SETUPS

Part 2 – Suspension and

Alignment
…But why?!?
First, it helps to have a basic concept of what the purpose of suspension is. Understanding the requirements placed on
suspension means you can make more educated decisions about changes.

The easy ones:

◦ To hold the car up off the ground!
◦ To allow all four wheels to remain in contact with the ground as much as possible.
◦ Sometimes comfort of the passengers is also a requirement.
For a road car, these are comparatively easy to manage and these all imply a degree of movement in the suspension.

A little more conceptually difficult:

◦ To hold the body of the car in an aerodynamically advantageous position.
◦ To return wheels to a position where they are best able to deal with bumps.
◦ To manage transition behaviours.
These tend to imply a lack of movement, or at least tightly controlled movement.
 The Mechanical Components

Suspension consists of a range of components:

- Coil springs
- Dampers
- Ride height adjustment (is not travel adjustment!)
- Bump stops
- Anti roll bars
- Tyres (and the air inside them)
Boing!
Springs come in three forms on GT3 cars:
Coil Spring: This is adjusted with the wheel rate slider. It is
primarily responsible for compliance with the road and
holding the car up off the ground.
Bump Stop: This is a small series of elastomer blocks that
the suspension can compress to limit travel. These do allow
some compliance, but are intended to limit suspension travel.
This is used to control the aerodynamic platform.
Antiroll Bar: These are intended to limit independent wheel
travel and increase wheel rate to support the car under
lateral loads. These are important for maintaining the
aerodynamic platform as well.
All GT3 car springs are extremely stiff, beyond what is ideal
for road compliance. This is in order to support the
aerodynamic loads and stability of the car.
GT3 suspension setup is a compromise between
supporting aerodynamic loads and mechanical grip
requirements.
Dampers

Just don’t.
 Only kidding…
Is this presentation an add for Ohlins or something?!

Dampers are designed achieve two main tasks:

- Arrest and control motion of the suspension as it absorbs bumps
on the road. This allows the suspension the best possible chance to
return to an “ideal” position as often as possible.
- Control the motion of the body (pitch and roll) during transition
behaviours. The most noticeable of these is coming off the brakes
on the way into a corner and getting back into the throttle on the way
out of the corner.
Feet pix
Toe adjustment is best thought of as independently setting a slight
steering angle on each wheel. We can adjust toe to gain or lose a
slight steering input on the loading of that wheel.
Lets consider the left rear wheel in a right hand corner:
- As the car enters the corner, the rear wheels are comparatively
unloaded, so the toe setting will have limited impact.
- As the driver transitions to throttle, the left rear wheel receives
significant load. Negative toe will give the car improved ability to
maintain rotation. Positive toe will make the car feel understeery
under application of power.
The cost of toe settings away from a neutral setting is increased tyre
wear and temperature. This is especially evident when toe is
negative and camber is negative.
 Camber

Camber is the leaning of the tyre. It is done to account for the

following distortions of the wheel’s alignment with the ground:
- Flex in the tyre sidewalls
- Suspension component flex
- Body roll of the car
Ideally, an engineer would set a car’s camber and toe up such
that wear and temperatures will be even across the tyre face.
In terms of driving dynamics, drivers will tend to favour more
camber than ideal.
GT3 cars have rules limiting the amount of camber they can
operate with as part of the Balance of Performance
adjustments. It is typical to run maximised camber.
 Caster
Caster is the inclination of the steering axis, when viewed
from the side. This is not tied to the axis on which the
suspension travels (as the picture suggests).
The effects of caster are twofold:
- We can use it as an adjustment to camber that only takes
place when we steer the wheel. More caster means more
camber as the wheel is turned. This can help us find a
balance of appropriate camber needs for high and low speed
corners.
- It will generate more self-centring force on the steering,
aligned with the direction of travel. For sim-racing especially,
this is a moot point, we can adjust FFB!
Time to go testing!
Q+A first, fire away with your questions!

Join the server below

Join the VC. I’ll give out directions for some setup features to test out.