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I did not get an alignment so I don't have measurements; I merely added camber to the front by changing the shims.
Yes setting too much or too little camber will reduce grip in a corner. Camber is of course a compromise, in that having the tire at an angle to the ground could reduce straight line grip. However grip for cornering is usually more important (especially for autocross and racing, but also on the street).
The whole idea of camber is that when the car is in a hard turn, the outside wheels are flat against the ground. That provides optimum grip. Obviously if the tires aren't flat against the ground then you're not going to get the best possible grip. The tire pyrometer helps you with this. If the tire is not in even contact with the ground, then the part that is doing more work gets hotter.
To some extent you can also adjust the balance by playing with the tire pressures. If you set the pressure too high it will reduce the width of contact with the pavement by making the tire bulge in the middle. Again you can use a tire pyrometer to tell you when the grip is optimum, but you can deliberately mis-set the pressures to tweak balance.
I would normally recommend optimizing camber (and tire pressures) front and back, and then adjusting the sway bars to tweak the balance.
Yes setting too much or too little camber will reduce grip in a corner. Camber is of course a compromise, in that having the tire at an angle to the ground could reduce straight line grip. However grip for cornering is usually more important (especially for autocross and racing, but also on the street).
The whole idea of camber is that when the car is in a hard turn, the outside wheels are flat against the ground. That provides optimum grip. Obviously if the tires aren't flat against the ground then you're not going to get the best possible grip. The tire pyrometer helps you with this. If the tire is not in even contact with the ground, then the part that is doing more work gets hotter.
To some extent you can also adjust the balance by playing with the tire pressures. If you set the pressure too high it will reduce the width of contact with the pavement by making the tire bulge in the middle. Again you can use a tire pyrometer to tell you when the grip is optimum, but you can deliberately mis-set the pressures to tweak balance.
I would normally recommend optimizing camber (and tire pressures) front and back, and then adjusting the sway bars to tweak the balance.
wiztecy
Active Member
Took the windy highway 9 home from work today due to highway 17 being backed up from all the tourists visiting santa cruz this weekend. Was able to test out the new front negative camber setup on 20-30 mph fishhook turns. Took TC off. With my front and back tires being worn down to almost needing replacement it was a good test for break-away on the car. Did great. Had no others on the road with good visibility for safety of others, pushed one tight fishhook turn ( slight downhill and to the right) doing 15-25mph and gave some acceleration 3/4 into the turn. Front was planted and back broke free (from the acceleration of the rear wheels) and whipped out very quick as expected (fishhooks will snap it out fast when the rear has lost traction). I letup on the accelerator and allowed the steering wheel to come around quickly with a slight resistance of my hands. Cleaned up pretty nicely but very quick from break-away to recovery.
Yep, when the back pops out on the Roadster you gotta react fast or it's gonna pass you. They set up the Roadster with gobs of understeer for a reason.
wiztecy
Active Member
It happens so fast. But you have to allow this to happen to understand your Roadster and it and you will be in a better place for understanding its handling. Truth is one needs to erase all that is unnatural with the car. The panic in the person. Panic will put you in the wrong place every time. You have the allow yourself to accept the Roadster to find its neutral point on its own, and when it comes around give a slight resistance on the wheel and hold it when you feel its right. It will and needs to spin that wheel around fast which the panic is natural to set in. But when you found the Roadster has settled down and coming into a neutral state I more grip to the wheel which is easing it in. Every car is unique due to suspension, camber, tires, weight, etc.
Its interesting talking to a friend who races Miatas and has lots of supercars. He typically holds his hand at the 9 and 3 o clock positions when racing and that's what the driving schools teach. I've always found that to be tense, I like a one hand feel but the other hand close or lightly holding the wheel. I really try to feel the car through the steering wheel. With that I try to get as much feedback on one hand on how the car is doing through the wheel but also on my body shift of the G's to feel the back brake away with the feel of the wheel. I find one hand is quicker to add resistance on the wheel and I apply the other when needed to add more. My friend said that once your car has broken free there's no way of getting it back. I tend to disagree and think if you have a good direct input of the car you can give feedback to pull out of it. The talk of discussion was a quick ratio steering rack, next on my list. He believed that every car (high performance) is setup with a ratio from the factory and works with the geometry and setup of the car. I'm opposite in view. I think if you understand and get direct proper feedback from the car with a proper suspension setup, a quicker ratio rack will give your input quicker to the car hence giving milliseconds in advantage to counteracting a break of the rear wheels in a turn. With that I'm working to get poly bushings all the way around in the Roadster when the time comes. Reason being, more feedback on how the car connects to the pavement and to the wheel.
