). I'm going to try this next time I'm on track and see how it goes, hopefully when I get the castor back to near what you're running it'll help prevent it from becoming dangerously tail happy! I guess is also depends on tyre width and profile hieght. I might be wrong, but lower profile tyres need less pressure to achieve good wall stiffness - what size wheels/tyres are you running? I think I could quite happily live without Lift-off oversteer - why on earth would you want to lift mid corner anyway? thats just slow I need to play with the rack first and try a few things out - and then on with the Castor!

Don't let the lights fool you! its definately a MK1! (unless you know of any MK2s built in 1992? It'll be cool to find out your settings... I find that the back comes around easy enough at speed without lifting off - in fact I'm being quite gentle on the throttle application to stop the back coming around too much (except when drifting of course!) I also find that tyre pressures are really important too. I run 30/32psi FR/RR when set hot. This makes the car neutral on the road, but on the track when the temps get up it becomes nicely oversteery!

It's been a long time, but hopefully worth the wait! This is where I want to track the changes to the setup of the car, and more important, why the changes are made and what effect they had! I think it's important to say that this car is a regular track and drift car - normally these set-ups are quite contradictory.. so this could be a bit of a challenge! But first an introduction to the car... This is the roadster in question, a 1992 Mk1 1.6 As you can see its not quite standard, so here are the important mods (trust me, there are many more!) Aragosta coilovers - 10kg/mm FR, 8kg/mm RR extended strut towers Racing Beat antiroll bars 16x6j wheels, equiped with 205/45 Falken FK451s Suspected Cusco 1.5way diff Full Roll Cage And Supercharged... other things of note - no power steering, and extended final drive The set-up I started with was as follows (nothing too extreme here) LEFT / RIGHT / Average FR Toe :2.1mm / -1.8mm / 0.15mm FR Camber :-1.85deg / -1.6deg / -1.77deg Castor :3.56deg / 3.72deg / 3.64deg RR Toe :1.2mm / 4.1mm / 2.65mm RR Camber :-2deg / -1.5 / -1.75deg Comments... So virtually parallel toe at the front, a healthy amount of toe in at the rear for stability. Camber was surprisingly even (on average). and Castor is pretty average. One thing I wish I had measured was ride hieght... Looking at these numbers the odd thing that stands out is the LH/RH offset. It makes me think that with a driver in the car the numbers would be almost equal! (I might start a separate post about this one - it could be a whole can of worms This setup had mild amount of understeer, and handling was fairly predictable. However when drifting I found myself without enough lock! so this was something I wanted to change. After chatting with Tony, this is what we opted for as a baseline set-up for future development. LEFT / RIGHT / Average FR Toe: 0mm / 0mm / 0mm FR Camber: -2.3deg / -2.3deg / -2.3deg Castor: 3.0deg / 3.0deg / 3.0 RR Toe: 1.0mm / 1.0mm / 1.0mm RR Camber: -1.0deg / -1.0deg / -1.0deg Comments... Toe & Camber set up to make the car more neutral and balanced Castor was taken out to increase Toe-out on turn, to give me that little bit extra lock. Also had the bonus effect of making the steering lighter. So how did it go? On track - The car handled beautifully through medium/high speed corners, going from neutral in medium speed corners to gentle O/S through high speed corners (maybe not ideal for everyone, but great for me Oversteer could be easily induced with an 'assertive' turn in. The down side was a lot of understeer through slower corners, I had to be quite agressive on entry to counteract the U/S. My theory here is that the loss of castor has had quite an effect on castor jacking, i.e the tendancy of the inside rear wheel to lift off the ground. At lower speeds with less weight transfer, the rear wheels are more evenly loaded - combine this with my aggressive diff, and the net efect is more 'push' from the rear wheels, leading to U/S!! On Drift - Once I'd sussed out some reasonable tyre pressures, the car was very well balanced, and easy to both initiate and hold a drift... However in transitions, it wouldn't wind itself from lock to lock quick enough - leading to some pretty embarassing spins. Also any extra lock from the TOOT effect had little noticable effect. So what next? Well, firstly I need to out some castor back in, and find another way of adding extra lock. Captain Sideways - who used to run a Drifty MX5 has given me some cunning rack mods to try out, so I'll get them done and then go for maximum castor for know - I subscribe to the motorsport theory of only changing one thing at a time to appreciate the effect it has! Tony, I'll be back in to see you soon, and then I'll be back here to let you know how it goes. If any one has any comments, then please throw them in for consideration!