O Listers:
Many have discussed the camber and toe settings on the Wee TR's. Now for my
road/race $0.02...
Consider the weight of the car with and without passengers. 2 up will
definitely settle the car and cause scraping (Atwell) and camber change
(all). ANY prep manual will advise you to test the settings under "normal
load" ie with passenger and/or luggage. When I set up the GT6 for road race
I used dumbbell weights and spare rims to simulate my avoirdupois in situ
(big butt in the seat in race gear). Such action will cause a side to side
difference in unlaiden measurements. Conversely, setting alignment in such
a small car with no weights results in less than optimum handling under
load.
Now we wouldn;t want to sacrifice any of that handling, would we? ('merican
cars the shops work on are heavy enough and/or imprecise enough ("not sports
car") that this makes less or no difference.
A further note. I am using spitfire comp springs from VB on my GT6 and they
are fantastic, albeit 3/4" too low for my application. My fix will be a
3/4" spacer, the spring rates @ 330 are the same. Camber is 1 deg neg
(fitted with test load), as much caster as possible (directional stability)
and toe of 0 in or out. Rear toe is 1/16 toe in total. Rear camber is 1/2
deg positive (ughhhhh) but I need to do something about that (new spring or
shims). Tires are 185/60 13 sticky things (grab a BFG comp TA or similar)
Handling is fantastic! The rear end is loose because of camber and BHP, but
also because the front end sticks so much better now. I dropped 4 seconds a
lap (+/-) with those mods. The spitfire I drove at VTR 98 (1st in class,
only 8 or 9 seconds behind killer and that TR4 with "proper" sway bars (Hi
John)) was similarly set up and handles better than ANY big TR I've driven.
Hey waittaminute, they all do!
Dave T
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