please look over my alignment?

[chmercer]

what i have currently (according to NTB) is

Front Left

-1.1 camber7.3 caster.11 toe15.1 SAI (what does this mean?)14.0 Included Angle (again, dont know what this is?)

Front Right

-1.2 camber7.1 caster.12 toe14.7 SAI13.5 included angle

Rear Left

-.9 camber.01 toe

Rear Right

-.9 camber-.02 toe

Also, it says my thrust angle is .01, what is thrust angle?

anyway, before this my alignment was way off so this has helped a lot, but the alignment is guaranteed so i can go in whenever and get them to change it, so i might as well get it set the best i can.

what i would LIKE to have the car do is have the front stick like glue, and the back can pretty much do whatever it wants. Also, my shocks are 16 way single adjustable, so if there is a good way to adjust them in conjunction with some specific alignment settings, i would like to know as well. Currently with this alignment, the rears are about 10 clicks from full soft and the fronts are 8. At my last even i was getting a little push but that is mostly due to my poor driving technique. So if i can make the car oversteer more mechanically, that would be good.

edit - some more thinkingAs i said previously, i want the front end to stick like glue. My race line is pretty crappy as i am a big noobie, and i usually end up turning in late, so my front end pushes pretty hard in these situations. So if i can somehow cut down the mechanical understeer that would be good. If the toe out will give a better turn in that would be helpful.

also, the last event i went to, it was raining most of the time so i didnt have to try very hard to get the back to come out, but when i was pushing a quick tap on the foot brake would usually be enough to shift the weight to the front, in this situation it would usually grip hard enough for me to steer the back with the throttle. I think once or twice i tried a rally flick which worked *ok* but not as well as the foot break weight shift method i mentioned above. SO, with toe out, braking will force the wheels back to the positive direction, which will zero it out, giving me the best patch when breaking, making the front grip harder under breaking? am i understanding correctly?

thanks again

[Exar-Kun]

run your toe more neutral in the front, that will help turn-in a good bit...(lotus and saleen run negative front toe...TOOOOUUUCHY>...) say .05 for both sides..(thats what I run, it tracks smooth, but turn in is much crisper than it is at .1 or more)

also, try chaning the damper settings in the front to counteract the understeer, if that doesnt work, change the rears(if you stiffen the s*** out of them you'll just slide the rear)...

although I would reccomend following the line better before you attribute a cars "pushing" to the settings on the suspension

also, worrying about force variations in toe settings is a bit drastic for a track newb hell..most veterans dont worry about that stuff...plus, the level of change would be influenced by damper settings, which should be your primary concern after learning the cars chasis habits...hope that helped(no, Im not trying to give you hell...honest..)-chet

[spitz7985]

Steering Axis Inclination=Draw an imaginary line from the control arm ball joint to the top of the strut. SAI is the angle that line makes with a perpendicular line to the road. Non-adjustable.

Included Angle is the sum of the camber and SAI angles. Non-adjustable.

Here's a great write up of the thrust angle that I have bookmarked.

The thrust angle is defined as the deviation between the bisector of the total rear toe angle of the vehicle (the thrust line) and the vehicle centerline.

This is a tad more complicated than is sounds.. the centerline of the vehicle is defined NOT by the axle midpoints, but rather by the position of each of the vehicle wheels. In an extreme example, imagine a car which is narrower in the front than in the rear. If you draw lines connecting the tires on the left side of the car (front & rear) and the tires on the right side of the car (front and rear), the lines will intersect at some point in space out infront of the car. Bisect the angle formed by the intersection of these lines, and you will have the centerline of the vehicle's wheel system. Usually this is very close to the chassis centerline (as measured by the axle midpoints), but it's not exactly the same.

Next, to determine the total rear toe angle, the toe angle for each rear wheel is determined relative to the wheel system centerline. The sum of these angles is the total rear toe angle. If you project lines parallel to the face of each rear wheel, the two lines will intersect somewhere at a point unless the wheels are exactly parallel to each other. The angle at which these lines intersect is the total rear toe angle. Bisecting this angle with a line yields the thrust line of the vehicle. This is the direction the two rear wheels of the vehicle would travel if allowed to just roll along.

