Motorsport Wheel Alignment: What to Adjust
What to Adjust
02.02
00:00 | - Once we've developed a good feel for what the car is doing, we can start working on what changes will help us improve the car. |
00:06 | The very first place to start however is to make sure that we've got both our tyre pressures and our camber set correctly on each corner of the car. |
00:14 | The most cost effective way of doing this, is to use a tyre pyrometer as you've seen in the practical component of this course. |
00:22 | There's not a lot of point getting into the more involved aspects of alignment changes until we have these basics correct and we're using the tread of the tyre optimally. |
00:31 | While we're considering the basics, we also want to make sure that we have sufficient bump travel on our suspension and that we're not bottoming out which will cause sudden and unpredictable loss of traction at the end of the car which bottoms first. |
00:45 | There's some very expensive shock travel sensors available that will do this for us, however a perfectly acceptable budget option is to place a zip tie around each damper and then drive a couple of laps before seeing how much suspension movement you're utilising. |
01:01 | When you perform this test, we want to drive the car at race pace but importantly, we also want to stay off any curbs as these can cause contact with the bump stops, even on suspension setups with sufficient travel. |
01:14 | If the car is bottoming the suspension, then raising the ride height or fitting stiffer springs are your solutions. |
01:21 | Once we have the basics right, we can start considering any necessary changes to address balance issues. |
01:27 | We've attached a handy setup sheet to this module that will give you some suggested changes for a given handling condition. |
01:34 | You can then use the practical section of the course to help you make those necessary changes. |
01:39 | When you are making changes, I suggest that you start by making a big enough change that you can actually feel the effect. |
01:46 | For example if you're changing camber, I'd suggest starting by making a change of around one degree, this should be quite noticeable when you drive the car and from there you can fine tune this with more subtle changes. |