But I'm curious what the driving schools instruct, what feels natural, but also what is right in respect to hand to steering wheel positioning.
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3 and 9 is what they teach, for a good reason - it gives you the most leverage and the most range of motion.
I agree that a balanced car is better - in fact racers will tell you that slight oversteer is faster - however the average driver does not have the skills to deal with it. I've spent the last several years learning those skills at the track and autocross. I wouldn't recommend that an inexperienced driver make these changes. "Inexperienced" would include someone who has been driving for 30 years but never done an HPDE.
I agree that a balanced car is better - in fact racers will tell you that slight oversteer is faster - however the average driver does not have the skills to deal with it. I've spent the last several years learning those skills at the track and autocross. I wouldn't recommend that an inexperienced driver make these changes. "Inexperienced" would include someone who has been driving for 30 years but never done an HPDE.
wiztecy
Active Member
Thanks. Just watched a few videos on steering wheel hold. So the point it appears they're making is to get the most feedback from the wheel and the lowest signal to noise ratio where you can feel the peak curve of the turn. Also to not grip the wheel but rather use both hands to hold the wheel in place locking them into the wheel and using the leverage where you have the most feel of the wheel and the road/cornering forces. Otherwise if you're gripping the wheel with one hand the driver is only using friction to hold the steering wheel to counter act the forces of the turn.
smorgasbord
Active Member
Back in my day, they taught 10 and 2. Nowadays (post airbags) they recommend 9 and 3. Never heard about the leverage / range-of-motion, just the "save your arms" airbag bit.
When I first started driving, I was far more comfortable with 10 and 4. I suspect it was because it had the same range of motion and balance as 9-3 but accounted for my dominant righty. Just a guess.
Just did some more un-shimming. Now have removed 2 mm from each side; can't go any further. We'll see how that works... may need to try those v2 arms...
wiztecy
Active Member
smorgasbord
Active Member
I'm on the V2 arms and more negative camber (-0.8 and -0.9) on the fronts. On the rears, running -2.2 and -2.3 I think. They also adusted toe-in to be street friendly, but would have done it differently for track.
It feels different. Whereas the first alignment I had done was an immediate and obvious handling improvement (rears about the same, fronts were at -0.3 and -0.4), going to the V2 arms wasn't an initial slam dunk. But, I've driven the car just a few days now, and it's growing on me. The don't know what the geometry change means, they claim "less bump steer" but I don't know what that means.
I do know that since I started my mod efforts, handling is vastly improved. I have a lot more confidence in handling and what was a well handling car at reasonable speeds is now an impressive handling car at somewhat more than reasonable speeds. I'm still being careful how far I'm going to push things - I really need to get off public roads, but I'm having a real blast now.
BTW, I have the adjustable suspension and am running the stock settings of midpoint on the anti-sway bars and midpoint on the Bilstein shocks. I did have the rear control arm bushings replaced with polyurethane, though, as part of the first alignment. According to the Lotus mechanic, the stock rubber bushings are a known point of failure/sloppiness.
Are you also planning on using poly bushings on the front? Where's the best place to buy the bushing kits? I've run into 3 or 4 Lotus owners and they all had replacement bushings. They looked at me like "You mean you haven't done that yet?" They said it makes it quieter too.
Haven't measured it. Given stock is around zero it's probably close to -0.5. I can tell just from photos of the car during autocross that it's still not enough.
Right now I'm just doing little tinkers on the Roadster. Over the winter I put a full suspension in my Corvette - 16 bushings, coilovers, sway bars. Gave myself tendonitis with all the wrenching (not even kidding lol).
smorgasbord
Active Member
I had it done by a local Lotus mechanic. Here's a link describing the different types of replacements and how to DIY install: http://wiki.seloc.org/a/Change_wishbone_bushes
I only did the rears, since that's what wears fastest on Roadster due to all the regen braking. From what I've read about going to polyurethane, when I have the budget (it's pretty well blown now) I'll look into that as well.
wiztecy
Active Member
When Rob did mine (just the single upper rear bushing) he put in the PowerFlex Poly Bushings, the purple ones. Some nice things about all PowerFlex bushings is that they're made in the USA and all have a lifetime warranty:
PowerFlex Poly Bushings - Lotus Elise
But I came across on the Lotus forum of them ripping on the edges and where the owner preferred something stiffer:
Type of Wishbone/A-arm bushings????? - LotusTalk - The Lotus Cars Community
And it appears the PowerFlex Blacks are stiffer, its their race compound:
Powerflex Black Series (Race: 95A – very stiff) - Ultimate Performance Bushings Offering The Most Precise And Accurate Alignment
How To Choose
After seeing that, I wish I had the blacks put in
I'll also be ripping my stock and possibly the purples out and put the blacks in, possibly the Nitron bearings below if I find promising feedback from it.
