How to Calculate Installation Ratio
What is an Installation Ratio? An installation ratio is the ratio between how much the spring and damper moves in relation to how far the wheel and tyre move. In general, the wheel and tyre will move a further distance than the spring and damper. The installation ratio is vital to understand in your suspension […]
How To Calculate Spring Rates
Coil Springs Coil springs are the most common application of spring within motorsport. For reason why and some more information on coil springs make sure you check out our article “coil springs”. There are two main ways to calculate spring rate. One is through calculations based upon looking at and measuring the spring. The other […]
Uprated Suspension Bushes – What’s the point?
You’ve probably heard of people fitting poly bushes to their car to improve handling. But what are poly-bushes and what does replacing your standard bushes actually achieve?
3 Reasons Why You Should Not Fit Wheel Spacers To Your Car
Spacers are a cheap & easy way to improve wheel fitment & increase the track width of your car but a fast & easy way to ruin the geometry of your car.
How To Align Your Car
This section covers how to align your car track-side or in your garage and takes you through the procedure and the order of what to adjust.
How To Corner Weight Your Car
Within many motorsport categories, corner weighting a car before an event is crucial due to the large affect it can have on the lap times and capabilities of the car. It can significantly increase lap times and make the car feel much more predictable for the driver.
NASCAR & Oval Racing
The below set up is taken from a NASCAR car. The setup is also for a car travelling around an anti-clockwise oval circuit. The settings would be opposite if the circuit was clockwise. These are a good base setting to set up your rear wheel drive oval racer for an anti-clockwise circuit. Camber Caster Toe
BTCC & Touring Cars
There are two types of touring car; front wheel drive and rear wheel drive. Each type has its own set up due to the nature of how the car transfers its power to the ground. Below are different set ups for front wheel drive touring cars and rear wheel drive touring cars. Front Wheel Drive […]
Drag Racing Set Up
The set ups below are taken from a rear wheel drive professional drag racing car. Different chassis types, tyre widths and wheel bases could warrant slightly different set ups. However, these figures are a good base to set a rear wheel drive drag car up to. Camber Caster Toe
F1 & Open Wheel Set Up
The set ups shown below are taken from a Formula 1 car example. They are therefore at the extreme end of the open wheel racing category and can be tuned back slightly towards zero from these figures for slower classes. The below figures are for dry weather and are a good base setting to be […]
WRC & Rally Set Up
The set ups below are based upon a four wheel drive rally car which has been set up for a high speed loose gravel course. They are a good base setting to set up a four wheel drive rally car to and can be tuned from there to suit the surface and driver. Camber Caster […]
Dampers Set Up
How to Measure The most accurate way to measure a damper is to use a damper dyno. This is a machine that fixes one end to a load cell (force measurer) and the other end to a crank shaft. The crank shaft has a fixed displacement and rotates in a circular motion. As the crankshaft […]
Anti-Roll Bars
How to Measure Unlike coil springs, anti-roll bars very rarely have the spring rate marked on them. This means that the rate either needs to be calculated or measured. If you are designing your own anti-roll bar or have a relatively simple shape roll bar then it is often more accurate to calculate the bars […]
Caster
How to Measure The first stage of adjusting and tuning your caster angle is to first measure and understand what your vehicle currently has. There are two main ways to measure your caster angle: Turning plates and a digital or bubble camber/caster gauge Measuring the location of the upper and lower wishbone mounting points or […]
Geometry Fundamentals
What Is Suspension Geometry? Suspension geometry is the positioning and angular movement of the suspension arms and the effect that they have upon the movement of the wheel and tyre. It is caused by the different components of the suspension system all moving in their designed paths, which together generate changes in direction and multiple […]
Suspension
What Is Suspension? Suspension in the automotive industry is a system of shocks, springs, uprights and arms that together keep a vehicle suspended above ground on its wheels. A suspension system is usually made up of the following components: Spring – This can come in many forms Damper – There are many variations to choose […]
Tyres
What is a tyre A tyre is a rubber coated construction that is often inflated and surrounds a metal wheel to form a soft contact with the ground A tyre is a complex mixture of many materials and layers that form a rubber tyre. The main features to focus on are the tread, the side […]
Camber
How to Measure Before you can begin to adjust and tune camber you must first be able to measure it and measure how effective a camber change would be to alter the grip. Ways to measure camber are: Spirit Level Camber Gauge Digital Camber Gauge 4 Wheel Laser Alignment Tyre Temperature Probe There are two […]
Toe
This section covers toe on a racing car. It describes and explains how to measure, adjust and alter toe to suit the driver and the style of circuit. The section covering the different effects of toe is separated into 3 categories; front wheel drive, rear wheel drive and four wheel drive. A lot of the […]
Leaf Springs
What is a Leaf Spring? Leaf springs are one of the earliest and most simple forms of spring within the automobile and motorsport world. It is simply a length of an iron or steel blade, attached to the chassis and each end and tied to the axle in the centre. They are usually stacked with […]