Camber greater than -3

[JMortensen]

Get on the Porsche forums and find out where the local roadrace guys are getting their alignments, or if your autox club has a FB page or an email list, get on that and do the same. That's how I found a shop locally that does alignments that puts your weight in the driver's seat. They were also able to get A LOT more neg camber out of the front end of my Miata than I was able to get just playing around with the eccentrics. A good race prep type shop will know all the tricks. My alignment cost $175 and took 3 hours, BTW. Well worth it.

[tube80z]

At an autocross, you get so little time to adjust your car-the one I just attended was very hectic and you really couldn't bring your tools into the paddock.  I need to find a safe place to play skidpad or something like that in order to try to sort some of this out before getting to the race, then maybe I can make little changes once I'm there, but there really isn't a place/time to do any developmental adjustments.  Any suggestions for that?  We did (3) 40 second runs in the morning and (3) 40 second runs in the afternoon, with cone duty in-between and no lunch break-how do you find time to do adjust and re-verify on a race day?

 

Most clubs have a test-n-tune event or something similar.  If you're doesn't bring it up as an idea as I'm sure you're not the only one who would like the time to work on the car.  I've been fortunate to have a club that has a dedicated track and we have a weekend event and Saturday is open practice.  It's not uncommon to get 10 to 20 miles of actual autox practice.  But if you don't have that option then you need to make the car adjust very quickly and it would help a lot if you can get a co-driver.  About the only thing you're going to be able to do is adjust tire pressures, which can help.  Other ideas if the class allow would be cockpit adjustable sway bars or have the adjusters somewhere they can be moved quickly if you can't have driver adjustable versions. And on the camber plates if you build a turnbuckle arrangement to move the plate once loosened that might help too.  This way you don't have to jack up the car.  There's one guy I run with that built strut tops that come off so he can change the springs really quickly.  He can do a spring change in about ten minutes per axle.   It won't happen in line but it could between sessions if you had a small break.  If it were me I'd lobby the club for a test and tune event.  

 

Hope this helps,

Cary

[RebekahsZ]

Lets say I adjust my suspension using the FAQ settings as a starting point.  I'm not sure that an autocross is a controlled enough setting to really try to optimize and learn the effects of small changes, like shock adjustments...at least when I'm driving there are so many transients with slaloms and decreasing radius turns and braking, etc, that I'm confident that I would not know how to change things or test things.  I asked others to drive the car and come on ride-alongs to give me feedback, but the best I got was-that was fun!  Nothing constructive to work with.  I was thinking that an improvised circular skid pad was a good place to start???  I'm gonna be studying googlemaps photos trying to find someplace abandoned to do it...any other suggestions for maneuvers that I should do BEFORE my next autocross?  I'm not very talented-I need lots of repetition.  Any reading resources to seek for driving and car setup?  I'm working on getting to a very open-track Solo II style test n tune in 2 weeks at an abandoned airfield 6 hours away.  Perhaps things will be sustained enough get hot enough to put some wear on those R1s.  I really need a systematic approach where I can practice more than a total of 3 minutes a month.  I also just opened a PM with Matt Isbell about a high-speed driving day with him early this summer with 1-on-1 instruction.

Edited April 11, 2013 by RebekahsZ

[h4nsm0l3m4n]

Try watching some of the videos in this series.  Your results may be different but the basic idea is covered pretty well.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRhTUf9iaG4&list=FL1u1fCozi1Pde7abywz4zMA&index=23

 

Try to get lots of seat time.  Most clubs have a "morning" and "afternoon" sessions.  I dont run my car in a class or for points so I'm allowed to go drive both sessions to maximize my time in the car.  This usually gets me 6-10 runs instead of just 3-5.  Initially, when you try different things try to make them VERY different. For example instead of bleeding 2 lbs from your tires, bleed 5.  Or dont turn the shocks down 1 click, try 2 or more.  You might not be attuned enough to what the car is doing to notice the small differences.  A large difference will be immediately noticable and will give you immediate positive or negative feedback.

Edited April 11, 2013 by h4nsm0l3m4n

[RebekahsZ]

Thank you so much for the coaching. I will study the vids tonight and follow your suggestions. The clubs I have played with so far have been super serious about having you work the cones half the time. If you drive you gotta put your sweat equity in. Last race there were so many guys standing on the track it was dangerous. April 27 I'm going to a test n tune at an old airbase. I really wish I had a skid pad to play with so I can have a steady state turn to learn from. Perhaps I can make something like that happen at the airfield.

[RebekahsZ]

h4ns-what street and race rubber are you running on what wheels?

[h4nsm0l3m4n]

Street tires are 245/45-17 on 17x9.5s

Race tires are 275/35-15 or 23.5x11-15 on 15x10s

 

The clubs here also make you work half the time, thats pretty normal.  I work and drive half the morning session, then work and drive half the afternoon session (pay twice too ).  Its a lot of standing around watching cones but it gets me more seat time.  Normally with just 3-5 runs (only the first 3 of which actually count toward your time according to SCCA) you are still learning the course and squeezing out the best lap you can.  I'm not a nationally competitive driver so I have a hard time getting the best out of myself with only 3-5 runs (I'm working on improving this aspect of my driving).  5+ runs really lets me get familiar with the course layout, find the fastest line around the course, make any minor adjustments to the car, and put it all together for a good run.

Edited April 12, 2013 by h4nsm0l3m4n

[Mikelly]

I wanted to chime in and apologize.  I previouslt read your setup and figured nothing in my setup was going to help you with the setup you quoted.  I'm actually running -3.0 fronts and -2.5 rears.  Temps and wear showed I wasn't pushing the springs or the suspension beyond that, although I have actually been able to get about -4.5 degrees on the front without running out of threads on the tierods. 

 

What the experts above mentioned is spot on though... I'd recommend buying a decent smartcamber gage, and some cheap toe plates to start with, and then make a stringbox you can fasten to your front/rear bumpers at hub height.  Then mark the tubes for each end so you know where your string always hits front to rear, and where the tubes mount to your front and rear bumpers so you can always get close on setup for the boxes.  Greg Ira has a slick setup he uses on his ITS 240Z!  Attaches in 90 seconds and he's ready to check/adjust and move on.

 

Mike

[Tony D]

As deep as I can.  I really try to bottom out, but that's just a dream I have.

It ain't all it's cracked up to be, John...

For some of us it's a curse.

 

Don't judge me from what you saw in the Milking Barn, everybody has reasons for everything.

[Mikelly]

 

This discussion is going to take a really bad turn...

 

[RebekahsZ]

Only another old codger can truly appreciate the literary genius being demonstrated here. Back to my original question: at the track😜I pushed the temperature probe in about half of its length to take my readings. I was afraid to "bottom out" for fear of puncture. Is that fear founded or should I have used the whole probe to get an accurate reading (surely someone is mature enough to help me)?