Geometry

[mcandmar]

To be honest i think you really need to look at your wheel/tyre size, i've run 18" and stock 16" avus on the CQ and Avant and can say the difference is night and day in terms of cornering grip. You have so much more feel from the lower profile tyres you can drive closer to the edge of adhesion, with the 16" its all too soft and vague to know whats going on. The lack of confidence slows you down more than anything.

Cheap fix, go drive an ABY or avant for a bit, CQ handling will be wonderfull after that

[Error404]

Cheap fix, go drive an ABY or avant for a bit, CQ handling will be wonderfull after that

Yeah the difference when i refitted my avus the other day is a massive step backwards after riding round with 245/35s all summer! Car feels very "old"


OK so has anyone actually experimented with geo settings other than factory?

[Rusty]

I'm sure people have but 'they' don't appear to have replied yet...

When I told a 'racer' the castor angle of the S2, he asked me to repeat it

There's a lot of room for basic improvements to the S2 chassis, before you take into account all of the geometry settings. It'll be good to see how they affect things though, as it needs all the help it can get for corner entry and mid section but luckily 4wd and 300lb+ make for a pretty hasty exit strategy

[Error404]

hehe, yeah castor isn't ideal is it, 3.5 / 4deg would be nice but its just so difficult to do with these stupid topmounts
As with all these things its a compromise to keep the car reasonably civilised on the road too, I'm sure with -3.5deg camber and some lairy toe out the car would turn in and hook up mid-corner like a demon, wouldn't fancy it on the road though

[terrybullwon]

Alex..... Look at every BTC and WTC you don't see them rolling on 16-15" wheels there all 18/19 wheels. I don't know where thi small wheel thing has come from but I think it's a load of Bollacks

[Error404]

yeah of course The lower the profile tyre keeps the slip angles down but unfortunatly my budget is a smidge less than the average works touring car team though so I have to stick to the avus on track for now, its purely a cost thing

I would like to try the MTM style staggered fitment some time, 255/35 on the front and 235/40s on the rear.

[WabTheKing]

comp brake do some excentric top mounts....... might be worth a dabble?

wish they had used A6 suspension on s2's

[Error404]

I did think about using them but apparently the bearings last 5 minutes or less and I have to say they were very unhelpful when I asked for some pictures / drawings of them to see how they fitted - not spoken to them since the new ownership though

[WabTheKing]

the bearings are interchangable......... so if they still use chocolate ones you can change them for some higher grade ones, bearings are like most things..... get what you pay for lol

[Error404]

i might get in touch with the new owners and see what they say. about these

[Rusty]

Alex..... Look at every BTC and WTC you don't see them rolling on 16-15" wheels there all 18/19 wheels. I don't know where thi small wheel thing has come from but I think it's a load of Bollacks

Smaller wheels mean you can run more camber and maintain a larger contact patch, due to the squish of the tyre. Most tin tops require massive brakes to slow them effectively over the course of a race, hence the 18/19" wheels to house 350mm+ brakes. The lower sidewalls then cause them large issues when running excessive camber (to improve cornering) and result in punctures, through ruining the tyres on the inner edge - just watch any BTCC race from this year, especially Thruxton.

As ever, it's a compromise between brake size and allowable geometry - F1 cars are the opposite way around and have small wheels and brakes and large sidewalls, which provide most of the suspension travel!

[Error404]

OK bump to this thread as I'm getting my alignment done on Tuesday.

Stock setup as follows:

Front Toe +15'
Front Camber -50'
Castor +2° 20'

Rear Camber -45'
Rear Toe +21' + 13'


I'm thinking about trying a touch more static negative camber to combat the dynamic loss, so at maybe -1° 45' to -2° on the front, and -1° 30' at the rear. I'll also see how much castor i can sqeeze out of the front ball joints, hoping for close to 3°.
Going to leave toe as is and try one thing at a time.

Anyone got any thoughts or experience to share?

[A1QSHIP]

Originally I swapped the left & right front lower ball joints from side-to-side but that resulted in the tire contacting the front of the wheelhouse liner & the axles fouling the frame. Then I made aluminum subframe bushings for the front & rear. For the front I added an extra hole drilled near the edge of the bushing mounting.
This moves the lower control arm forward This gives more caster in the front.
Link http://www.s2forum.com/forum/showthr...frame+bushings
And another http://www.s2forum.com/forum/showthr...alloy+bushings
You can also use the B4 front ball joints to move the mounting point for the strut even more forward as they do not have as much rearward offset as the coupe lower ball joints do.

[re2500]

I have to get mine done next week also, so am also interested in this info

[driftin jo]

running more negative camber will always give you more cornering grip on a macstrut car, the only downside being if you do a lot of miles driving in a straight line such as motorway etc, if you do you will kill the inside of your tires very quick.
If all you do is thrash your car round twisty corners then you can end up with very even tire wear as opposed to stock camber were you would wear the outside of the tire very quick, you just can't have it all with macstruts.

I used to run as much camber as I could set, but now have a 80 mile round trip to work and 60 miles of it is motorway so cant do that anymore, now I run 1.2 deg negative camber.