For me, one of the most frustrating consequences of any professional motorsport history is the curse of helping the amateur player who owns a very nice racing car.
Invariably, they have little knowledge or experience in racing car development to extract a level of performance towards its design limits.
These days I try to avoid the whole track day thing so I can spare myself the frustration of streamlining the confusing and often dangerous setups that are often quite expensive, historically relevant, artisanal, and potentially fatal to machines and the Implication that I should provide my expertise for free is usually expected to be a love work for me as it is for them.
The most important advice I can give to someone who wants to set up their thoroughbred race car properly but doesn’t know how to do it is to find someone to do this for you because a badly tuned race car can cost you lap time, chew your tires and brakes, damage your car and actually kill you.
In my experience, to build a real racing car like a Formula Ford, an F3, an old F3000 or even a historic F1, you need some simple but indispensable pieces of equipment; a flat piece of concrete, a set of trestles, string, a ruler, a spirit level, a set of corner scales, a tire pressure gauge and of course a well-stocked tool box.
Normally, each of the above types of racing cars should really come with a factory basic setup sheet when purchased, and if not, at least a copy of the setup sheet from the last time it was done by someone who is knowledgeable about them , and in their absence it is even more important to hire someone who has hands-on experience in operating and setting up your type of car.
The other really important piece of advice I can give is to make sure the springs, dampers, and stabilizers are sized and adjusted the way they are factory intended, with no exotic valve and shock and rebound adjustments, and to make sure the spring preload is too true as in the factory setting, otherwise you could end up chasing your tail like a mindless dog that is always trying to make sense of where your balance is on the track.
In fact, if I could offer any other advice, it would be not to play with the dampers at all, but to leave them to the professional.
The key to a basic setup for each of the above is complete neutrality, but within reason, and the factory settings give the front and rear ride heights, front negative camber, rear negative camber (they can even be zero standing straight), back lane, if any, weights from front to back and diagonal corners, static tire pressure and gear ratios.
If the car has fenders, adjust these as well according to the factory setup sheet, or if it doesn’t have it, to a conservative mid-level, preferably equal from the front and rear.
The key to recognizing the validity of the factory default settings is to realize that it was developed as a result of testing with professional drivers and engineers over hundreds of hours and thousands of kilometers.
The only way that developing a racing car can become intuitive is through experience, lots of it.
Even so, there are always very good references, and I must confess that I was introduced to racing car engineering, especially dynamics, a long time ago from reading some of Carroll Smith’s publications such as ‘Engineer to Win’ and ‘Engineer in Your’ Pocket ”, which are recognized by many as the“ Bibles ”of racing car building, and although they are quite detailed, they are not too difficult to understand.
From a purely technology and development perspective, you would always be well served if you subscribed to the glorious Racecar Engineering Magazine.
If you have any questions for me to answer directly, please email me using the GP247 contact form and I will endeavor to respond as soon as possible.
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