The best way to setup a car is through testing, testing and more testing.
If you've done a track day before then that's a good start as you can concentrate on improvements rather than trying to work out what's going on. As I've ranted on another post, handling is subjective so just using someone elses settings won't help.
Second thing, if this your car is going to spend 99% of its miles on the road then get it setup for a good road/race biased setup.
Toe: Toe out will improve the agility of a car but it will also make it unstable. It will also completely sh*g your tyres on road driving. Unless you know what you're looking for or you tuner knows your driving style, the race track and the car then I'd avoid toe until you get a bit more advanced.
Castor: I don't think its adjustable on the R unless you've modded something. Its been a while since I looked. If it is , most racers increase castor to give you more negative camber when your turn the wheel. As above for first time out, keep it simple. Get your core settings right before you start fiddling with these.
Camber: Get a good road/race setting but nothing to drastic. The level of camber is dependant on your tyres. -2.5 or more front camber will be perfectly fine..... if you're running slicks or very sticky tryres. Even for high performance road tyres, I'd be surprised if you need more than -2.
Get the front set to -1.5 or -2 if you're feeling brave and the back set to -0.5 to -1.0 less. This will help balance out the inherent understeer in the car. How much you need depends on how much inherent understeer you as a driver feel you have. Increasing your camber also reduces your accelerative (Not so much a problem on the R) and braking grip.
Given that, as a starting point, I would put -1.5deg front and -1deg rear.
Now here's the clever bit, watch your tyres on the road, before racing and after racing. On the road , you might find the inside edge wears a bit. Ideally have new tyres for the track, partly because new tyres always have better grip (once bedded in) and also you get a blank page to examine your camber. This is also why you leave the other settings alone and have them set to neutral. If the out side edge wears on any tyre, increase the negative camber for next time. You should have a level wear pattern across the entire tread. The left will always wear a bit more as you always go round circuits clockwise. For a road used car though you should keep the settings the same on each side. If the wear is excessive around the edge, increase the canmber by -0.5 each time.
Dampers: Finally something simple, if you've not got adjustable dampers... Doh! If its wet set them on minimium or min +10% all round, If its dry, set them at 50% for a starting point. Given you've got neutral toe, nothing stupid on the castor and sensible camber, you've got a sensible platform to adjust your dampers and you'll probably be surprised at the difference it makes. If the car understeers, try increasing the back by 10% or dropiing the front by 10%. Try them both and see which feels better on fast/slow corners. Go again and see ifthe car handles the way you want. To reduce oversteer, stiffen the front by 10% or reduce the back 10%. Again , see what you prefer. Wet and dry you will probably want different setting, in the wet a more neutral setting is safer, in the dry, I personally prefer a stiffer back end. :lol: Once you've got the balance right, adjust them all up or down 10% and see which feels better. Keep doing this until its worse.
Roll Bars: Can be used in a similar way to dampers by changing the front rear bias but without affecting wheel control. Roll is not a bad thing, in the wet it is in an advantage. If your roll bar is adjustable, set your dampers neutral all round, with a given set of camber settings, balance out any inherent understeer. Doing this gives you a better platform from which to adjust your damper settings. If the dampers are too different front to back, then when you hit bumps etc they car can become unbalanced.
Tyres: The was an adver in "CAR" about some avon tyres round anglesey. The marketing men proved the the Avon slick tyres were only 1 second faster than the high performance road legal type slicks. Thi smight be true but the slicks might have worn on the inside edge whilst the next best had worn on the outside as the camber was wrong.
Overall lap time is a good way to check if things are better or worse. This is why it helps if you've already done trackdays.
Only change on thing at a time (Unless its wrong like positive camber or broken dampers etc). Someone on the Yahoo group had a tricked up car that killed understeer to the point that he went backwards in to a lamp post. My opinon on how you setup your car is as good or bad as the next person' s. There are no standard settings for optimum performance.
