What's the one suspension setting you have the most difficulty with?

[Terry Rock]

I always tend to dial out rear toe-in.
Though it's there to allow more stability under braking and to aid in tracking out of corners, I always suffer with a perceived instability.
I spent most of my life driving first karts...then rear engined, rear-wheel drive cars.
I tend to love over-steer more than under-steer, since it's what I became accustomed to right from the very beginning.

 

[garyjpaterson]

I never quite have a handle on suspension for high aero cars, what with balancing springs with third springs and bumpstops etc. I suppose you could categorise that under 'ground clearance' as that is the most important bit.

As for alignment preference, I usually enjoy a bit of rear toe-in, though it depends on the geometry - I usually try and take a reading with some lateral-g rather than just static in the pits - sometimes if it has less than ideal bumpsteer characteristics I may set the toe out of the normal window when looked at in the pits.

 

[AccAkut]

When making cars from scratch -> Anti roll bars. As I just can't find any data on them. Other things like packer range and spring strength can be eye-balled from pictures and manufacturer data, but ARBs are weird.

 

[garyjpaterson]

When making cars from scratch -> Anti roll bars. As I just can't find any data on them. Other things like packer range and spring strength can be eye-balled from pictures and manufacturer data, but ARBs are weird.

Thats a good point - I don't think I've had ARB data for any car I've done (outside of the FSAE). Kinda strange that Ferrari would go into such detail regarding springs/dampers but not give any info on ARBs.

 

[Jake Fangio]

All of them...

 

[dud]

I find that playing with Toe to get more stability or easier turn-in is pretty hard. The effect is subtle, so it takes quite a bit of time for each setting, and different cars react so differently.

Also, you can never be sure whether a stability or turn-in change that you attribute to the toe you just messed with is in reality based on e.g. tire temperature.

 

[Danny kung]

I find that playing with Toe to get more stability or easier turn-in is pretty hard. The effect is subtle, so it takes quite a bit of time for each setting, and different cars react so differently.

Also, you can never be sure whether a stability or turn-in change that you attribute to the toe you just messed with is in reality based on e.g. tire temperature.

Good points. Personally I don't touch rear toe unless it's a last resort.

I like to tune diff first then roll bars then dampers then maybe stiffen springs rear toe I feel is just going to sacrifice too much safe-stability for a gain that might not be as big.

 

[Richard Dastardly]

I'm fine with balance & not bad with dampers these days, but absolute values for some things still puzzle me - like ignoring any front/rear balance, what is the difference in performance between low ARB settings & high? when would you want more overall body roll?

Front slow compression dampers also, when would you want low damping?

I really need to start playing with Motec a bit ( where's that promised workspace! ).

 

[Danny kung]

I think just about the only situation where you'd want extreme less body roll is for an extremely bumpy track where you don't want to change the springs and dampers but even then it may not be ideal. Or if there's that one corner that just won't play nice. Why do you ask?

 

[Andy-R]

I like to click stuff and hope for the best. So, all of them... or none of them

 

[Richard Dastardly]

Why do you ask?

I like to understand the dynamics of the whole system & why one setting over another is a good idea when it's not so obvious. I suppose there might be something related to kerbs also, plus the ARB is an extra spring in the system so stronger ARB should increase effective spring rate. Not that that is a factor usually... I've found a couple of the vintage cars respond well to really stiff ARB though.

 

[Danny kung]

I meant to clarify, why do you ask about extreme softer ARB? did someone send you a setup with such?

 

[Richard Dastardly]

I meant to clarify, why do you ask about extreme softer ARB? did someone send you a setup with such?

No, nothing like that - I'd just like to know scenarios when you'd actually want to use less ARB all round.

 

[Kek700]

Apart from gearing and tyres, the rest is a bit of a mystery, dampers especially.
Probably due to having no feel for what the car is doing before and after i have made a change.
So setup for me is based around lap times, which as you can imagine ends
up as a labourious slog, which consequently means i soon loose the will to ive.

 

[Warlord_Gonagy]

For me, I tend to leave bump and damper settings alone and do my setups with alignment and sway bars only. I know there's maybe a couple tenths in that, but you can get it pretty close with just sway bars, camber, and aero balance.

 

[Danny kung]

I tend to agree. Dampers a big grey area for me. I ought to actually read up on every value sometime. It'd be very valuable. But yeah I can get the car to handle desirably without touching dampers. ARB, brake bias, downforce, differential are my go-to

 

[Richard Dastardly]

Once you've done tyre pressures and initial camber and perhaps ride height if the track needs it I would probably go to dampers next, honestly - unless the car has some grossly bad behaviour ( like say, the 330P ) then you can probably tune it just with the dampers, and diff if it'll let you adjust that.

 

[Andy-R]

The mid/high speed understeer in that 330P4 is nasty! It isn't bad at low speed and it dominates the competition under braking and acceleration (until you get above 120mph or so) but I'll take the GT40 over that thing every time! IIRC I tried slamming the front end and raising the rear to try and reduce understeer (purely because something similar worked in the T70) but I ended up filing the 330 under rubbish and moving on to more enjoyable machinery.

 

[Richard Dastardly]

The mid/high speed understeer in that 330P4 is nasty! It isn't bad at low speed and it dominates the competition under braking and acceleration (until you get above 120mph or so) but I'll take the GT40 over that thing every time! IIRC I tried slamming the front end and raising the rear to try and reduce understeer (purely because something similar worked in the T70) but I ended up filing the 330 under rubbish and moving on to more enjoyable machinery.

I had to start over on the 330P - the setup I have looks nothing like the default at all. Can't do much about the highspeed understeer because that's aero induced ( iirc from tales of the period the GT40 should suffer with that too ) but the rest of the handling was transformed completely. I guess if you made the rear springs solid it might help but then you'd never get it round a corner...

GT40 & 908 will leave it behind in a straight line, unfortunately.

 

[Andy-R]

I had to start over on the 330P - the setup I have looks nothing like the default at all. Can't do much about the highspeed understeer because that's aero induced ( iirc from tales of the period the GT40 should suffer with that too ) but the rest of the handling was transformed completely. I guess if you made the rear springs solid it might help but then you'd never get it round a corner...

GT40 & 908 will leave it behind in a straight line, unfortunately.

They will for sure at high speed, out of corners the 330 P4 out accelerates those other 2 though. I guess if it had a roof it would destroy them at high speed as well! The GT40 does understeer a bit in AC but the 330 P4 is on another level IMO