So, I'm slowly prepping my car ('92 Nissan Sentra SE-R) for the Wild West Rally in September. Alignment is one of the things I need to address.

Can someone here recommend alignment settings for my type of car. It's a Group 2 car and has a very tight clutch-type LSD (i.e., not much slip). As this will be my first rally, I'm looking for something that's forgiving of newbie mistakes.

Thanks in advance.

What can you adjust?
Toe i'd say somewhere around 1-2mm IN.
Seems somehow the gravel and the tires and the rubber bushings in America is way different than the entire rest of the world cause in North America alone, many have some convoluted bizarre, impossible for me to understand rationalisations why they "need' 2-3mm toe out..Probably because everybody here has so much more BHP than in similar cars in the rest of the world, maybe?

I say they're fuckin insane, they say it "turns in" nice..

But my car turns in far nicer and I set in 1-2mm max IN, 4-4.5 caster for the oh so confidence inspiring return to center and feel in the steering, and 0-0.5 degrees neg camber.

But what do I know.
have you asked Timmy?

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John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

Even if he had, I wouldn't know anything about setting up a FWD.

Sorry, but I'm not the oracle...

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Welcome to the cult of JVL drink the koolaid or be banned.

I think the alignment will depend on the car but I always ran something close to zero toe front/rear and ~1-1.5 neg on the front. I never experimented with caster on my old car but I hope run more caster on the new car.

If it were me I would start with zero toe on the front, some toe in on the back, ~1deg negative camber and see how it feels.

Check out specs for VW Golf 3, 4 and Polo grp. N here:
http://www.vwmotorsport.com/vwtech/setup/Golf%203%20Kit%20Car%20forest%20spec.pdf
http://www.vwmotorsport.com/vwtech/setup/Golf%204%20Kit%20Car%20forest%20spec.pdf
http://www.vwmotorsport.com/vwtech/setup/polo%20gravel%20tech%20spec.pdf

They are all there sorta in the neutral toe, bit of neg. camber, and a bit of toe out on the back - ballpark.

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Brgrds
Brian

there's always the ford manual to look at too.

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KF7RWG
http://www.utahrallygroup.com

WHAT!!!
Are you guys suggesting that we could LEARN SOMETHING by looking in a book instead of On-line??!!!

GASP!
What would happen if everybody thought like that, Yosarrian?

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John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

This is easy. 0 degrees camber. Neutral to 1/8 toe in.

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"Talk about drugs. Driving a car like that, going that fast, it’s like all the drugs at once." - Tommy Byrne

"Now, Pinky, if by any chance you are captured during this mission, remember you are Gunther Heindriksen from Appenzell. You moved to Grindelwald to drive the cog train to Murren. Can you repeat that?" - The Brain

I did a string gauge and magnetic camber gauge alignment on the GTX back when I had a garage.

Cars got 1/8" toe out in the front. I don't really like it.

It turns in more drastically than toe in, but the car doesn't feel as stable or natural. And I get a lot of scrub on the inside of the tire. (ie: Left turn, it scrubs the inside of the left tire) The insides of the tires are wearing out much faster than the rest.

It's got .75 degree of neg camber all around and stock caster. 0 toe in the rear.

Next time I'm going to go with .5-.75 camber all around, stock castor (I don't think it's really adjustable.) and 1/8" toe in on the front and 0 toe in the rear.

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Michael LeCompte

pikespeakgtx Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I did a string gauge and magnetic camber gauge
> alignment on the GTX back when I had a garage.
>
> Cars got 1/8" toe out in the front. I don't really
> like it.
>
> It turns in more drastically than toe in, but the
> car doesn't feel as stable or natural. And I get
> a lot of scrub on the inside of the tire. (ie:
> Left turn, it scrubs the inside of the left tire)
> The insides of the tires are wearing out much
> faster than the rest.
>
> It's got .75 degree of neg camber all around and
> stock caster. 0 toe in the rear.
>
> Next time I'm going to go with .5-.75 camber all
> around, stock castor (I don't think it's really
> adjustable.) and 1/8" toe in on the front and 0
> toe in the rear.
>
> Michael LeCompte


Maybe try a bit less than 1/8", that's a whopping 3mm...maybe 2mm in.
With typical bush compliance it'll "settle back" a bit.
Small steps....

