Projekt Kastor

[Rusty]

Tracking o'clock...

[Rusty]

Starting point is 4 deg castor, 2 to 2.5 rear camber, 1.5 to 2 front. Nice.

[Rusty]

2.5 deg rear camber with 0.6mm toe in both sides. That'll drop a smidge when I remove the spare wheel and boot crap.

[Rusty]

Results are in 4.1 degrees castor, so chuffed with that. Should see up to 5 with the V2 components.

Front 2 deg camber, rear 2.5, min factory toe front and rear. Pics to follow.

[K Simmonds]

Great result, you've managed to get a whole degree extra + castor over what I could get with a stock set up. That's a lot of negative camber, did you have much adjustment left and how does the car feel now?

I'm going to go for a touch more negative camber when I get mine set up again soon, probably aim for 1.5 front and 2 rear and see how that feels.

You want the toe as close to spot as possable, if you loss the toe out on the front axle inparticular then high speed staibilty suffers.

Sounds like a good set up.

[Rusty]

It's over 1.5 degrees more castor than I got on stock setup before.

The rear is 2.5 as I've got the offset top mounts rotated for extra camber and there's a smidge of toe in, as under braking, it does go toe out and without the spare wheel and crap in the boot, it'll be pretty neutral.

Front camber and castor is at the max of adjustment.

With the V2 stuff, I should add a further 1.5mm offset top and 3mm bottom, so that will give another 0.5 deg or so.

From my setup, ~15mm total offset has given ~1.75 degrees, so a good rule of thumb should be 8.5mm = 1 deg. I was expecting that figure to be closer to 6.5/7mm but The 2+ I had previously was with a lot less camber and the balljoints on max.

Rear camber is possibly a bit on the high side but the back has felt quite light in the past (not under power), so it should provide some stability when getting the car turned in.

Ideally, I'd like 2.5 degrees up front but that's not going to happen without losing some castor and I'm not sure that the OE springs/struts would fit any more, however, coilovers would be just fine.

Only way to do it properly is to move the top mount position

[Rusty]

Chuffed with the results, next stop 3.5 deg neg camber up front and a smidge less castor. By running more offset on the subframe and turning the top mounts 90deg and running camber bolts, I'll be near -3 camber and 3.5 castor.

[Rusty]

So, just resurrecting this one, after 18 months' wedding planning and being really busy at work.

I'm finally going to fit the V2 top mounts and subframe bushes and then get the front camber up towards 3deg, front castor towards 4.5deg and drop the rear camber to about 1.5deg. Should be pretty sweet when it's done

Shame to have missed the commercial oportunity to sell my design but then that's life I never did this to make money; more to make my car better and I've done that for sure, although getting some of the R&D costs back would have been nice

[Rusty]

Version 2 parts are now on the car!!!! Plus poly wishbone bushes front and rear and I have some camber bolts too. Will get it all tracked up soon, hoping for nearly 5 deg castor, 3 front camber, 2 rear camber

[Lago Blue]

Rusty,

I think it is remarkable what you have achieved especially looking at the constraints fencing your design and execution. Certainly I'm looking forward to hearing how it stands up and drives but regardless, I particularly like that it is going to expand everyone's understanding of oft discussed mechanical possibilities and handling dynamics as can be achieved on a very near to OEM platform, even if just a bit. It wouldn't surprise me at all that the most valuable parts of the experience are those you do take with you.

LB

[goodall]

Are the subframe bushes available from anywhere? If they move castor to 4deg Id be really interested in a set

[Rusty]

Are the subframe bushes available from anywhere? If they move castor to 4deg Id be really interested in a set

I'm selling the set that are pictured in this thread, along with the top mounts.

[Rusty]

So went to get it all aligned again and there was a bit of an issue with me not aligning the subframe bushes correctly, so it didn't quite go to plan. These things are always a learning curve and this was one of those days. It's something to be very aware of if fitting bushes without an alignment feature.

I also bought some M12 bolts to get more camber (by allowing movement on one hole of the strut) and this worked to some extent but not as much as I thought. When checking the car over, I realised why: the hub was hitting the strut, so if I moved the smaller bolt to the lower hole, then this would allow me a full range of adjustment (up to about 3.5 degrees).

So, I've got the remove the subframe, align the bushes and tighten them up, as well as swapping over the strut to hub hardware. This will then allow for a further setup.

I now have

Front: 2.5 deg camber, 4+deg castor, 1mm toe in
Rear: 2 deg camber, 2mm toe out

I'm in 2 minds about sorting this before ADI, as it's all setup and torqued, so I don't want to mess anything up. It'll also allow me to investigate if the settings I've chosen are an improvement on what I had before, which gave a very stable car but not one that was too adjustable mid corner.