Geo settings

[munk]

Im planning on raising the suspension on my car as it was set up for track use and is way to low and hard for our pot hole ridden roads, handles amazingly like this unfortunatly and dont want to lose this if at all possible,going to be lifting it myself as this is the easy part but want to get hold of a correct set of geo settings for the road use,i want it to still handle well but dont want it to eat tyres due to to much camber etc, does anyone have a ideas what settings id be best using ......

Also what is original ride height of the p1 and standard settings as this may also be an option... thanks

[Banstead Stig]

Raising a car needn't rob it of its handling ability. Quite the reverse in some cases (if too low!).

[Ginola]

This is a classic fast road setup, ride heights don't want to be too low and the car will actually handle better with a reasonable amount of ride height as you dont put the roll centre through the ground., note there is very little toe, this will give you even tyre wear also. you might not get rid of the hard without going for a much better coilover or back to a spring/shock setup... talk to Scott.T about springs but cover your eyes when he shows you his "collection" :P

Ride height for a classic should be roughly this front 350 rear 345 (hub centre to arch lip) (you can play around a little with this to suit)

[munk]

Originally Posted by Banstead Stig

Raising a car needn't rob it of its handling ability. Quite the reverse in some cases (if too low!).

hope it works out to be the case then...

Originally Posted by Ginola

This is a classic fast road setup, ride heights don't want to be too low and the car will actually handle better with a reasonable amount of ride height as you dont put the roll centre through the ground., note there is very little toe, this will give you even tyre wear also. you might not get rid of the hard without going for a much better coilover or back to a spring/shock setup... talk to Scott.T about springs but cover your eyes when he shows you his "collection" :P

Ride height for a classic should be roughly this front 350 rear 345 (hub centre to arch lip) (you can play around a little with this to suit)

cheers dave exactly what i was after got some one going to set it up for me,so needed the correct angles, and didnt want to have to much tyre wear.

[SpecB]

There are some people who advocate slightly less rear camber based on the premise that as you accelerate and the rear squats camber increases and therefore decreases the contact patch and therefore traction. It's not something I've played with yet on my car but the theory sounds correct

[Scott.T]

Originally Posted by Ginola

This is a classic fast road setup, ride heights don't want to be too low and the car will actually handle better with a reasonable amount of ride height as you dont put the roll centre through the ground., note there is very little toe, this will give you even tyre wear also. you might not get rid of the hard without going for a much better coilover or back to a spring/shock setup... talk to Scott.T about springs but cover your eyes when he shows you his "collection" :P

Ride height for a classic should be roughly this front 350 rear 345 (hub centre to arch lip) (you can play around a little with this to suit)

The above re: ride height and camber are spot on.
For the front you can get slightly more camber to about -1.6/1.7 if you push the top of the disk/wheel inwards whilst nipping up the bolt. But I find this tramlines too much, so tend sit it around the -1.4 mark.

If you don't push on the disk/wheel it will naturally sit at around -1 with the camber bolt on it's minimum setting, due to bit of slack in the mounting holes. As mentioned above, if you take up this slack with a push you can get that all important extra bit of camber.

The rear have no adjustment, but even with no adjustment and a push on the top of the disk/wheel whilst tightening you can get it close to -1.4/1.5. It's a bit harder to do this on the rear as everything is a lot stiffer and less slack in the fittings.

All of this though is based on OE or Bilstein Macpherson dampers. The tolerance/quality of coilovers may effect this.

I have my own DIY camber tool, but cannot check toe with this. For that you need the proper tools but you can do a simple check with a tape measure if you know the toe was aligned before the change.

When you change the ride height it will impact the toe as the pivot point between the hub and the steering rack changes.
If you drop the car from OE ride height you actually bring the rack to hub ball-joint mounting closer to the rack. If you do not change the length of the rack this pushes the pivot point out so it ends up with toeing out, so you will quickly where your tyre inner edges.

As your going the other way you will get more toe-in, which could wear the outside edge of the tyre

If everything was aligned before the change just measure before and after by running a tape measure under the car.
Measure from a tread groove on the rear of the front tyre to the same tread groove on the opposite tyre. Then repeat the measurement on the front of the tyre. This will give you 'x' mm of toe.
Obviously if the front of the tyre measures less than the rear of the tyre it is toe-in 'x' mm and visa versa. If you really want' to know the 'degree's you would have to know the distance between your two measurement points (across the wheel) and use a bit of trigonometry and divide by 2 to get each side. But it's a little vague and obviously not as accurate as proper geo equipment.

If you don't know the toe alignment before then you can't guarantee that either wheel were originally toe-ing correctly. With this method you are only measuring side to side and not able to confirm perfect side to side straight ahead alignment.

[boggissimo]

Originally Posted by Ginola

This is a classic fast road setup, ride heights don't want to be too low and the car will actually handle better with a reasonable amount of ride height as you dont put the roll centre through the ground., note there is very little toe, this will give you even tyre wear also. you might not get rid of the hard without going for a much better coilover or back to a spring/shock setup... talk to Scott.T about springs but cover your eyes when he shows you his "collection" :P

Ride height for a classic should be roughly this front 350 rear 345 (hub centre to arch lip) (you can play around a little with this to suit)

Any difference for a newage, or a wagon? I need to get a geo done in a week or two once the new coilovers have settled.