Finally, the angle measured between the vehicle's wheel system centerline (as determined by the position of all four wheels) and the thrust line of the vehicle (determined by the pointing direction of the rear wheels) is measured as the thrust angle.

-Brandon

[spitz7985]

BTW, you wouldn't happen to be Buttcrack of Honda-Tech, would you?:pface

[chmercer]

could you please describe *crisper* turn in? i have heard many people use adjectives like sharper, crisper, cleaner etc etc. to describe turn in but i dont know wtf that means haha. i guess that it hooks better on the initial turn in?

if removing toe makes it better, how far negative can i go before i get diminishing returns? just personal preference?

Quote »although I would reccomend following the line better before you attribute a cars "pushing" to the settings on the suspension [/quote]

yes i know my problems are due to my poor technique but i just meant that if there was any way to alter my alignment to counteract my lack of skills, i would like to hear it

*puts on the flame retardant suit* this is for drifting BTW, i wouldnt want so much oversteer if i was autocrossing, and i am too poor to road race.

[chmercer]

haha yes that is me, i have this cross posted on a few forums. hmm i wonder how your threads got ahead of mine?

[spitz7985]

I must have posted while you were typing. nice name on honda-tech

[C-Kwik]

what i would LIKE to have the car do is have the front stick like glue, and the back can pretty much do whatever it wants. Also, my shocks are 16 way single adjustable, so if there is a good way to adjust them in conjunction with some specific alignment settings, i would like to know as well. Currently with this alignment, the rears are about 10 clicks from full soft and the fronts are 8. At my last even i was getting a little push but that is mostly due to my poor driving technique. So if i can make the car oversteer more mechanically, that would be good.

edit - some more thinkingAs i said previously, i want the front end to stick like glue. My race line is pretty crappy as i am a big noobie, and i usually end up turning in late, so my front end pushes pretty hard in these situations. So if i can somehow cut down the mechanical understeer that would be good. If the toe out will give a better turn in that would be helpful.

also, the last event i went to, it was raining most of the time so i didnt have to try very hard to get the back to come out, but when i was pushing a quick tap on the foot brake would usually be enough to shift the weight to the front, in this situation it would usually grip hard enough for me to steer the back with the throttle. I think once or twice i tried a rally flick which worked *ok* but not as well as the foot break weight shift method i mentioned above. SO, with toe out, braking will force the wheels back to the positive direction, which will zero it out, giving me the best patch when breaking, making the front grip harder under breaking? am i understanding correctly?

thanks again

You'll need to figure out why your car is understeering. There is no simple one solution. There are ways to lessen the effect, but you want to try and focus on the best way to resolve it. When you went to the track event, did you notice how your tires were wearing at the track? Were the front and reat tires exhibiting similar wear characteristics? Did it understeer on every turn? Only on quick transitional turns? Only on long steady turns? Did you play around with tire pressures? You menationed rain. Was it raining while you were on the track? Are you sure you weren't overdriving the car?

Be very weary of my last question. Almost all cars will understeer when driven too hard. Enter a corner too fast and the front tires will not have the grip to be able to ever get the car to turn in enough. And this becomes even more exemplified in low traction situations. Such as rain.

[Q45tech]

Remember that alignment numbers [toe/caster/thrust angle] change under the forces created by moving the car down the road!

When you brake the wheels toe in and when you accelerate they toe out.

The factory tested things with brand new bushings to come up with alignment specs [preset errors] that would be good rolling down the highway.

With worn bushings/components most of these alignment numbers are no longer valid........you may need more toe in [static] to BE TOELESS [neutral] on the highway at a certain speed.

During alignment check what your weight does in the drivers seat- many soft sprung cars can change camber [on drivers front wheel] by 0.5 degrees.But we have only the tires to show you how much error has crept in to the as new specs.

[chmercer]

c-kwik, thanks for the advice. It is for drifting, sorry i thought i mentioned. As i said, I am sure it is because of my poor technique. I am just trying to make the car understeer less mechanically so that i can still drift it for the time being, until i figure out how to drive it

q45 - my springs are 8kgf/mm in front and 6 in the back. You said the wheels toe in when breaking. Would running a little negative toe be good, so that when i would hit the foot break to shift the weight to the front, the tires would get a better contact patch and the front end would hook better?