I also came across this Nitron rear wishbone kit which looks interesting too:
Nitron Racing Wishbone Bearing kit [NTSJWB] - 499.95 : Elise Shop, Performance parts for your Lotus Elise
Looks like its non-binding compared to stock and flows better.
PowerFlex Poly Bushings - Lotus Elise
But I came across on the Lotus forum of them ripping on the edges and where the owner preferred something stiffer:
Type of Wishbone/A-arm bushings????? - LotusTalk - The Lotus Cars Community
And it appears the PowerFlex Blacks are stiffer, its their race compound:
Powerflex Black Series (Race: 95A – very stiff) - Ultimate Performance Bushings Offering The Most Precise And Accurate Alignment
How To Choose
After seeing that, I wish I had the blacks put in
I'll also be ripping my stock and possibly the purples out and put the blacks in, possibly the Nitron bearings below if I find promising feedback from it.I also came across this Nitron rear wishbone kit which looks interesting too:
Nitron Racing Wishbone Bearing kit [NTSJWB] - 499.95 : Elise Shop, Performance parts for your Lotus Elise
Looks like its non-binding compared to stock and flows better.
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smorgasbord
Active Member
After seeing that, I wish I had the blacks put in
Do be careful on required maintenance - some of the racing bushings need re-greasing quite often. That's not usually a problem for track cars that don't actually see a lot of miles, but for road cars, they can be ruined in just 15K miles:
wiztecy
Active Member
Its the same bushing, just a harder "plastic". Both would need the same maintenance. Same with stock rubber. My move to poly's is for their rigidness, not softness. I just fixed all my bushings in my Jeep Rubicon with long control arms. They had zerks, didn't take grease. Had 41k when I picked it up. Inside the orig. metal bushings were shot since they didn't get any grease (20k on them). Found a sweet spot to align the new bushings to get the proper grease. Manufacturer of the long arms who supplied the bushings were of no help, clueless. The bushings were rusted and worn at contact points of least tolerance. Took it apart twice (didn't fix it) and observed what went wrong and fixed it finally the 3rd time so it would take grease using the sweet spot I'd found.
So my point is that its true of any part that moves, without proper lubrication or design for the lack of it, the part eventually leads to failure without it.
I had my front universal u-joint go out in my 4wd driveshaft on my truck hauling my truck camper. If it had zerks, I would have greased it and lubed everything that needed to be lubed before and during the trip when I heard a slight squeak that I tried to figure where it was coming from. I grease all my zerks before any long 200+ mile trip. People have turned into a zero maintenance consumer, so trucks are no longer putting zerks in the driveshafts. Anyways the busted u-joint blew out my entire 4wd transfer case which was the weakest link. Luckily I was able to get back to Santa Cruz from Donner (go figure) without any oil in my transfer case and the entire side gone. At least some engineer did the right thing and must have put a sealed bearing in the transfer case that drives the rear/trans. 2 hours of driving with a load and my truck still got home with the transfer case empty of oil and tranny running the drivetrain behind it.
So again, any part you can't lubricate and don't will fail no matter where or what it is.
The bushings above look like from an east coast car with lots of salt and corrosion. California won't get that, at least where we are.
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smorgasbord
Active Member
frequencydip
Sig 100 - #52
I installed the raceUPRIGHTS to reduce unsprung weight and reduce understeer due to needing more range in wheel alignment. It dropped about 8.8lb of unsprung weight, this was very noticeable in driving, going over bumpy surfaces. The front tires maintain much better contact with the road, breaking over bumpy surfaces is much improved. It also solved my under steering problems as the car is much better balanced, however exiting corners can be a bit harry if you give it to much throttle as it has more tendency to corner exit oversteer in AutoCross.
The front uprights are a some what simple install, the rears require modification of the brakes to fit. Tesla has larger rotors on the rear than the Elise so we had to shave the rear rotors a bit to fit due to the different mounting point for the rear caliper over stock. My Porsche mechanic did a great job of making the whole thing work for anyone in LA area.
In the next few weeks I'm going to be installing adjustable swaybars and a big brake upgrade kit. I've also already installed the Nitron adjustable shocks.
The front uprights are a some what simple install, the rears require modification of the brakes to fit. Tesla has larger rotors on the rear than the Elise so we had to shave the rear rotors a bit to fit due to the different mounting point for the rear caliper over stock. My Porsche mechanic did a great job of making the whole thing work for anyone in LA area.
In the next few weeks I'm going to be installing adjustable swaybars and a big brake upgrade kit. I've also already installed the Nitron adjustable shocks.
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