Sam's build thread

[sambb]

the state event is July 7th I think and you have a full practice day on the Saturday too for only an additional 25 bucks or something. Very good value and you'll be tuned in to the track by sunday and hopefully smash a few wrx's - you'd be in the road reg over 2.5L 4WD class for the state event.

[Sydneykid]

I only had 3mm total toe out front and 1mm total rear. 2.75 deg neg front and 1.50 dgree neg rear. With the rear damping of its 12 click range I was 4 clicks out from full hard before it started to turn. That's what made me think I was compensating for excessive front stiffness and made me think of the front bar, but yeah more rear toe needs to be tried first I guess.
Re the tryes, yeah that would be great. Any way I look at it I think 215 is the way to go for the track now. thx

As I think you already know I'd run ~4 mm toe out on the front and ~6 mm toe out on the rear. As long as you can dial out the understeer with rear adjustments (swaybar, toe, damper) I wouldn't be changing the front. Only when the rear changes reach their limit would I look at softening the front.

The rear camber effect is interesting, more neg (less contact patch) means it turns in better. But the grip improves (more contact patch) as the body rolls, so as long as you have power on it should never mid corner oversteer. It also works the same for low G/speed corners (less roll) compared to high G/speed (more roll) corners. Getting corner speed out a FWD car is much more about the rear end than the front, which some people just don't get.

No doubt some corners need the overall speed reduction from braking, but some only need a lift off to get the nose pointing at the apex. The trick is learning which is which, then being confident enough to add early power to pull it straight.

There wasn't many running the 215/50/15 but a couple of new guys are this year, so I'll keep them in sight.

Cheers
Gary

[sambb]

Thanks Gary. Yep I'm a total convert to toe out now and will just keep putting more and more into it I'll get another pair of shims and do the back again soon. Thanks again re the tyres.

edit: Actually the more I think about it, that second paragraph you wrote is IT. I do get that now. Wishing I hadn't crept up on the rear settings now and had just gone the whole hog initially. I think the main issue i'll run into will be aligning the calipers to the discs though. Its easy enough to shim the calipers to align for camber but doing both toe and camber is going to need a bit of fiddling. As 4mm toe out from the factory 6mm toe in is a bloody big angle change on each side.

does willwood or Brembo make generic toe angle shims for calipers or anything like that?

[simon k]

I think the main issue i'll run into will be aligning the calipers to the discs though. Its easy enough to shim the calipers to align for camber but doing both toe and camber is going to need a bit of fiddling. As 4mm toe out from the factory 6mm toe in is a bloody big angle change on each side.

the big mini event I've been busting my arse to get prepped for is in 10 days time - after that I'll get to and pull the rear stub axle off, measure it up and get some spacer plates made so we can cut the caliper lugs off the torsion bar like Gary said... can stick them in the mill and add some toe as well if you like

remind me if I haven't done anything in a couple of weeks. We'll need someone (Gary!) to specify the best material to use...

[sambb]

good stuff. yeah I was thinking that if the stubs on the axle are removed then you'd need maybe to do it in steel? not sure the aluminium would end up thick enough especially if it was to be tapped for the caliper bolts. Maybe the shim to could cover the existing hole (which has its threads drilled out) and then the caliper bolts run through the shim plate, through the axle lugs too (so it all bolts together in a sandwich) but then you run angled washers on the back side of the axle stubs with nuts. comprende?

[sambb]

actually if you made the shims more than just that and turned them into a 15mm spacer too, then you would have enough material available in the shim to run new angled threads into them. Still not sure about the alu vs steel arguement on that one though. I'm happy to de-lug my beam as I've got two, so I'm more than happy to be a guinea pig. Really to confirm calcs in the real world you'd need a reliable rear alignment to get a base line. Then say shim it with eibachs and measure the results to confirm you get the settings you want relative to the baseline, and then cut the alu/steel shims at a copy cat angle to what the eibachs were set at. make sense. Problem is your beam is probably completely different to other peoples so a one size fits all approach would be difficult. Dunno if I ws making them for my beam that's how I'd do it though.

[Water Boy]

Well done mate. Great to meet you on the weekend!

[simon k]

Then say shim it with eibachs and measure the results to confirm you get the settings you want relative to the baseline, and then cut the alu/steel shims at a copy cat angle to what the eibachs were set at. make sense. Problem is your beam is probably completely different to other peoples so a one size fits all approach would be difficult. Dunno if I ws making them for my beam that's how I'd do it though.

yep, that's about what I was suggesting to do - make the plates, cut the existing lugs off, fit the plates, correct with shims, measure several times, machine plates as required. The shims can go back in to make further fine adjustment if needed

if you measure up the stub axle & caliper mount on your spare bar it'll get me going. A decent photo or two would be handy too

[sambb]

yeah you too mate. Love your ideas RE the possible Winton thing. Keep me in the loop yeah. My Clio mate is keen as too and we havent done a southern road trip since a very messy bucks party years ago, so it be good head down.

[sambb]

I got onto the bottom plastic IC pipe issue. I bought a 90 degree 2 inch pipe and bent it out to about the required 100 degrees with a bit of heat and force. The ID of the stock plastic one is 42mm and this is 48mm too. It fit in there solid as a rock and is now mount off a vacant screw hole in the block. Hopefully the end of pipes blowing off because they cant be tightened properly and maybe itll flow a bit freer now too.