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John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

Thanks for the replies, guys.

I think I'm going to try 0 mm toe front, -1 deg camber all around, and either 0 mm or something slightly toe out in the rear. See how that works on a dirt road.

MikeColangelo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Thanks for the replies, guys.
>
> I think I'm going to try 0 mm toe front, -1 deg
> camber all around, and either 0 mm or something
> slightly toe out in the rear. See how that works
> on a dirt road.

I would strongly advise against OUT on the rear.OUT on the front is wierd and only done in North America doubtless due to the incessant dogmatic claims of cone-squishers but aside from the dead on center feel and the dartiness in turn in, in a straight line the idea works for some straight line stability..
Toe out at all on the rear = loop out.

The car will go sideways with just speed and little twitch maybe..
It will be very sudden sideways with every slight initiation of the steering wheel..

uh uh.

Well unless you want to loop out or spin round at very low speeds...

Gonna play drifto, sure toe the rear out 2mm a side.

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

http://www.rallysportmag.com.au/home/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1521&Itemid=2

This is Wayne Bell.

Here are some of his suspension set up hints.

http://www.bmsc.com.au/forums/showpost.php?p=189782&postcount=2

http://www.bmsc.com.au/forums/showpost.php?p=189793&postcount=7

http://www.bmsc.com.au/forums/showpost.php?p=189797&postcount=8

http://www.bmsc.com.au/forums/showpost.php?p=189964&postcount=52

http://www.bmsc.com.au/forums/showpost.php?p=190093&postcount=75

http://www.bmsc.com.au/forums/showpost.php?p=192490&postcount=186



So, just a few suggestions from a very competitive Australian driver, outside of the US, where people know how to rally.

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Welcome to the cult of JVL drink the koolaid or be banned.

A friend of mine told me a great way to do a string alignment:

1. place four jackstands around the car. a couple feet beyond the bumbers.
2. tie a string on left and right side front to back.
3. measure out about 1' from the rear wheels and place the string at that length.
4. set the two fron jack stands at the same width as the rears, make sure the strings are parralell.
5. measure from the string to front and back of wheel, make adjustment to where the front is 1/8" further from the string.
6. roll car back a few feet, then forward. repeat steps 3-5.

Does this sound right?

Gravel surfaces change so dramatically that its sometimes hard for even wiley vets to get it figured out between surfaces, impossible for newbies. I would set the car up pretty square at first. Take it to an alignment shop the first time. Let an experienced eye double check for loose and bent...basically you need to learn to drive the car somewhat neutral before changing stuff to suit conditions.

1* of neg camber is almost always a good point. Toe should be within 1/8 inch of square. Castor on most cars is not easily adjustable and I'd think 3 or 4* would be about it. Rear toe out can be pretty evil on loose surfaces and I don't think a good idea for newbies.

Most stock suspensions are designed to understeer at the limit because it is a natural reflex to turn the wheel more. Counter steering is not intuitive, it is a learned rection. All suspensions will change settings under cornering as they are designed to do that from the drawing board. Not all designs do the same amount of changes in the same way.

You need to learn the car and procedures of rally before you get overly concerned with suspension stuff. You don't want to induce wierd handling and have to deal with that at the start. After an event or two you'll be able to notice the finer nuances of suspension and tire pressures. The biggest silly thing I see people do is come in after a stage and complain about the car ( that was fine last event..) and start changing stuff. There are slippy stages, crappy road design and , hard to believe, sometimes the driver is just off a bit.
So don't change a bunch of stuff because of one or two off stages and as most everyone says don't change more than one thing at a time.