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Fair question. I could go to 2.5 degrees out front, and I believe it would help the cornering, but it would NOT help acceleration and braking.
With the 8" rim I expect the tire to be sufficiently well supported to avoid excessive deformation without too much pressure. Here's the left front at turn in, with about 39 pounds of pressure - and the offset from rim edge to contact patch is obvious.
Could use more heat, perhaps more pressure. But this was at 38-40 psi, we shall see.
Originally Posted by njaremka
What does the tire look like on the inside edge? Do you need more front static camber for that driving style?
To tell for sure, you would need to do tire temperatures with a probe type thermal couple. The other options is to look at the outside tire wear marks and look to see if the tire is rolling over onto its sidewall. This you can tell by the little diamond arrow molded into the tire (seen picture on the lower left). The tire needs to roll so the wear is to the tip of this arrow so the complete tire tread is used during cornering, otherwise part of the tread is being wasted. If the tire roll further than that point as shown by the wear being past the arrow, then part of the sidewall is being used and this leads to loss of traction (typically severe understeer results).
Also, note that the needed camber is a function of the “stickiness” of the tire. A street tire won’t need as much camber as an R Comp. More than needed camber can lead to other traction losses, such as braking and acceleration, as Charlie noted.
Charlie’s tire wear shows that it is just reaching the edge marker, which is about perfect for an “eyeball” judgement. I would leave it.
My comment has to do with track experience. For autocross, where steering angles tend to be greater than on the track or road, I would recommend added caster, not camber. Camber angle is lost with increased steering angles and caster becomes wheel camber with increased steering angle. So in this case caster get the most bang for the buck.
Eddy the pictures tell part of that story. Not much roll, despite lots of weight transfer, so decent spring rates. The rear bar hasn't changed. Nothing unsettles the car, so dampening is commensurate. No bad habits.
The chassis is also well mannered on 75 mph lumpy sweepers, as I-81 has a few. I know that "no complaints" is faint praise but it'lll have to do. I just don't have comparative data.
Dammit, finish fitting yours out, and take it to the limit, and then tell ME! ;-)
Cheers,
Charlie
Charlie -
Thanks. I take what you are saying is that it is an improvement which is to you your liking. I’ll take that.
With that, I‘Ll have you know.... I have recently been working on getting mine prepped, but maybe not “finished”. While you have been out gallivanting around and having fun after having your pit crew do your “dirty work”, I have been motivated by way of my cousin (BMW M2) to get over to WGI, in addition to my upcoming Saturday date at LRP. Motivated I am, as I would like to see if the JCW closes the gap on the M2 over what my S does on that track. WGI is a track that rewards HP as much as handling and he has the HP over my S. At LRP, not so much, and he is barely quicker. Tires, wheels and brake pads are a given for the JCW and should be ordered soon. Camber/caster plates and Quaife, while I would like to have them, they will have to wait. I know “why?”... Let’s just say that’s the way it is.
These events are generally run using the “boot” and always with the chicane (“bus stop”). This event should be no different. I have run the NASCAR loop several times and it is really interesting as it makes for 3 really high speed sections. The Bus stop is a must to use to get cars slowed before going into the outer loop. This way there is recovery room if one looses brakes, or even just misses the braking point. Otherwise, the thing that stops the car is the guardrail on the far side of the outer loop. At 120-ish MPH in my MINI S (maybe 130+ in the JCW), that would not end well....
Last edited by Eddie07S; 06-15-2020 at 08:19 AM.
Reason: Typo
Thanks to careful thought and hard work by the NER SCCA Volunteer staff, we had the first autocross of the year today.
We parked away from each other, wore either a full face helmet (in the car) or a mask (at all other times), and did the driver's meeting on Zoom last night. Event entry was capped at 60, where we can easily get 150-170 under normal circumstances, and that allowed us to run one 30 car heat for 6 runs in the morning, do only one changeover, and then run the other half in the afternoon. It all worked well in my view, and it was a delight to resume our summer passion albeit belatedly.
In STU, Oliver Lucier's Boxter S was nowhere to be seen, but in its stead was the Nissan 350z that Joe Zanavich upgraded for Becca Nell, adding a full STU chassis setup to the car she's enjoyed for while.
