Caster, camber, toe

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    • May 19, 2014 at 9:42 pm #27706
      Bernie Baldus
      Participant

      Ric, congrats.

      Why do you think it is stiff, what did you do?

      What kind of spindles and front brakes do you have?  Did you model the kart after any others?  Anything krazy up on the front end?

      What are you planning to run, Open?

       

      Bernie

    • May 20, 2014 at 7:22 am #27732
      Ric mcDade
      Participant

      Bernie, it’s a 1 1/4″ chassis. I had some ideas, I wrote down and had Ted Swaintec who built all of Pierre Haung’s (sp) chassis put it together. All straight tube, no bends, braced well! It IS stiff! Yea, crazy, maybe stupid, up front. Frt axle is tubes that can be slid in and out for front width. Double heim, on a slider block for caster, camber. Way too much adjustment. :) I ran it a few times a couple of years ago, car wasn’t bad at all, but I was trying some crazy engine stuff, and had a hard time finishing a race. :) But I had fun and learned a lot of what NOT to try! Now I think it’s time to pull it out and get serious. I was running 14 caster, and while I was as stable as good be, it would wear me out!! Putting it all back together with a “conventional” open motor. Tired of Stroud gigging me on the DNF’s. :) just looking for some good starting points. Any ideas? Thanks!

    • May 20, 2014 at 7:23 am #27733
      Ric mcDade
      Participant

      Forgot, MCP’s frt and rear

    • May 20, 2014 at 9:55 pm #27764
      Bernie Baldus
      Participant

      10-12 on the Castor, try 10,

      Negative 1/2 on the Camber,  Go Positive if you are wearing the fronts out!

      Straight up on the toe.

      bb

    • May 21, 2014 at 6:01 am #27771
      Ric mcDade
      Participant

      Thanks Bernie, kinda what I was thinking. Need it right if I’m going to run against Larson and Read.  The young guys will wear this old man out! :)

      • May 28, 2014 at 7:02 am #28068
        Kelly Read
        Participant

        Track, kart & driver makes a difference in our experience. We did find out that we can’t run the same castor & camber on a Coyote as we can a CKI. Coyote doesn’t like positive camber and very little castor by our testing. Best we found on a Coyote (narrow) with Lindsay in the kart is 12 castor and -1 on camber. We have tried several combinations over the past 2 years and have went back to that. The CKI (as for Brad & Lindsay), they like 8-10 castor and + 1/4 – +1/2 camber. Right now we are at 8 castor & +1/4 camber. Works great on a Comer P51!!! It seemed to work on a Reed Jet at Afton but we had other issues. We always set toe at 0. We set our karts up on a level floor with the driver in it.

        Some people don’t believe we set up our karts like this but, follow them through the turns and you will see the difference!!! Just look at there tires. Pretty obvious that they run +camber. Everything we read says ( – ) camber is best but they talk about short wheel base, suspension, etc… Our belief is that we run long wheel base (not a sprint kart) with low center of gravity. I do know that we have went faster then what we used to use. Keep in mind, what works for my kids might not work for others but until you try it, you will never know. I know it can be work but, I recommend taking baby steps when experiencing. Having a kart set up right is more important than a fast motor in my opinion.

         

    • May 28, 2014 at 4:09 pm #28093
      Austin Henry
      Participant

      Ric,

      The way I have seen the effect of castor/camber is this.  Camber’s biggest effect is the way the kart turns in and camber has a larger effect on how the kart rotates.  For example at heartland park I was running 8 degrees of castor and +1/4 on camber, the kart would neither turn in or rotate, so I went to 12 degrees castor and -1/2 on camber, the kart was then almost un-drivable is was so loose, especially when the weight was rotating.  I then changed the castor back to 10 degrees, this greatly helped the weight transfer and “unloading” of the kart from center off.  It really takes a lot of trial and error to get your kart where it is fast and you feel comfortable, and this set up should change based on what type of track, and track conditions your are faced with.

    • May 28, 2014 at 5:34 pm #28096
      Ric mcDade
      Participant

      Thanks guys, I have set the caster at 10.9, and camber at 0 and toe at 0. We will start there and see what we have.

    • June 14, 2014 at 2:57 pm #28939
      Christopher Ragan
      Participant

      Kelly,
      Is that +1/4 camber on each side or total positive camber?

      • June 16, 2014 at 8:18 am #28994
        Kelly Read
        Participant

        Chris,

        +1/4 on each side. We set ours up with driver in kart with wheels pointed straight. NOTE, this does change as you turn the steering wheel.  Our set-up is based off of track testing. There are a few tracks we set up at +1/2 or even at 0 but most tracks we run what I mentioned above.

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