Pistonheads (Grea Britain) has a Forum set much like 6Speed. I am a lurker over there. One thread in their AM file talks about a Fast Road chassis spec to revise Vantage geometry making the cars more fun to drive with all kinds of handling improvements. The company is Torque Developments International, Total Performance Solutions. The payoff is a claimed increase in tire life. Is there a similar service in the colonies? Can my allignment tech learn the ins and outs? Stuart, what say you, credible?

 

Hey Rick,

Yup, I'm well familiar with Pistonheads, have been on there for some time. I don't tend to post there so much because they have very strict rules about commercial postings, as opposed to 6speed where we can sponsor the forum then are allowed to participate. I've been told off on that forum when people have been posting disinformation/misinformation about our products and I have provided clarification - explaining sound levels on exhausts for example. So I tend to steer clear because as a business we have no ability to participate in the conversation, while the other posters can pretty much say anything...

But I digress... I'm familiar with TDI, they are a pretty reputable company and as far as I know they do good work. Any time you drive a car for any length of time, the alignment is gradually going to work its way out, and of course the base setup from the factory is going to be a fairly 'Vanilla' middle of the road compromise. So it is entirely plausible that you could improve handling by changing the camber, caster, toe-in etc. (although 'improve' is an entirely subjective term - you could increase the car's ultimate grip through a corner but that might make it less forgiving at the limit) I'm certain that you could definitely create a perceptible 'improvement' in the driving experience for the enthusiast driver by moving the settings further towards a race setup and away from the road setup.

As far as improved tire wear, this is totally plausible, although normally a road car setup is intended to maximise this sort of thing, whereas a race setup might have several degrees more camber, to the point that you are running on the inside patch of the tire unless you're cornering hard, which would actually result in more tire wear. My guess is that the tire wear improvements are as a result of the toe angles. Most road cars are set up with toe-out because it provides better straight line stability. Most race cars are set up with a little toe-in because they turn in better when the 'outside' wheel has a headstart into the turn. I would suspect that TDI is probably setting up the cars with basically straight alignment, which theoretically should produce the least wear, and will give slightly better turn-in than a standard setup (a the expense of being a little twitchier and less stable.)

So that's just one aspect of setup, but to answer your question, if you had the basic settings they were using, or if you took the car to someone with a good idea of how to set a car up for the track then they would be able to do this for you.

 

Stuart, you shouldn't keep from addressing Pistonhead wrongs. Work in the aftermarket in no way disqualifies you from speaking. In fact your voice has authority because of your job,your racing history and auto modification. Experience shows in your words. It is why I asked if you thought TDI was credible? The charge for Fast Road is about 100 pounds, inexpensive relative to any service or part associated with AM (especially in Britain). This means this is an adjustment; an allignment change. Probably no parts involved; you pay for labor hours in an expensive market. Sounds like I should start with 0 degree toe-in,toe-out ...see if I like it and go from there.

 

Well I would agree with you Rick, that working in aftermarket shouldn't diqualify me but their revenue streams come from advertising and their feeling is that if we can make 'commercial' postings then we won't advertise (when in fact, it's pretty much the other way round!!!) I want to have honest dialogue with our customers so I just tend to gravitate towards forums like this.

As far as settings, I couldn't say for sure whether starting with 0 degrees toe-in/toe-out would be a good starting point or not. I don't have advanced enough knowledge in this case to recommend settings, just a baseline understanding of the principles. You also have to remember that static settings (ie, while the car is parked) will change once the car is moving because bushings compress under load, camber and toe settings will change front to rear depending upon the car's dynamic state (like when you accelerate and shift weight to the rear, it's going to increase the rear camber, and quite possibly toe out the rear wheels a degree or two.

If you are interested, I would find a proper race shop/team nearby, and get the OE settings from an AM tech, and then make a few incremental adjustments from there. Or perhaps your AM tech would be happy to add a degree or two of negative camber, or adjust your toe settings a touch. Either way, you have to be prepared for the possibility that you might, as a driver actually prefer the OE settings to a more aggressive setup.... you never know!