Emilio disagrees with you: Miata Race alignment

We shall see. Gotta start somewhere. My garage alignment targeting 3 ended up being at 3.4 once it went on a real rack. And braking was not a major issue in the little bit of track work I've already done with the car at 3.4. I suspect the final answer will be somewhere between 2.5 and 3 for street tires (224 Rival-S). But I won't really know until the ABS goes on the car.

 

I'll be racing ChumpCar at NCM this weekend, hope to see you and the car there!

 

It has been my experience that amount of camber, that much castor will be hard on ball joints. I think you are non power steering, so with a little less castor it will be easier to turn the wheel, less castor can up the bump steer a little tho.

 

You guys do realize that you're giving alignment advice to Andy Hollis right...?



-Ryan

 

Yea...but all he knows is silly FWD Honduhs!

 

Yes, and thats why I didnt tell him he was wrong, just that I was concerned.

 

Funny. I saw those camber numbers and thought "Not enough front".

 

You guys really run that much front on the road race cars? Much over 2.8 seems to street tires into heating up the inner shoulder when you're mowing down cones, and I've noticed that anything over 2.5 and the braking performance starts to drop off dramatically. Though on an auto-x car if I could get 5° I'd take it, I've yet to see any rwd auto-x car that didnt go faster with more front camber, even to the point where the brakes hardly work and you're actually getting inside shoulder wear.

 

Running SM6s in 2013, I was running ~3.7* front camber with ISC bushings. Rear camber hovered in the 2.8-3.0* range.

 

If you're having issues with too much heat on the inside corners, you need to drive harder. I was just told this twice at my recent track day, ~3.5* up front on Star Specs.

 

Not to derail the thread, but I'm running:
-3.2 front
-2.7 rear
5.0 caster
0 toe front
1/16" in rear

4.5" ride height. Its perfect. No issues braking hard with -3.2 degrees up front.

 

^ Pretty much the same for me, but I zero the rear toe because I like to live dangerously like that.

-Ryan

 

nope.

yep.

yep

yep.

I'm running -3.2 F and -2.6 rear on 205/50 on x8 with rivals. Pyrometer readings will show not enough front camber if i'm not driving hard enough. Hot days and hard driving will net 160-180 on inside shoulders with typical 15-20 degree splits to outside. Oddly enough, my shoulder wear is still iffy leading me to believe i could use even more front camber.

Back to the thread... I freekin love seeing when there are updates to this thread. Thanks a ton for keeping it updated

 

...and Miatas vvv

 

Ultimately, static camber settings are highly dependent on total roll angle of the car at max load. But the latter depends on vehicle weight, roll stiffness, cg height, track width, tire grip, surface grip, suspension geometry (camber gain), etc. So there is no "one size fits all".

 

I wont comment on your camber settings because that is something you will have to read temperatures for and is based on other factors such as what tires and spring rates etc. depending on the track and conditions I usually near -3.8F -3.2R but I am on R7's and and effective aero.

I will say that you will likely get a massive shoulder workout running that much caster. I have found the sweet spot on my car to be in the 4.7 range. Any more than 5 and the steering gets really heavy.

Edit: I failed to read the rest of the thread after you posted that you where running 6 degrees of caster and changed some other settings. oops
you obviously know what you are doing and should be close to start

 

Slammed NA with ITBs, clubroaster detected

 

That car was built before clubroadster was even a thing. Was one of the fastest CSP autocross cars in the nation.

This is a build thread...let's try and stay on topic, k?

 

My friend Neal is the current owner of that white car. The ITBs are no longer there, but it is otherwise one heck of a lightweight beast and really well put together. It's an inspiration, much like this build.

 

The ITB's went away when the car was converted "down" from CSP to STS trim. I sold off about $10K worth of parts, including a VVT motor, TEC3, the TWM ITBs, clutch diff, and a couple sets of Panasport 3-pieces.

The suspension stayed much the same. It just worked. (Koni 2812's, Eibachs, custom offset Delrin bushings and the same bars I'm running now.)