Questions for those who use their car as a multipurpose tool (Street & Track)

[2013DIBGT]

Hello,

I'm curious to hear about the process used by those who drive their car on the street, often, and also hit the track (with turns) while maintaining their suspension settings for each occasion.

Do you maintain just one suspension setting for all occasions and hope for the best on most of the major components and just play with shock adjustments on track day or do you go through a more involved routine leading up to track day where you make adjustments to things like alignment, ride height, rear control arm length (if applicable), sway bar stiffness (if applicable)...etc...etc?

If you go thru the longer list, do you do it yourself at home or do you take your car to a shop that has a machine capable of measuring Caster/Camber/Toe & Thrust Angle..etc with Lasers Beams and shit?

On a similar note, when you first installed all your stuff, did you take your car to the previously mentioned shop (with laser beams) so they could configure the car for all the ideal/perfect world measurements so that you could then record all these settings and maintain them as your baseline and return to them if needed in a repeatable fashion on your own later?

A detailed log book would seem to be a minimum requirement here in order to not get lost along the way but have you done things like make markings on your suspension components for each of the various configurations (ride height, control arms lengths..etc) so you could get back in the ball park of the "ideal configuration" for the task at hand without having to always resort to the use of plum bobs, micrometers and rulers each time?

Just thinking out loud here, but I would imagine one would want to keep ride height adjustments to a minimum since doing so alters so many other things in a domino effect.

Here is a short list that comes to mind that I believe will change with ride height adjustments. If any of these are wrong please let me know. Some of the settings would probably be a bit more difficult to get right on the floor of a garage without a lift:

Pinion Angle
Caster/Camber/Toe/Thrust Angle
Roll Center
Bump Steer
Corner weight balance (if done to begin with)

Lastly, how many folks have gone thru the effort to corner balance their car and is it difficult to maintain those settings when mucking around with all of the above?

Please post your experiences...Thanks

 

[Sky Render]

I tighten my dampers and swap wheels/tires before an autocross. I run the same alignment at all times.

Sent from my toilet using Tapatalk

 

[NDSP]

I Daily drive my car with track day suspension settings, though I change wheels/tires and rotors/brake pads. So needless to say I don't mind a stiff riding suspension.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[sheizasosay]

I check torque on my bolts, top fluids, check overall maintenace, flush the break fluid, empty my catch can, jack my car up and throw the camber max in. Then I go play. My alignment for daily driving is marked on my towers. I return it there after track.

 

[todcp]

I check torque on my bolts, top fluids, check overall maintenace, flush the break fluid, empty my catch can, jack my car up and throw the camber max in. Then I go play. My alignment for daily driving is marked on my towers. I return it there after track.

Same for me except I add R compound tire/wheel setup if not raining.

 

[csamsh]

Show up, adjust camber, hit the track.

Finish running, adjust camber, go home.

At some point I switch out the XP20/XP12 setup for AX6's.

Sometimes I don't even adjust my camber.

 

[Sky Render]

The only disadvantage to the Maximum Motorsports camber plates that I have is that there is no way to mark different settings. So changing my camber requires some sort of gauge or tool.

 

[Whiskey11]

The only disadvantage to the Maximum Motorsports camber plates that I have is that there is no way to mark different settings. So changing my camber requires some sort of gauge or tool.

Tape measure from the top of the strut to the fender usually works if you record each distance to your preferred alignment setting for each side (since it will most likely be different). That is what one of our local CP guys does.


To the OP: The only things that change are my alignment which I was fortunate enough to have consistent left/right alignments at the min/max settings on the camber plates that is repeatable within a tenth of an inch and the damper settings which I have memorized. Tire pressures, bar settings, rear roll center, etc all remain the same.

And pinion angle, what's pinion angle?

 

[Sky Render]

Tape measure from the top of the strut to the fender usually works if you record each distance to your preferred alignment setting for each side (since it will most likely be different). That is what one of our local CP guys does.

That's not a bad idea, actually.

 

[jayel579]

Show up, adjust camber, hit the track.

Finish running, adjust camber, go home.

How do you adjust your camber without checking toe?

 

[NDSP]

How do you adjust your camber without checking toe?

Well you get the toe and "daily driving" alignment set with a professional alignment shop and then when you move to the track camber the added toe out is desireable. I think, lol.

 

[jayel579]

Well you get the toe and "daily driving" alignment set with a professional alignment shop and then when you move to the track camber the added toe out is desireable. I think, lol.

Ha yeah, your turn-in is probably fantastic!! lol

 

[csamsh]

How do you adjust your camber without checking toe?

I don't check it. That's too much work to do trackside. With the big hydro-bushing we've got, toe probably just changes all the time on track anyway when the car is under any sort of stress, at least, it feels like it does to me, especially under braking.

Mostly, the car works well and my tires are wearing well, so I don't care.

 

[claudermilk]

On a previous car it was just swap to race tires & set the shocks.

I have not installed parts on the current car yet, but my plans are to get it to an alignment shop & set toe to zero, then have them set camber for both street (OEM spec), and track (as much as I can get), then mark the CC plates. I don't plan to mess with toe settings at all after the alignment. I also plan to swap brake pads (going with Carbotech--so street & track pads are supposed to live together happily). Eventually there will be a set of race wheels/tires to swap also.

My plan is to have some sort of log book to record settings for camber and shocks so I can see what I am doing.

 

[2013DIBGT]

Thanks to everyone for posting your approaches for car prep. It looks like just about everyone is just messing with shock and alignment tuning for preparation.

Based on this info I believe I will follow suit and do the same. I think I'll just nail down my ride height one more time to a more street friendly setting (currently at 2" drop) somewhere in the 1.5" all around range then finalize the alignment for that measurement. Right now I feel my car is too low for daily use in my area which took a serious beating this winter as far as the roads go (looks like downtown Bagdad!).

 

[2013DIBGT]

And pinion angle, what's pinion angle?

Whiskey, wouldn't Pinion Angle still be adjustable, to a point, even considering the use of a Torque Arm and assuming the use of adjustable RLCA's or am I smoking crack thinking this?

 

[Whiskey11]

Whiskey, wouldn't Pinion Angle still be adjustable, to a point, even considering the use of a Torque Arm and assuming the use of adjustable RLCA's or am I smoking crack thinking this?

Smoking crack. The only way to adjust the pinion angle with the stock driveshaft is to raise/lower the chassis mount for the torque arm (obvious issues with clearance to the driveshaft and exhaust) or shim the differential mounting points. All adjusting the length of the LCA's would do is increase/decrease the wheelbase. Filip actually recommends shimming the transmission and going to a 1 piece driveshaft if you want to fine tune the pinion angle since it is significantly easier that way.

 

[2013DIBGT]

 

[Whiskey11]

I realize that what I typed came off as rather harsh. I apologize for that as that was not my intent. I intended for that to be more educational sounding and less "Whiskey is a dick head" sounding.

 

[2013DIBGT]

It's all good.

I've already kicked myself in the balls after rethinking my question