Scottish Elises

K, car's gettin the geo done an I wont be there. Would this be enough instruction for some spanner monkey w a laser to make sense of!?
(I'm going w Steve Butts recommended settings)

front camber 1 deg neg, toe OUT 15 mins total
rear camber 2 deg neg, toe IN 1 deg total

cheers

scott

Yup - but the car needs to be mid-laden.

Whack a half tank of gas in it and get said monkey to put weights (about 80kg each side, if you're usually pax'd up, just on the drivers if not) on the crossbeam just in front of the seat squab.

Easier if you're there, or if said monkey gets a bloke to sit in it and hold the wheel straight while it's getting set up.

Get to mark in banchory. £80 and he knows his onions (and cars) well worth the trip, remember that average laser align beam is nearly 1mm wide. the fishing line mark uses is significantly less than 0.3mm

He also has shims and won't charge labour on top. I have some rear shims if anyone wants them, but mostly they come out. Watch out for the rear top ball joint bolts, they are cheesy rubbish and f-ing tight!

If it's a spanner monkey, I'd get it done by Mark after or it won't be done right.

I'm surprised Steve is still telling folk to use there settings. 1 deg rear toe in IMO is far too much and gives the car loads of lift off oversteer.

You'd better using the settings Rich uses (which were my track settings, calmed down a bit for the road) and will be perfect base for what you need.

simon wrote:If it's a spanner monkey, I'd get it done by Mark after or it won't be done right.

a I don't have the money to go to Mark atm
b This is free and getting done anyways

gordon wrote:I'm surprised Steve is still telling folk to use there settings. 1 deg rear toe in IMO is far too much and gives the car loads of lift off oversteer.

You'd better using the settings Rich uses (which were my track settings, calmed down a bit for the road) and will be perfect base for what you need.

Buggr... just put the car in this morning too... w a big printed out sign w my Geo setting on the dash

Oh well, I'll get your settings when it's needing done next time.... by Mark.

cheers

scott

The settings mark used were:

-1 F -2 rear (give or take depending on the shims available)
a smidge of toe out front and 2mm toe in rear.

Works for me! Gordons originals were a wee bit more agressive with -1.5 F and -2.5 R but as I'm mostly on the road I didn't want to shred the tyres too quickly.....

Rich

a) get it done asap then
b) they could make it worse than it already is

In the land of geo you have to be careful not to confuse decimal degress (d.ddd), degrees minutes seconds (d'm's) and mm. The first two are obviously angles while the third one describes the mm difference between front and back of the rim (or top/bottom if talking camber) - a bit of trig lets you convert one to the other.

Camber figures seem to be quoted in angles most of the time - I run with -2 degrees each side at the back and -1.8 each side at the front.

Toe figures are often quoted in any of the above, though mm is most common. I run with 3.0mm total toe in, 1.5mm each side. For a 16" rim (i.e. S1 rear) that equates to 0.21 degrees or 0 degrees, 13 minutes each side. It makes the car turn in nicely ... with the obvious consequence that it will oversteer more easily.

1 degree of rear toe in would equate to 3.5mm each side, which really does seem like much too much, as Gordon says. I wonder if once upon a time that was 1mm of rear toe in?

Anyway, it is relatively easy to adjust and measure the rear toe (just drop the rear tray), so it can probably be fixed if they really have set it to this extreme value.

Cheers,
Robin

robin wrote:In the land of geo you have to be careful not to confuse decimal degress (d.ddd), degrees minutes seconds (d'm's) and mm. The first two are obviously angles while the third one describes the mm difference between front and back of the rim (or top/bottom if talking camber) - a bit of trig lets you convert one to the other.

Camber figures seem to be quoted in angles most of the time - I run with -2 degrees each side at the back and -1.8 each side at the front.

Toe figures are often quoted in any of the above, though mm is most common. I run with 3.0mm total toe in, 1.5mm each side. For a 16" rim (i.e. S1 rear) that equates to 0.21 degrees or 0 degrees, 13 minutes each side. It makes the car turn in nicely ... with the obvious consequence that it will oversteer more easily.

1 degree of rear toe in would equate to 3.5mm each side, which really does seem like much too much, as Gordon says. I wonder if once upon a time that was 1mm of rear toe in?

Anyway, it is relatively easy to adjust and measure the rear toe (just drop the rear tray), so it can probably be fixed if they really have set it to this extreme value.

Cheers,
Robin

Steve has been asked the very same question recently on SELC*CK, and is adament that he runs a degree and not a MM. That said, his isn't exactly a road biased car.....

Shug wrote: Steve has been asked the very same question recently on SELC*CK, and is adament that he runs a degree and not a MM. That said, his isn't exactly a road biased car.....

I'm pretty sure he said these were his recommended road setting tho!?

TBH you wont find a "perfect" geo on any internet forum. Geo is a very individual thing..... what suits one driver another will hate. All you can do is find a good base setting and try and play with it from there. There isn't really a right and wrong.

gordon wrote:TBH you wont find a "perfect" geo on any internet forum. Geo is a very individual thing..... what suits one driver another will hate. All you can do is find a good base setting and try and play with it from there. There isn't really a right and wrong.

Very good point, I'm still learning an this will only be my third different setup, and cause it's free I wanna see what it's like, good or bad. At least then when I do go and see Mark and get his hand crafted genius, I'll at least have a better idea of what I like and what I don't!

scott

P.S. however, as this is a road car, an I'm skint, I would kinda like a little less wear on the inside of the front tyres

scott

I would run less camber than you've asked for then. I only have a little more than that and that was as much as I could get. I think Calum on Yahoo is only running 0.4 degrees on his IIRC.