I went to a low-pressure (yeah, right - does that EVER happen?) autocross yesterday to play with the new 710s. My alignment was pure US stock, -.5f/-1.5r deg. camber, slight toe-in on the front and ~1/4" toe-in on the rear. I managed to get fastest stock time but it had me wondering - can I quantify the effects of an alignment without aligning and doing the same course under the same conditions?

What's your thoughts on rough time decrease due to alignment?

 

Some of the competition was rather stiff though bud... You had to really work to get that 61.###. And as it looked to me (I should have taken more time to write down times), Dave, also on those sick Kumhos was the next fastest S at 62.095, and then I think it was me at 62.303.

Sorry to hijack your thread, thanks so much for coming out yesterday!

 

Sorry, I was one of two drivers to get into the 60s (60.9xx) and on stock alignment. Hence my question - is a decent alignment worth, say 1 second? We like to throw out a ~2 second improvement by going to competitive R compounds so extra camber should have a distinct effect. Question is, how much?

 

Yup, sorry, my oopsy, my notes did not include some of the last runs, I tried to put those in memory...

With luck the experience brain can help you out with your question.

 

No one wants to poke at this?

 

Quantify how? If you're talking about maximum lateral acceleration, that's why they invented skidpads. Given a sophisticated enough simulation engine, an increase X in a vehicle's maximum lateral acceleration could be linked to a decrease in time around a given course Y.

If that's not too helpful, I'd say "a few tenths on a 60 second course"

 

Yeah, skidpads are the ultimate answer for finding the static loading characteristics. But test circuits are the ultimate answer for finding the dynamic effects. Both are important.

To answer the original question, if you are serious than start reading books about race car engineering. Then start doing "test and tune". Then come back and tell us what you find, if you are willing to give us the free information that you have paid for.

 

Heh! I was just hoping someone had done a test using different camber settings and could relate a story of comparison. Yep, I sure know that testing would tell me but I don't have the resources to align, test, align, test, and wear out my tires. Some folks have much more access and that's what I was hoping to tap into. If nobody actually has, so be it - I was just asking...