Geo Setting for mk1 trackcar??

i'm soon going to get the tracking, camber, castor measured and reset on my golf.
What should i get it set to?
I currently run parallel toe, about 2 deg neg camber on the front and i have my adjustable top mounts set to give a 'bit' more positive castor.
It handles pretty well as it is with little understeer but the steering is very heavy and i'd the car to change direction a little quicker. I was thinking either running a little toe out or resetting the castor back to factory postion?? Opinions please.
Also what should i set the rears to? parallel toe and maybe a little neg camber???
Lastly where can i get shims for this or what should i use to shim it???
Cheers in advance fellas
Ian.

 

All sounds good at the front. I'd stick with the 'bit' of castor/ 2 deg. camber you have but give it a tad of toe out which will improve initial turn in.
Definitely take some toe in off the back. Go parallel if you a good/brave or slight toe out if you are really good/stupid.
I use some stub axle shaped plates surface ground across their face (try 0.5 degrees as a starting point) behind the stub axle with stightly longer bolts. Leave the factory neggie on the back and go from there.

 

Doesn't toe IN create a sharper turn in, rather than toe out?.

 

My car has 10 minutes toe out with 1.5 degrees camber and no castor adjustment yet. The toe out has imroved turn in a lot but has made the car very skittish in a straight line. But I also have incorrect wheel offset so that doesnt help either.

 

Keith - No as i understand it, Toe in will give you better straight line stability cos' the wheels are pointing slightly inwards the car will be trying to self centre, whereas toe out will give you better turn in but less SL stability as the car is trying to 'pull out' to the left and right.

Dogwood - I'll think i'll go parallel on the back but not toeing out , Do mk1's toe in as a factory setting then?
But I'm not sure if i should add a little toe out to the fronts or have a litte less castor instead??

 

But surely when you take a corner, the outside wheels are doing the work. Therefore, if the outside wheel is toeing out, it will take longer to respond to the turn in surely.


I'm really confused now! Maybe it's just my inexperience, but the place where we got the geometry sorted on the Golf said that toeing in the front wheels will give you better turn in response.

 

On most cars slight toe out will improve the turn in. Although as you say the outter wheel is doing most of the work in the turn, there are two things you need to bear in mind.

1. Until the weight has shifted across the axle the wheels are equally responsible for the change of direction.

2. The inner wheel is turning through a tighter radius and so needs to turn more anyway.

To be honest, us on this website just suggesting figures isn't the best way to go. The best thing to do is hire a test pad (or a big empty carpark) and get yourself a pyrometer and do some proper testing.

 

always been advised to run very slight toe in & 1 deg neg camber on the mk1.

 

I stand corrected!!!


See this very interesting document:


http://www.ozebiz.com.au/racetech/theory/align.html


I'll just crawl back into my hole and die now!

 

I also run 1 degree negative camber but parallel toe in. Going from 1` to 2` camber made the steering much heavier and the handling unpredictable - turning in too quickly for my liking.

Current set up works better for hillclimbs where tracks are narrow.

Cheers
Andrew
Edited by: jamesa

 

Nice link Keith

 

Link bookmarked for ref.....



I ran my mk1 with slight toe out and it scared the logs out of me at
high speed on bumpy roads, but it turned in well, especially with hard
rear dampers, at low speed. I reset it at 0 toe with 1.5 -ve camber now
and its suits my delicate consitution very well.

 

VW give everything some toe in at the back. It adds stability and makes the thing handle "safe", especially if it has a relitively short wheel base. But in effect it makes the rear axle fight the front in cornering. Taking some toe in off the back will make the car more pointy, especially if you have a bigger bar on the back as well.
It depends how comfortable you are with a looser car. Best advice is to take it off a bit at a time and give it a go, especially in the wet as you don't want to bit sh*t scared of driving it!

 

For you brave lads who wanna play with the rear end, this is probably the easiest way to do it.

Rear camber/toe adjusters

 

I know this is for my track only Polo G40 but similar in size/weight to the mk1 Golf, but i will be running -3.5neg camber, +5mins Castor, 0.5 toe out front, parallel rear toe, ET20 wheels, though yet to be tested so may change.

The guy to talk to about Mk1 Golf Geometry settings is Andy at AW Tracksport (01507 522242), he has setup and raced succesfully MK1/MK2 Golfs for a long time.

 

Reality checkjust been told my car was & should be 1.5- Camber & 1mm Toe Out.


With Toe In it will make the back end skittish on a MK1 .

 

The amount of neggie camber you run at the front is relative to loads of other factors, type of tyre, how much the car rolls, castor angle (castor kind of becomes camber as soon as you turn the wheel)etc.
What I would recommend is making one change at a time and trying it so you know what is working and what is not.
Different cars respond to different set ups, even things like aerodynamics have an effect at higher speeds. LSD's can also make a huge difference.
Just as a note. A friend of mine has a pair of 98 spec ex. btcc accords. When you read the set up sheets, it goes totally against pretty much everything you hear around the VW scene. They ran bigger front than rear bar, heavier front than rear springs, more neggie on the rear than the front, heaps of front castor, teeny bit of front toe out, heaps of rear toe IN. The driver feedback reports always read too much OVERSTEER! How mad is that. I think alot was down to the diff, aerodynamics and weight distribution, but it shows that what applies to one car does not necessarily apply to another car, even of the same genre.

 

Eh? On the front or rear?

Also which numpty is quoting toe figures in mm?

 

Found some other places that sell adjustable shims all in the US thou. [:^(]
here
and
here

Anybody know where i could get some in the UK??

 

front mate


Edit: Adrian at tsr why?


Also i went to a garage in Cardiff for tracking & he couldn't get the newer style gauge over my wheels as he said it was to low to fit the 2 prongs under the arches to rest on the tyre? so i had to find another garage with the older style ones where they rest the two contacts at opposite ends of the diameter of the wheel then look through a scope that reflects off a mirror from the other side (if that all makes sense) and found out why my tyres were wearing: 15 toe outinstead of 1 .
Edited by: fthaimike