Track alignment for Buttonwillow

SSpeed Racer

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Any suggestions on what type of alignment setup we should be using for Buttonwillow???

Mine is setup at -1.9 camber in the front
-1.5 camber in the rear


Any Help here??
 

Frank Parise

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With 7 right hand turns and 5 left hand turns, I would expect that the same alignment on the left and right sides of the car would be OK. That definitely wasn't the case at Willow Springs. Temps on the inside of my right tires were 50 degrees hotter than the outside (way too much negative camber on the right side). The left side temps were all OK, with not more than 10-15 degrees variance across the tire.

Your camber settings are right in the middle of the ballpark for an initial guess. You could go higher, depending on how hard you drive the car. Use your pyrometer to check tire temps after each run session. That should tell you the optimal alignment for each wheel.

You didn't mention your toe settings. They are really critical, especially if they are screwed up. I wasted two days chasing my tail on shock settings at Willow Springs, only to discover right before race time that my rear wheels had 1/4" toe out in them. Blew my entire weekend from a competitive standpoint. Wish I had checked this earlier. Have no idea how the toe got out of whack on my car. I can only tell you that toe out in the rear is a VERY BAD THING!

Try a little toe out (yes, TOE OUT)in the front to help your corner entry and a little toe-in (NOT TOE OUT) in the rear to reduce oversteer on corner exit. By little, I mean anywhere between 1/32"-1/16" on each wheel.

If you need a pyrometer, come and visit me at BW...you can use mine.
 

GTS Dean

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Frank you must have increased the negative camber and forgot to decrease the toe. I reset my car to street alignment after my last track outing and it took 3.5 turns of the toe links to get back to normal.
 

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