1BADNSX said:
What camber and toe settings are you running?
Good question. Ancient Japanese secret. It will cost you one million Yen to find out.
Actually, ¥1M is about the price of entry for a properly set up suspension on the NSX, and camber/toe is (as you know) an integral part of the overall setup.
Generally, the NSX likes a lot of negative camber and a VERY stiff front end.
But I can't really answer your question. OK, I will answer your question: "it depends". Yes - you can quote me on that.
It depends on a number of things, including:
- Car weight
- Weight distribution F/R
- Tire selection
- Suspension setup (damper settings and spring rates)
- Ride height
- What track you are driving on
- Anti-roll bar stiffness / length
- Chassis stiffness (big honkin' cage installed or not?)
We are limited to negative 3 degrees of camber in the Grand-Am Cup series, although that doesn't mean we dial-in -3deg and go racing... that's a limit, not a recommendation.
The reason I can't answer your question is that the alignment settings change for each track we have tested on, and even change during track weekends as we make adjustments to the car. There isn't a single answer that would be correct.
That said, we will always be running more negative camber all around and more toe-out in the front than the stock alignment recommendations from Honda/Acura. Those are about the only constants that I predict we will have.
If you're interested because you are looking for some input on how to set up your car for track use, you have to understand that a fast DE car is not going to be setup anything like our race car because of the lighter weight, lower ride height and increased chassis stiffness from the cage.
Also understand that we are running incredibly stiff front springs an amazingly stiff solid front anti-roll bar (and no rear bar). We are also using the Comptech non-compliance components in the rear (beam and toe links), and triple adjustable dampers on all corners. You will probably not have your car set up the same way or be as light as we are, or as low as we are, so giving you our alignment settings would be useless for you.
I wouldn't want you to waste your money having an alignment done to replicate our camber, caster and toe settings on your car because you're not going to be pleased with the result. In fact, with the toe out we are running on the front end, it's likely to be flat out dangerous without the rest of the setup done like ours.
If you can send me as much information as you have about your car and its existing setup, we could look at it and be happy to make a recommendation, but to do it right you need to test, change, test, change, repeat as necessary.
Now, if you are interested in replicating our entire suspension setup, that is something that we can do for you. We can supply the custom fabricated components (upper shock mounts, front anti-roll bar, damper remote canister mounts, etc.) and can resell the springs (Hypercoil), dampers (Moton) and rear end components (Comptech). Ship your car to Dallas with about one million Yen and we'll ship it back to you a couple of weeks later ready to go.
EDR