Ok ITS guys et. al.

Would like to have a discussion about baseline alignment settings for road racing. As in, what do you set the car up for when you have not been to a track before and all you know is if it is a tight track or fairly open corners.

I think the main things that affect this are the spring rates, the sway bar setup, and if it has the DTSS still or not.

We are going to run our new non-turbo race car this fall and i have not gotten to into alignment details with these cars yet. I expect to moving forward. We have the DTSS eliminators, 8k-6k coilovers and stock swaybars. I am expecting we are going to find that we will want to upgrade the sway bars but for now we dont want to take points for it (NASA PT/TT rules).

So again, what are good baseline alignment settings?

I have previously, with a similar setup run: zero total toe front and rear, as much negative camber as the suspension allows up front (usually about -2.8 to -3.0). And in the rear about -1.5 to -1.7. But this was with a heavier car and i think the car would have wanted more neg camber in the rear if i could have adjusted it, based on tire temps.

 

My base alignment starts at:

Fnt Camber- 2.5neg
Fnt toe- 1/8th out
Fear camber- 3/4 to 1deg (dependant on rear wheels/tires)
Rear toe- 1/16th heavy to 1/8th IN
Rake- 3/4 to 1deg
Ride height- depends on who we are running with, usually 2.5' measured at center of splitter

Caster I am still working with, as the car responds differently between 9" fronts vs 10" fronts. The wider tires take less camber as well, the car doesnt really roll that much. Bumpsteer needs to be done again, and I use a rack lock to center the rack so toe adjustments are based off true center of the car. getting closer to zero toe with the wider tires and bigger powe rmakes the car twitchy, toe-in on the rear really stabilizes it on corner entry and running less neg camber seems to allow the driver to get to power earlier.
For drifting the car is set-up differently, and its set up differently again for hllclimbing.

 

That's good info. I may try some toe-out in the front and a little toe in in the rear. This car is a lower power momentum type car and thus stable late trail, and on the power immediately (probably left footing non-shifting corners) will be how the car is driven fastest. Anything to make the car bite on corner entry even if it oversteers some on exit i think will make the car quicker.

We have to run a stock rear bar so i am curious what rear toe will best compliment that. Time will tell, but i am just looking at where best to start from.