Autocross alignment

[dpeele95]

Think of the transition in a chicane instead for a better explanation. You're attempting to change direction with the suspension weighted for the previous maneuver. When you begin to turn the opposite direction, the toe'd out wheel is now weighted AND facing more in the correct direction of the coming turn, which gives faster response.

That's why it works.

I guess when I think of this analogy, it is still better to be toed-in. Yes the inside wheel is pointed in the right direction, but once the weight transfers the inside wheel is essentially ineffective. The way I see it is once the transition is made in the middle of the chicane, if your toed-in it is still less distance to turn the wheel to point it in the correct direction.

[TouringBubble]

Read through the link that John posted. It's makes a lot of sense.

Basically, with toe in the inside tire fights the turn as the geometry wants to make the car go straight. With toe out, it naturally wants to turn.

In the most basic sense, look at both wheels together. With tow in, they want to pull tot he center of the car ... a straight line. With toe out, they want to pull away from the car, where a turn would be.

But, as C said, toe it can sometimes help while in a corner ... I can see that, especially on corner exit. It works with the camber to give you more tire on the road.

But, honestly, we aren't sitting around thinking of things that others haven't discussed 50 years ago. For a race car, you toe out the front in most cases. The only reason I see not to is in the case of something like a Stock Car where only one wheel touches up front.

[aMaff]

In the most basic sense, look at both wheels together. With tow in, they want to pull tot he center of the car ... a straight line. With toe out, they want to pull away from the car, where a turn would be.

Aaaaaaaaaaaand we have a winner

[hondamaint]

Also keep in mind that FWD ,AWD or RWD changes it a LOT. A FWD car tends to like toe out because under power it pulls the front wheels more to 0 toe. A RWD car tends to like toe in because it is pushing from the rear and wants to change the setting to toe out.
Not too sure about AWD but I am guessing that an EVO would be closer to a RWD in setup than a FWD car.
Toe out helps during the start of the turn and all the way around a turn. It is all about slip angle of the inside tire, but you can get too much slip angle. On toe in, the inside tire gets pushed somewhat side ways and the wear is on the outside of the tire and on toe out it still slips but is going in the same direction of the outside tire.Tire wear is on the inside more this way.
There is a LOT of information on the net about this. This is turning into an informative thread.
Tight track more toe out, long track more neutral toe or even toe in on a RWD car. This will make it more stable.
Again , FWD,AWD and RWD all require a different approach to get the same results but all of this is still true for each.

[dpeele95]

Maybe I'm dumb, but i have run a car with toe-in a couple times and it seems to work well for me.

[aMaff]

Well, it's 'stable', but that doesn't mean it's the best.

[jimkana]

I know that most of the mild setups for Miata's have used Toe-out for the front and Toe-in for the rear. Miata.net has lots of discussions, but the old standards are "miq's" "Lanny's" and "Icehawk's" alignments. These have been around at least 8 years, maybe longer, so they are probably not ideal anymore, but they are good starting points.
http://www.miata.net/garage/align.html

My limited understanding of alignments indicates that the toe-out at the front helps turn in, and the toe-in at the rear helps keep the rear planted, which is important for a tail-happy rear-wheel drive car. Of course, too much works against you, but a bit helps stabilize the rear.


My alignment is whatever Robert Russom did on the car 5 years ago after they installed the suspension. In fact, I don't even know if they even did an alignment before the guy skipped town on them. And I have been too cheap to make any changes. It works well on the street. And it was okay for autocross before Andrew and Manuel cleaned my clock at the last event. Maybe I do need an alignment.

[hondamaint]

I found this ,it explains it better than I can.

"A rear-wheel drive vehicle "pushes" the front axle's tires as they roll along the road. Tire rolling resistance causes a little drag resulting in rearward movement of the suspension arms against their bushings. Because of this, most rear-wheel drive vehicles use some positive toe-in to compensate for the movement, enabling the tires to run parallel to each other at speed.
Conversely, a front-wheel drive vehicle "pulls" the vehicle through the front axle, resulting in forward movement of the suspension arms against their bushings. Therefore most front-wheel drive vehicles use some negative toe-out to compensate for the movement, again enabling the tires to run parallel to each other at speed.
Toe can also be used to alter a vehicle's handling traits. Increased toe-in will typically result in reduced oversteer, help steady the car and enhance high-speed stability. Increased toe-out will typically result in reduced understeer, helping free up the car, especially during initial turn-in while entering a corner."

It is hard to do much testing if you make 1 change and only get to test it sometime later and by then you may have forgot how it felt before. We have done a LOT of alignment changes and have found what our cars like, but it took a long time and many different settings until we found what works well at what track. Like I said it depends what you intend to do with the car. You do not want to set your DD up so the tires are worn out in 5000miles but you can always do a little better thaan stock.

[TouringBubble]

Paul, the Evo is really more FWD like in setup, being a transverse engine layout with transfer case. It's a 50/50 tq split, but more like FWD with RWD assistance ... until you try to exit a corner and boost comes in ... lol

[c-evoVIII]

I think really, to sum this up.
Its really in the cars, and drivers. each car act differently as some of you already covered in above posts.
Either it will be in AWD, RWD or FWD. each and every driver have very unique driving style and they are the one who needs to determind what they want and how they want the car to act during differnt situation and input.

They are millions of combination that Might work well for one but not the other. Perhaps that is why we do what we do. Dodging cones
C

[hondamaint]

I was not too sure how the Evo was.

[zukitek]

I havent seen anyone cover the vast differance in double wishbone and McPherson strut suspensions as camber and toe relate . In my esperience ...that has far more influence on settings than that of the drivetrain configuration but I could be wrong.

For instance,The setting that work well on a 240sx or a toyota celica would totally munch the tires on a Honda Civic or a Miata.

RR

[engled]

I havent seen anyone cover the vast differance in double wishbone and McPherson strut suspensions as camber and toe relate . In my esperience ...that has far more influence on settings than that of the drivetrain configuration but I could be wrong.

For instance,The setting that work well on a 240sx or a toyota celica would totally munch the tires on a Honda Civic or a Miata.

RR

Not only that but tire chose has a lot to do with it as well.

[zukitek]

esperience even...LOL.

[TouringBubble]

I mentioned verification with a pyrometer ... that considers that more negative isn't always better.