Need alignment / ride height specs to ask for!

[aigel]

Got an appointment with Kraus Racing in Castro Valley next week. I went through my suspension and need to get it set up for the track. I will have them set the ride height, align and corner balance the car. I do not care about the street much (e.g. tire wear) and want maximum performance for the track. Kraus asks what specs I want. I think they are asking for things like camber and ride height. Please let me know what specs you are running and what you recommend for my setup, especially the folks that have similar cars. Otherwise I will just rely ON their recommendation.

Thanks,

George

Car:
81 SC, slightly gutted (a/c, some interior bits), Saftey Devices Roll bar.

- 21 / 27 hollow torsion bars
- Bilstein HD (front) and Sport (back)
- stock sway bars
- elephant polybronze bushings front
- polygraphite bushigs back
- turbo tierods
- weltmeister bump steer kit (raised steering rack)
- fuchs 15 x7 and 15 x8 with kumho victoracers 225 (Front and back)
- Rennline simple Al strut brace
- everything else stock!

[Wil Ferch]

Rough shot at this....you didn't mention ( for example)...tires. Street or DOT rated street/racing, etc.

1.0 to 1.5 degrees negative camber front , max available caster ....."smidge" toe-in.

2.0 degrees negative camber rear..... zero to "smidge" toe in.

If you want a bit more "neutral" handling, at the expense of possibly making it too much tail-happy on long sweepers...match the front/rear cambers. All 1.5 deg...or (more aggressive) all 2.0 deg.

Look at the corner balance thread that I, Craig O'brien and Randy Blaylock were involved in. Important to target equal front ( L-R) corner weights, but only if cross-diagonals are "off" by no more than 5% from ideal 50/50 cross split ( see thread).


OR......

do what the shop says...

Wil

[addictionMS]

search, there is a thread here where many of us published our specs

Jim

[juanbenae]

geo, had you considered custom alignment in mt. view?

[aigel]

k911sc

I have heard of that shop but it is too far away from the east bay. Kraus set up Larry Sharp's car and it looks and performs fabulously. I also asked Joe from Porboys and he sent me straight to Kraus.

Wil:

I actually mentioned that I am running 225 kumhos front and back. They are 15 inch wheels. I forget the aspect ratio. I think the numbers you gave will be a great start! I doubt that Brandon at Kraus does not have a good idea what I'll need, but I wanted to be armed with a few examples of what people do.

Jim:

I searched for suspension and your user name and could not come up with the suspension roll call you mentioned in your reply. Can you help me out with a link to that thread? That would be great.

Thanks all!

George

[addictionMS]

boy that did take some hunting, and I knew what I was looking for

Race car alignment suggestions.

[jrdavid68]

Just tell Brandon what you are going to do with the car and whether or not you want an aggressive setup - he'll take care of the rest.

[juanbenae]

for some reason i thought you were south bay. carry on.

[LARRY SHARP]

Just tell them to look up my specs from when I did it there .. they might have it saved still

[aigel]

I am just back from the shop. Everything went well. My ride height is a bit high for my taste, but it would have taken reindexing one of the rear bars if I wanted it lower. The dude that does that wasn't here today. Anyway, I got a tad lower than euro ride height now and a nice corner balance. The camber was the max he got out of it.

Best news is that the car weighed in at 2578 pounds with a half tank of gas! I can get this thing under 2500 pounds dry easily if I pull a few more things like sound deadening, power windows and door panels!

Thanks for all your input. Can't wait to try the new setup at Thunderhill next weekend!

George

[Wil Ferch]

You're killin' me .......

What specs did you end up with ??? .....

Wil

[aigel]

From the top of my head I can tell you that I got about 1.5 degree neg. camber front and back. 5 or so caster and a rake of 1 degree. Weight distribution was something like 60:40 between front and back. The car sits considerably lower than euro, after measuring it myself via factory specs. I would say about 1.5" lower in the front, I didn't check the rear. The car has great steering response now and I can not wait to see what it does on the track. I had a bump steer problem before and it is cured now, with rack spacers and this ride height.

I can send more detail if you are interested. I think that Brandon got the best out of it without reindexing the rear bars and with what he got out of it with negative camber.

The plan is to run like this for a couple of years and then, when I feel a new alignment would be good, go through the suspension again, with polybronze in the rear and some aftermarket sway bars and maybe hardware that will allow more camber.

George

[Wil Ferch]

Sounds good.....we all like to get feedback on what was used in the end, and how it works....

It "sharpens the saw" for the next time we need or give advice......

- Wil

[aigel]

Wil:

I will report back Monday and I can supply exact specs if you need them. I think the exact specs are probably not important, since they are what the car had in it when Brandon set it up. I am sure if the back would come lower by reindexing the torsion bars, he could have put more negative camber in it.

Anyway, I can't wait for Thunderhill!

George

[jacko241]

What did you do with the toe setting?