Carrera track alignment specs needed

[RichHawk]

I've looked and can't find consistency in suggestions on what to set my 911 up for as a track alignment. My first DE event is Wednesday, the car is getting aligned tomorrow.

So please chime in:
1987 911 Targa
Bilstein Sport shocks and strut insets (Yes sports all the way around) Installed 200 miles ago.
Lowered to Euro Height.
Stock Sway bars and torsion bars
No Strut tower brace, no monoballs, pretty much stock hard rubber bushings.

Usage is to be:
Track toy for Porsche club events and other Track day events 5-10 times a year, plus 2000 miles a year street driving.

Street wheels are stock 16 in Fuchs, wearing crappy 7 year old all seasons that came with the car. 205/55/16 front and 225/50/16 rear. 460 treadwear rating. I can't burn through these fast enough to make me happy. But right now the $ is going for track tires

Track Wheels are Rials 7 x 16 in the front ET 23
8 x 16 in the rear ET 11, wearing Hoosier race takeoffs from the 944 racer friend I have. 225 in front, and 245 in rear

Primary track is Heartland park Topeka. Decent speeds, nothing like Road America. I'm guessing I can reach 110MPH on the front straight over alpha Zero (off camber gentle right turn).

Damn the tire wear. I'm telling the 944 guy that is aligning it for me to go for max negative camber in the front, and 1 degree more neg camber in the rear than the front. (sound right?)

My need is what to set the toe and caster for to make a stable 110MPH car. I'll figure out how to drive around the understeer on the low speed corners (20-40MPH) But want it to feel planted and not skiddish when I enter turn 1 at 80MPH.

Thanks,
Richard

[175K911]

I have to think back close to 20 years to remember the last time I drove a stock suspensioned 911 at the track.

Here's the good news for you- the Bilstein Sports will control a lot of the initial body roll for you. And being an '87 you've got the later Carrera 22mm front and 21mm rear sway bars.

Your weak link as you well know is the all season tires. The first thing I would do since the tires are 7 years old is to very carefully check all the tires for any cracks in the tread and sidewall. Those are pretty old tires, most manufacturers say to replace after 6 or 7 years because the tires degrade at that point. Personally I don't think I'd go to the track on 7 year old all seasons, but..... just inspect them very carefully now and after each track day.

Alignment settings- as you've suggested, max out what you can get front and rear with about a degree more in the rear. Your rear camber will be limited by the toe setting too. But get what you can out of it.
For toe, you want a tad of rear toe-in, I used to run about 1/16" toe in for the rear. If you dial in too much rear camber you may not get the toe-in you need so you may need to give up a bit of camber to get the correct toe. Up front, I like about 1/32" toe-out per side which will give you the turn-in response at the expense of a bit of straight line high speed stability. But if you're max'd out at 110, it shouldn't matter, I'm talking about 120+. Keep in mind that with all the flexible rubber in the front suspension you usually end up with a bit of toe change at speed because the friction of the tires will cause everything to flex rearward.
Caster- nothing adjustable in the back. Up front the more caster you put in the more stable at speed at the expense of a bit of turn-in response.

So basically, Set the rear camber and toe first, then build everything else off those specs. You'll have a car that works well for you at Heartland- good stability at the 110 max you'll run, while still having nice turnin response in the lower speed turns. The max front caster and the rear toe in will help with the stability and the rear will stay planted in the off camber..... all your twitchiness will be from the tires squirming I'm afraid.

OK, now that we've talked suspension at the track, I can't resist the question I always ask my students- what did you do to the brakes? At the very least you'll need a good high temp brake fluid like Brembo, Motul 600, Castrol SRF or other high temp fluid. Some will try the ATE SuperBlue, but I used to cook that stuff in 20 min. And consider a good track oriented brake pad too. Once you've developed some speed at the track, you'll need to duct cool air to the front brakes as well. The stock Carrera brakes are pretty good when you've got the right cooling, fluid and pads in there.

[RichHawk]

Thanks Ed!
I'm not running the all seasons on the track. Hoosier slicks are the track tires.
I have ATE super blue for fluid. Pads are street only pads I'll be attacking brake pads and cooling next month.

This is going to be my baseline experience for the 911 on the track. I'll be driving conservative at 8/10s day as this will be the first track day for the Porsche and me together. All my other track experience is Spec Miata / modded S2000/ stock Boxster

so I'm prepared for the unknown challenging of keeping the rear engine in the rear. So that's my excuse for not having a good set of pads yet. I won't be driving to the fullest extent of my abilities until I know the car better.

Richard

[RichHawk]

Also does anyone know where I can get sways for the G50 equipped 87 911?
No one seems to be making the sway bars and torsion bars for my model year, as it was a 1.5 year run before they changed to the 964.