Just a thought
Jim
If you've done a track day before then that's a good start as you can concentrate on improvements rather than trying to work out what's going on. As I've ranted on another post, handling is subjective so just using someone elses settings won't help.
Second thing, if this your car is going to spend 99% of its miles on the road then get it setup for a good road/race biased setup.
Toe: Toe out will improve the agility of a car but it will also make it unstable. It will also completely sh*g your tyres on road driving. Unless you know what you're looking for or you tuner knows your driving style, the race track and the car then I'd avoid toe until you get a bit more advanced.
Castor: I don't think its adjustable on the R unless you've modded something. Its been a while since I looked. If it is , most racers increase castor to give you more negative camber when your turn the wheel. As above for first time out, keep it simple. Get your core settings right before you start fiddling with these.
Camber: Get a good road/race setting but nothing to drastic. The level of camber is dependant on your tyres. -2.5 or more front camber will be perfectly fine..... if you're running slicks or very sticky tryres. Even for high performance road tyres, I'd be surprised if you need more than -2.
Get the front set to -1.5 or -2 if you're feeling brave and the back set to -0.5 to -1.0 less. This will help balance out the inherent understeer in the car. How much you need depends on how much inherent understeer you as a driver feel you have. Increasing your camber also reduces your accelerative (Not so much a problem on the R) and braking grip.
Given that, as a starting point, I would put -1.5deg front and -1deg rear.
Now here's the clever bit, watch your tyres on the road, before racing and after racing. On the road , you might find the inside edge wears a bit. Ideally have new tyres for the track, partly because new tyres always have better grip (once bedded in) and also you get a blank page to examine your camber. This is also why you leave the other settings alone and have them set to neutral. If the out side edge wears on any tyre, increase the negative camber for next time. You should have a level wear pattern across the entire tread. The left will always wear a bit more as you always go round circuits clockwise. For a road used car though you should keep the settings the same on each side. If the wear is excessive around the edge, increase the canmber by -0.5 each time.
Dampers: Finally something simple, if you've not got adjustable dampers... Doh! If its wet set them on minimium or min +10% all round, If its dry, set them at 50% for a starting point. Given you've got neutral toe, nothing stupid on the castor and sensible camber, you've got a sensible platform to adjust your dampers and you'll probably be surprised at the difference it makes. If the car understeers, try increasing the back by 10% or dropiing the front by 10%. Try them both and see which feels better on fast/slow corners. Go again and see ifthe car handles the way you want. To reduce oversteer, stiffen the front by 10% or reduce the back 10%. Again , see what you prefer. Wet and dry you will probably want different setting, in the wet a more neutral setting is safer, in the dry, I personally prefer a stiffer back end. :lol: Once you've got the balance right, adjust them all up or down 10% and see which feels better. Keep doing this until its worse.
Roll Bars: Can be used in a similar way to dampers by changing the front rear bias but without affecting wheel control. Roll is not a bad thing, in the wet it is in an advantage. If your roll bar is adjustable, set your dampers neutral all round, with a given set of camber settings, balance out any inherent understeer. Doing this gives you a better platform from which to adjust your damper settings. If the dampers are too different front to back, then when you hit bumps etc they car can become unbalanced.
Tyres: The was an adver in "CAR" about some avon tyres round anglesey. The marketing men proved the the Avon slick tyres were only 1 second faster than the high performance road legal type slicks. Thi smight be true but the slicks might have worn on the inside edge whilst the next best had worn on the outside as the camber was wrong.
Overall lap time is a good way to check if things are better or worse. This is why it helps if you've already done trackdays.
Only change on thing at a time (Unless its wrong like positive camber or broken dampers etc). Someone on the Yahoo group had a tricked up car that killed understeer to the point that he went backwards in to a lamp post. My opinon on how you setup your car is as good or bad as the next person' s. There are no standard settings for optimum performance.
Just a thought
Jim