The new and improved Gollum did well today, once I remembered how to drive him, and we almost pulled an upset - last run, hero run, last slalom, last cone on the slalom, and oops.
Gollum was well behaved, and in deference to the new suspension I ran conservative pressures of 37 front and 40 rear.
That left me with a back-end that stuck like glue, and nothing I did could shake it - which is actually not perfect in my view. I prefer a little tail-wagging, and the car is faster when I get it. Next event I reckon 37/45 will be better.
In sum though, I am delighted. Gollum ran hard today and the overall results illustrate a car that is competitive in class, and that's a bit of a surprise to me given Joe and Becca were sporting 265mm tires, over 300 HP, and both are good drivers.
Sometimes a near miss will make me grin almost as much as a win.
And oh by the way, remember Kimsoo, the diminutive kart driver that kicks everyone's butt? She's turned 16 by gum, has her permit, and is now driving an HS Civic! I reckon the ride is smoother, but her kart was a hell of a lot faster. Her Dad beat her, but that will not last I'd wager, Chang's days are numbered....
I am impressed with Gollum’s results. Hopefully that speaks well of the JCW Pro suspension. Clearly it does of your driving skills...
For me, I want a car for the track with a stuck backend; there is no forgiveness on the track for one that is too loose. Albert’s first day out will be in a little over a month from now. A test day at LRP on their skid pad and “autocross” course. This will be with stock front camber and no benefit of a rear swaybar; just the Pro suspension. So a test of that alone. A week later will be 3 days at WGI, if all continues to go well.
Hope your adventures continue in a joyful fashion...
How much camber do you have? I'm the little demon that says "just a little further into the darkness, down here now!".
I'm inclined to add another .4 to the front end, to bring it to 2.5, and get another half degree of caster if I can - not sure the K-Mac plates will allow it, but they might.
I'd rather add traction out front rather than taking it away out back with pressures. The Quaife does such a nice job I'd trade a touch of stop and go for a modicum of turn so's to speak.
My track friends would run 2.25 to 2.5 deg negative camber up front on their R53 and R56 MINIs and never complained about braking. I would think the F56 would be fine too...
However, for the type of turns that autocross typically has, I would think that added caster would do you more good than more negative camber. On the track, caster would be less important than camber as the steering wheel (and front wheels) only move a few deg, even on a tight course. So not much camber is lost in the turns. But on an autocross course, with tighter turns and greater steering input, more camber is lost in turns, and caster becomes a bigger player So, a suggestion to think about - maximize the caster with an aim of adding a 0.5 to 1.0 deg and then use whatever room that is leftover for camber.
I'd rather add traction out front rather than taking it away out back with pressures.
And yet so many people do just that; remove traction. I think that ”conventional wisdom” on suspension setup has hurt MINIs more than helped. Racers who don’t know how to drive put in huge RSBs and talk about using smaller swaybars up front or even removing them to aid in cornering. But likely their problem is that they are driving in such a way that promotes understeer. But they tell everyone this is what you need to do to set up front wheel drive. And yet this removes traction. Same with caster. It doesn’t do much on the race track, so ”why bother”. As a result, for a long time the only thing you could get was camber plates. Few people even thought to do caster as a result. The one person I know who added caster to his R53 was blown away by how much help it was for autocross.
When I had the Pro suspension installed, they did an alignment, and reported that the front camber was -0.5 deg. I don’t know much about the skid pad. It looks to be, maybe, 100’ dia.
Charlie - did you have much in the way of tire rub on the plastic rear well arch and on the liner inside with the Yokos and those wheels. I have major rubbing and not sure if I should drop a size or abandon the whole setup... Quite disappointed. My wheels have a 40mm offset vs your 45 mm (Less than 0.2” difference), and my width is 7.5” vs your 8” . Same tires (225-45x17 Yokos). I am slightly higher ride height than you have if I remember correctly...
No I did not Eddie. I had just a slight rub during compression on the left rear, nothing on the right rear. After a couple of days the inner liner at approximately 10 o'clock had eroded enough that the problem was cured. Entirely.
If you've read much of my autocross reporting, you'll remember that I am a huge fan of Kimsoo Gopnick who raced her Civic for the very first time a couple of weekends ago.