[175K911]

Any sway bars will work- Tarett, Smart Racing etc. They're all the same up through '89. But it isn't bolt on. Up front you need to weld u-brackets on the control arms, drill holes through the chassis and weld the sway bar pivot bracket hardware in place. In the back you'll need to reinforce the stock pivot brackets or they'll rip off the chassis pretty quickly. Heck, even the stock late model 21mm sways like you have will do the same thing.

Torsion bars- they're all the same up front through '89. Rears for the G50 cars are available for several sources, like Elephant Racing, Tarett, Rebel racing etc.

But I have to again ask- Hoosiers, now modified suspension, but stock brakes? I'd put the $$ into brakes before the sways for sure.

[RichHawk]

Ed,
I'm with you on the brakes. I'm a big fan of no fade. Brakes are going to be kept cool, and they will be done before I do any more suspension work. I asked on the sways because it's harder to find answers on sways for my car than "what pads should I use"

I'll likely do the fog light delete ducting and much better pads (and if I get any fade on the super blue fluid, I'll change it out too.

Have you seen the Boxster / Cayman a-arm mounted air deflector / brake coolers?

I like that as a simple no mess way of getting a lot of air to the brakes. I've mocked up a paper version for the 911. and it looks completely possible. Well it looks possible when it's up in the air on the lift

[wildcat077]

Richard,

PM me your email address and i'll forward you my alignment sheet with the specs.I just had my car aligned on Wednesday by a Porsche tuner as i
have a DE on the weekend of the 22 of May.I replaced all the suspension bushings and had to get it realigned.

It is a mild track setup as i will be doing some DE's with my car but i don't want to change the tires every Summer either !
I have all the suspension and brake goodies on my car ...

Cheers!
Phil

[175K911]

Originally Posted by RichHawk

Ed,
..........
Have you seen the Boxster / Cayman a-arm mounted air deflector / brake coolers?

I like that as a simple no mess way of getting a lot of air to the brakes. I've mocked up a paper version for the 911. and it looks completely possible. Well it looks possible when it's up in the air on the lift

I have the 993 control arm deflectors on my front control arms. As I recall they're like $20 each so it's quite a bargain for a genuine Porsche part. (not familiar with the Boxster/Cayman part but would bet it's quite similar). Work well and in my case they direct air right at the caliper. They attach to the control arms with 4 zip ties each and stay firmly in place. With my bigger brakes I only had to trim the outer edges a bit to fit to the larger calipers. I also have air going into the eye of the rotors from the ducts in my lower valance.

When I ran the stock brakes and front bumper I had hoses in the lower valance where the Carrera fog lights used to live, ducting air to the eye of the rotors. To keep things cool you need to get air straight to the eye so the cool air goes out radially through the internal vanes of the rotors.

[RichHawk]

well Duh, Why didn't I think of that!!! of course Porsche made something like this already.

Out generous host has these 993 deflectors for $14 each (listed for 95 to 98. Will they work or be modifiable for my 87 911?

993-341-083-00-OEM
993-341-084-00-OEM
Porsche 911 Suspension - Page 3


Though I am inherently frugal, I think $14 is cheap enough to splurge and buy them proper.

BUT While looking for it, I stumbled on this as well:

DIY 993 Air Deflectors / Brake Scoops

[RichHawk]

Rennlist thread says the 993 deflectors will bolt up to the 964 arms.
But that still doesn't get me any closer to my torsion bar car.
Air Deflector (front brake) Part #? - Rennlist Discussion Forums

and then as with all 911 things. it's been done before....

More brake cooling. . . 993 air deflectors option?

Makes me think that whatever deflectors I buy will end up with holes drilled, and zip ties to hold them onto my A-Arms, but I still like this better than foglight delete ducting.

[RichHawk]

I'm happy to report that after a full 6 hours DE (20 minutes on 20 minutes off all afternoon long) that my stock Carrera brakes held up just fine with no fade.

Of course I was learning the car, and I ran two sessions with the Hoosier R6s and the rest of the day abusing the all season tires instead because of threat of rain that never did more than make the track damp.

I was not pushing the brakes anywhere close to their limit. Coming in after a cool down lap, the brake temps never read above 300 def F. compare that to the Boxster that continually had over 400 deg F, and the Austin Martin Vantage that had 500 deg F.

I was pretty nice to the brakes. The all season tires?? I wasn't nice to those at all.

Richard

[euro911sc]

Awesome Rich! I might just add that you may consider running 4-5 DEs on your stock susp. and setup before you sink $$ down on a hipo susp. When you put all the go fast goodies on you usually shrink the zone of forgiveness. Drive some more DEs and get promoted up and then think about what it is you really want to do with the car

I have Carrera brakes on my SC and have no issues with them. I would drive on those until you get to the point you have an issue that needs to be solved.

As for the old tires... thow them out now. It's not worth the $400 to take that risk...

-Michael