front wheel drive dirt track racing tips front wheel drive dirt track racing tips
Here in the Midwest many tracks and the IMCA have created Pure stock classes based on the 4 cyl FWD sedans that are plentiful and cheap. Sunfire overhead valve 4 cyl. In short, they will be all over the track. But we know that there is a lot more to racing than just having a great car. I'm thinking that if you decrease caster / minimize it, it would have the effect of keeping the chassis flatter when turning. 2. When you do ALL of this, and then lower the car and stiffen the suspension and upgrade the brakes, no bar up front is no-bueno. Karts. If you can't fit it in there, then it should still stay on the left side as much as possible. 12. > What are typical Toe setting settings for the front and rear? Keep the air pressure high. I do not have the space or time to fully explain roll couple distribution theory here, but I do explain it in detail in my suspension seminars, complete with class notes. Sometimes you can spin the tires and make it worse, and then sometimes you can spin them and that friction opens it back up. Must have 1.25-inch minimum O.D. When you've got that much power on tap it is easy to use the gas pedal to get the car to turn, but that's not as smooth. Some of the other cars are done similarly while others may have adjusting cam bolts. Now that youve done the impossible and gotten a front-wheel drive race car handling well, youre free to take on easier assignmentslike solving the European debt crisis or resurrecting Lindsay Lohans acting career. In fact, we set them up to have less. Well, you could if you had caster higher than the 10-15 degrees of SAI your car may have. Because suddenly youve unlocked more traction. Everything behind you, in fact, everything behind the engine, thats just details. Hood and trunk lid/hatch must be securely fastened. The rules call for a five point, three inch wide belt. Again tires are the most important part of the car. His was setup so most pressure was on the driver side of the vehicle and the lesser pressure on the passenger side, this was to help pitch it. Buy a good fire suit and a "S" Rated Helmet and Go Racing. From spartan speeway web site.POSTED BY. Posted on Wednesday, June 14, 2006 - 09:54 am: -------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------. We need to maintain the downforce our car produces for corner speed, while providing some kind of bite off the corners. If it can be made to have more resistance to twisting, the car will handle better. DRIVER COMPARTMENT: Minimum three windshield bars and protective screen mounted in front of driver. It depends on what ratio you are comparing to. Smog pump, catalytic converter and air conditioning compressor may be removed. And you do that with better tires.. Upgrade base model vehicles to ACR/RT level, and upgrade ACR/RT models to higher levels. In a front wheel drive car most of them are running 2deg out on the left front 7deg in on the right front 1.5 In on the right rear 0 on the left rear. No transmission coolers in driver compartment. To run a single setup throughout the day is not going to get the job done in this day and age. Metal firewall must be between driver and cell. Also, using them is very close to installing a more robust suspension. This means there is no delay in spring responseunlike suspension springs, which have to wait for a force to travel through the suspension in order to respond. We can see how it is possible to experience a high 1.7 g's all the way down to a very low 0.7 g's in a single day. A typical setup might be: LF = 400; RF = 450; LR = 225 (400 pounds swing arm); RR = 275 (500 pounds swing arm); 56 percent left-side weight; Panhard bar at 11 inches left and 12 inches right, mounted to the right side of the chassis; and no front Ackermann with zero rear steer. You will need to keep a lot of information on your tires. No more than 5 degrees camber on any wheel. . Front-engine, rear-drive . Talk to the experts. All ignition components must be unaltered, OEM and match year, make and model of car used. Once in a corner, the forces on the car are great enough to flex the suspension and substantially decrease the amount of camber on the wheel. Obviously, changing your wheel spacing, taking stagger out of the race car and just trying to get your car more balanced where it is not trying to turn so much on its own. The Neons and other cars with fully independant rear suspension might be slightly different in their handling setup. Aluminum high-back racing seat required. Dry slick, a condition in which the track has lost considerable moisture and is now very dry and slick with little grip: 0.7 to 0.9 g's (The cars are now very slow in getting into and through the turns, and traction under power is very low. So if youre trying to figure out how to whip your GTI, ST, Si, Type-R or anything else meant to be driven thats got its drive wheels up front, try to digest some of ACPs advice and put it into practice. Softening the front springs will help the car turn, but to a lesser degree than making rear spring changes. 3. Dry, a condition in which the top layer is now drying out and losing material in the form of sand: 0.9 to 1.1 g's (loss of grip is now getting substantial, and the car will not turn well or get bite off the corners. One of the Hot shoes from the Thunders (who kicked but on both dirt and asphalt) will be joining us this year. My thoughts were that all things being equal, a rear-wheel drive car will totally run circles around a front-wheel drive one, and of course, I wanted to be in the faster cars. The air pressure in your tires will change with heat. About 1psi for every 7deg F. You will need to make adjustments that allow for this to happen and not upset the car. Also I adjusted the springpreloadby jacking up the front and just taking the slack out of coilovers, is this a good starting point? If we had nothing to learn, we may as well go golfing-not. Walk on foot. Simply unzip the below folder to your BeamNG.drive AppData folder C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\BeamNG.drive\0.28\vehicles. Secondly, because were having to use the throttle to counteract the rotation of the car, we will be going to throttle long before corner apex, increasing the amount of time the car is