She started racing at five years old in a FJC cart, and thus at the age of sixteen she has 11 years of competition experience, including a couple of runner up spots at major National events.
HERE is a great article about her experience, which makes me grin.
I wonder how far she will go. My bet is on her, and has been for a long time.
Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while.
An unusually fast course had Gollum on the rev limiter twice on the main runway - fortunately the limiter is polite, so no drama. No point in changing up to 3rd, as in one case I was steaming up on a slalom, and in the other it was the finish line.
The 350z that ran against me was changing to 3rd, but it didn't help - Gollum had him covered by 1.5 seconds on a 51 second run. Not bad for wrong wheel drive!
Mebbe the JCW Pro Coils and the Quaife were worth the money. Lord knows the driver's no better... That's Charlie Levesque's old B-Mod, now resurrected and running well! Makes me grin to see the Lotus large valve head and the Hewland crash gearbox. Fast company!
I expect if Oliver Lucier brings his Boxter S back again the party will be over, but in the meantime I am proud of Gollum for a good day's work.
I suspect both the Pro suspension and the LSD have something to do with how your car runs. Not sure I would put one over the other, though. Also, a car that the driver isn’t fighting with allows the driver to be a better driver, so maybe you are driving better..
I suspect both the Pro suspension and the LSD have something to do with how your car runs. Not sure I would put one over the other, though. Also, a car that the driver isn’t fighting with allows the driver to be a better driver, so maybe you are driving better..
LOL, don't bet the farm. Notice that +6 run?
I ran 39f/42r, and still couldn't get Gollum to shake his behind at all. On the plus side, I was able to tighten the line on a 50 mph sweeper with a slight lift, so he's not far from balanced.
I'm still debating whether I want to tweak the alignment, haven't done it yet.
Cheers,
Charlie
PS: I do rather imagine that you chuckle at a 50 mph sweeper, and if I hadn't encountered iRacing I might not appreciate why. Last week was Philip Island, where Turn 1 is over 100 mph blind right hander taken flat by the brave and talented... ;-)
A thought for your setup given that you can adjust the ride heights front and rear. Per your early discussions about roll centers, lowering the front a little and raising the rear a little will each remove understeer. This should allow the car to rotate more easily. Maybe 3 turns (1.9 mm per turn) at each end? That would be just over 5mm of rake to the front.
I do appreciate your 50 mph sweeper and getting the car to rotate. That takes skill to have the car rotate with the throttle but not over rotate.
I once had the back end of a MINI come around on me in a 85 mph sweeper and that didn’t end well. It took me close to a year to learn why that happened. This is a big reason for the conservative setup I have on my S. But I have also found that a “loose” rear is not necessary for a track MINI, because I can use those speeds and my braking to my advantage in making the car turn. The Big Bend turn at Lime Rock (T2 part) is the one place I could use more rotation, but I give that up for stability going though the down hill turn and onto the front straight.
If you get to iRace at WGI, I highly recommend it. There is a huge pucker factor in a real car in running through the esses (T3 and T4). In most cars those are all flat out turns. That pucker factor increases to about infinity when you add antifreeze to the apex of T3 while at about 105mph.
What springs are you running, and what bar I wonder?
Cheers,
Charlie
Bilstein B16 PSS10 (springs that come with those coilovers)...Stock Front Sway Bar...NM Engineering 25mm Rear Sway Bar on stiffest setting with adjustable Links
Gollum has a sore paw. He's losing 3 pounds from the right rear each night, and so for the last several days I've been replacing those three pounds each morning.
Not ideal, and the back tires are the sticky soft A052 that were on the front axle at the Dragon earlier this year. In other words, they are fairly buggered.
The fronts are not bad at all - I should have rotated sooner, but c'est la guerre. So what to do.
1. A pair of new A052 225/45-17 for the front, and the current fronts will go out back.
2. Do the alignment tweak. Gollum is at -2.1 camber and 3.7 degrees caster at present. Thursday is shop day, and we'll set it at -2.3 camber, and 4.3 caster.
3. Detail from head to toe, just on general principal
and then, go racing on Sunday to see how it all works!
06-14-2020 | 01:02 PM
