Track Car Debate

[Blueovalz]

Camber gain in front is right at 4.5 degrees, and rear is 3.3 degrees over the full range of suspension limits (6"). Obviously the car is not designed to run to full bounce and droop, so actual range is undetermined, but guessing around 3" to 4". The change in the rear uprights was to increase the camber gain, which helped a lot, and allowed me to reduce the static camber. Net result was a 4 mph increase on track-out, with a much better planted rear. Springs are 350 front, 450 rear, with a .72 angle correction factor in front, and .95 at the rear. Thus there is not a lot of compression on the springs at ride height. Weight distribution is 39/61. Front bar is 1", and rear is 3/4", and I'm using a mid-range setting on the arms, which is the same for both bars. Even though I designed the uprights for little sway, I think there is more going on than I planned. Not sure if that is good or bad, but the ride is excellent, both on track and on the road.

Trammeling is a problem sometimes, and I hope to have that mitigated a bit with some new uprights on the front that will reduce the scrub radius to about half of what it is now. Hope I don't lose too much input when I do that though. I felt the C4 front uprights have worked out really well, and I will keep them as a back-up just in case the new ones don't work out as intended. Overall, the new fabricated front uprights will increase the arms length by about 1.5", increase camber gain by about .5 degrees, and give me the ability to adjust the geometry slightly using spacers.

Braking appears to still be very sufficient even with "small" 12" C4 rotors. I've had to bias the front more than was designed, so obviously I've either got more weight up front (which I do at 1% from design), and/or the CG is higher than I intended. Regardless, the brakes never got soft. I've changed the rear components to Wilwood hats and rotors once I found a very close (.004" or .040" ?) match to the C4 rotor spacing, and will work on replacing the front OEM rotors with Wilwood hats and rotors later (.810" thick, 12.19" dia rotors).

Guessing the final weight of the car to be a porky 2200lbs considering all the "street" stuff that is on it that added weight (thicker body panels, latches, lots of copper wiring, gauges, fans, larger Heims than was necessary, and a general overbuilding to ensure no failures on the street. Had I set this up solely for racing purposes, a single carb, with one low-pressure pump, no fans, minimal guages, and less framing would have gotten me under 2K (well, maybe not less framing...a stiff frame can make up for a lot of other weaknesses in the suspension). I am slowly replacing steel parts with fabricated aluminum pieces as time goes on, so hopefully I'm loosing a gram here and there.