[Ginola]

With Newage the heights are a little different, and geo slightly different too, main difference being 0 toe at the front and start heights at around 370 front 350 rear you want as much castor as you can get on both classic and newage.

You could run a tiny bit of toe in at the front it will then tend to understeer at the limit on throttle mid corner, or dial it to 0 or even slightly negative toe will give you throttle controlled oversteer (driver choice really) amount of camber you run is basically as much as you can get away with keeping even tyre wear for the road (1.6 1.7 is quite normal at the front) slightly less at the rear and a tiny tiny fraction of toe in on the back to aid turn in (make it toe neutral when your on the throttle) hope this helps


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[boggissimo]

Good stuff, thanks.

My ride height is currently 355mm at the front and 340 mm at the rear, would the same settings still apply? It's all a bit Greek to me.

[Ginola]

Yes but your effectively reducing the amount of castor you can dial in by having a tiny bit more rake than you ideally want (sort of)
I'd drop the rear by 10 or raise the front (roll centre correction kit would be good at that height on the front to help dial out bump steer)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[munk]

Jesus that little lots just blown my sweed to peices...thanks very much scott..will read it again tommorow when i havnt had a few lagers..
I was going to use smd newhaven originally but two week wait and the price put me off.. anyone reccomend anyone else locally if all else fails...

[Scott.T]

Originally Posted by munk

Jesus that little lots just blown my sweed to peices...thanks very much scott..will read it again tommorow when i havnt had a few lagers..
I was going to use smd newhaven originally but two week wait and the price put me off.. anyone reccomend anyone else locally if all else fails...

E used Elva on Bexhill road.

[munk]

ok i will enquire later today as i work a stones throw away from them!

[BIG"E"]

Originally Posted by munk

ok i will enquire later today as i work a stones throw away from them!

If you go there ask for Pash, one of the guys on reception,

Mention me to him (the guy with the WR1 subaru) he will know me

Then ask him if Ian could check it out and if necessary get him to set up.

[boggissimo]

Originally Posted by Ginola

Yes but your effectively reducing the amount of castor you can dial in by having a tiny bit more rake than you ideally want (sort of)
I'd drop the rear by 10 or raise the front (roll centre correction kit would be good at that height on the front to help dial out bump steer)

Hmm, clear as mud!

Not sure I would recognise bump steer if it bumped into me, what happens? I don't mind changing the ride height, so would do that rather than spend more wonga.

[Ginola]

Clue is in the name so your cornering go over a bump and the steering wheel moves / changes direction (a problem particularly with incorrectly lowered cars) setting correct ride height should help a lot (for an interesting read Google roll centre) and roll centre adjustment


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[boggissimo]

OK, that makes some sense, also had a bit of a google about it.

Will probably raise the ride height a bit before getting the geo done, going to be driving a bit over the weekend so will see what else has changed with the new coilovers.

[boggissimo]

Went for an alignment today at MTMC in Tonbridge. They couldn't get the rear toe adjustment nuts undone so couldn't change anything at the rear. They were a bit reluctant to put as much camber on the front as I suggested (-1.5) so set it to factory spec. Here's the before and after

They don't want to try adjusting the rear at the weekend in case the bolt shears off, so I'll need to wait until I have a weekday off to get the rear end done. Will probably raise the ride height a bit before then too, since they'll need to check the front after doing the rear.

Sent from my D5803 using Tapatalk

[Ginola]

I would have asked for my money back and taken it somewhere that will put the settings on that you want rear defo wants fixing as does the front still


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[boggissimo]

Yeah, they said I could try it as subaru intended and if I didn't like it, they'd redo the front for free.

Sent from my D5803 using Tapatalk

[Ginola]

Get the rear freed up before you go back dude


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[drakesnow]

Munk - will send you how I set mine up recently. Very similar to Ginola's original post.
In fact, I'll post stats here later too. Really happy with it as was in the same boat (needed to raise the ride height!!)

[munk]

well, done the setup today and to say it was out to start with us an understatement... so raising it as i did clearly threw everything out!! really suprised as it was only 15-20 mm difference height wise, got it as near to the fast road settings as possible, didnt realise how sensitive those hunters are... and actually feels a lot more responsive know... thanks for the advice peeps.

[BIG"E"]

So where did you go to get it done?

[munk]

friend of mine in local had access to one,which was very handy.

[boggissimo]

Right, I'm going to take the car back to the alignment place on Friday, having raised the ride height back to 'normal', and given the rear toe adjustment bolts a few more squirts of penetrating lubricant. They'll be able to spend more time with heat/breaker bars and also get a replacement bolt if something snaps.

The car is a newage wagon and I'm going to request the following:
Front camber -1.5°
Front caster as much as possible (last measurements were about 3.3°)
Front toe 0.00°

Rear camber -1.0°
Rear toe 0.00°

Do those sound like reasonable targets? I will do some trackdays in future but it's going to be 99% on road, with lots of B-roads and poor surfaces.

Last time they said that there was no factory recommendation for rear camber, so didn't touch it. I don't have camber bolts either, so does that mean there's nothing they can change? Sorry I am clueless about this stuff. The rear coilovers have a rubber top mount rather than the adjustable plate on the fronts.