It is great to see Peter Westcott on this list - he is a member of my
club - the Austin Healey Sprite Drivers Club; he has a few Sprites (Bugeye
and MkIV and Angela has a MkII); and is a very knowledgeable fellow
when it comes to Sprites. He is also a great source of trivia but be warned
he
has a very warped sense of humour! Welcome to the list Peter!
Now to the points:
Adjusting corner weights! that's a bit serious for sprites! It is certainly
SOP for real racecars...
It is difficult to adjust roll centers at the front because it requires a
geometry
change. You *can* adjust the roll centre at the rear with a panhard rod -
the roll centre is the height at which the panhard rod crosses the car's
centerline. This is handy for fine tuning the handling.
Here are some good books:
Racecar Engineering and Mechanics - Paul Van Valkenburgh
Tune to Win - Carroll Smith
Inside Racing Technology - Paul haney & Jeff Braun
The first is a terrific all round intro, the second a must read with
lots and lots of detail. the third covers lots of topics in a more
conversational style with case studies and graphs for support.
There are others, some of which require a college degree in
engineering dynamics!
Mike
-----Original Message-----
From: Angela Hervey-Tennyson & Peter Westcott <toobmany@bigpond.com>
To: Spridget list <spridgets@autox.team.net>
Date: Thursday, 11 March 1999 23:41
Subject: Camber et al
>Can't let Mike G hog the limelight about camber. One or two degrees of
>negative camber makes a big difference to sportingly driven road cars in
>steering feel, turn in and tyre wear. BUT a critical thing you need to do
>before you start mucking about is to make sure your cars substructure is
>straight. Official BMC manuals have all the triangulations. If anyone's
>read CCC from the UK you'll know just how far out of alignment the bodies
>on even brand new cars are. Add to that the crash damage most Spridgets
>have incurred (and I'll bet not many dollars were spent fixing them) and
>you can have a real cocktail of angles. I know several cars that have a
>negative camber trunnion on only one side to try and even things up. BMC/
>Leyland cars were also assembled to tolerances consistent with "throw fit"
>ie: you throw the body part at the car and weld it where it touches! Don't
>forget that once you change camber you'll also need to adjust toe-in.
>While you're there you may as well get your corner weights and roll centres
>right as well. And the shimming on the rack mounts. Goes on and on
>doesn't it? There are many good books and even computer programmes on the
>subject but don't ask me where, it's years since I was in the industry.
>
>Angela Hervey-Tennyson & Peter Westcott
>Melbourne Australia
>toobmany@bigpond.com
>
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