accelerating. In fact, for most of you the entire reason you are racing is the chance to get behind the wheel and let it all hang out. Draw an arrow, from the dot in the center, toward the edge of the circle, and you get that line is a consistent length. It has been condensed and clarified.). No mirrors. Experience suggests GM and Chrysler are the best cars to race with because the front suspension of both of them is adjustable for camber and the entire front suspension is mounted on a cradle. The way to think about this is: race drivers often illustrate stuff with cutlery, so driving a RWD car is a little like piloting a knife. My bigger front bar was from a GRM article or post somewhere, I'd love to see a Phase II follow-up article on what happens after you do what's in this article. The Panhard bar, mounted on the left side of the chassis, should be at heights of 12 inches left and 8 inches right. Well, as Peter Cunningham proved more than a few times this year running his front-wheel drive Acura head-to-head with the rear-wheel drive Mustangs and Camaros in the WC GTS class, well-set up, well-driven front-wheel drive cars can be more than competitive with their rear-wheel drivecounterparts. In our journey through a full day of dirt track racing at "Anywhere Speedway," we have purposely left out a number of setup variables such as fifth and sixth coil adjustments, gear changes, birdcage indexing, rear spring placement (front or rear of the axle tube), the decision to clamp or not to clamp, and others. Maybe 2-4 degrees of negative camber for the RR. ): The V.I.N. 6-8 degrees of negative camber generally works well in the RF. There will be less grip, but not to the point of going overly soft on the springs or introducing great amounts of rear steer to turn the car. Basics of driving front wheel drive on dirt and a couple tips to get you up to speed and hopefully out of trouble. Don't put the weight in front of the front wheel and don't add any behind the rear wheels. To be able to control the car, we need much stiffer springs and a more balanced setup front to rear. Tires will be the most used/checked thing on your racecar. You will need to reduce the air in your tires by 8.5psi to allow the right pressure when racing. What Is Front-Wheel Drive? Push the knife forward from the tail of it, and you can move the nose back and forth, and its quite a balanced scenario. This is the old Pony Stock "Speed Secrets and Tricks" message thread. 2. We think we can help a little bit with that too. We can start moving weight over to the right side to provide a lower left-side weight of 52-54 percent. Donations: https://streamlabs.com/jonarmstrongrallyingFor this stream we will be looking at Front Wheel Drive in DiRT Rally 2.0 and I will be giving some tip. Stock for make and model - Dodge to a Dodge, Honda to a Honda. My hopes are to share some of my experiences to save folks in our Mopar family some time and effort, at least give a baseline from where to start. And thats because youre still having that same challenge of how to handle the friction circle on the front tires., ACP: Thats why guys who come from FWD rally cars as I did, I started in a Russian Lada, then I transitioned to AWD like the Evos have an easier time getting up to speed. Another simple, yet effective change that can be done to both street cars and track cars alike is increasing negative camber on the front wheels. As someone who spent 20 years driving as "right wheel drive" purist, having recently started driving/racing a fwd car, I will admit that I was wrong and completely agree with the opening of the article. Inner fenders may not be removed. They need to be rolling with not a lot of slippage, especially when the track is slick. Well, actually, I run (ran) a Honda CRX for the past 2 1/2 years. This is where car setup comes into play. Glad we here in Michigan helped out a little, How well do the Neons run against Hondas at your track? Basically, the more you turn the steering wheel, the more camber, and potentially more grip, you get. Because youre asking it to steer and take a lateral load, at the same time, youre asking it to pull you forward and accelerate, or brake, you very quickly, get to the edge of that tires abilities. This is where a limited-slip differential comes into play. As for the roll cage. We will need to change to tires that are harder, with less gap and more surface rubber. Rear toe is one of the most powerful alignment tools used to loosen up stubborn front-wheel drive race cars. On a dialup connection, it might take 3 minutes or more before the page finishes loading entirely. Check with the other race teams and find out what tire they are running. Remember in the end you'll have complete control over this so you're really just choosing a sensible baseline. As you push that pedal down to the ground, thats an effort to try to keep you in that friction circle. Tires are the most important part of any car! 17. With the poor weather conditions forecasted for Saturday 4/29/23 Plymouth Dirt Track has decided that it is in their best interested along with ours to cancel the event scheduled for Saturday 4/29/23. One spring rubber allowed in each spring. My understanding was the rear toe-in steered better into the corner much like the Honda Passive rear steering, as the suspension loads up, the inside rear tire toes in. That's what Randy Pobst talks about on the latest episode of "The Racing Line. Hobby Stock (HS): We might run a stiffer right-front (RF) spring and a stiffer right-rear (RR) spring. Must be securely mounted using two, .125-inch thick, solid steel straps, two inches wide, completely around cell. Watch the races and see what the fast guys are driving, chances are they have already researched different makes and models and are racing a style of car for a reason. It must be clearly visible and unaltered in any way. Perfect for autox and spirited street driving. > The stiffest spring(s) should be where? There are several adjustments that can be made to assist in loosening up a front-wheel drive car and countering the terminal understeer they commonly exhibit. The camber/toe comments are dead-on though. 18. There is no way a team can run well in all of the conditions while maintaining the same setup. The goal is to try to keep the car loaded so it doesn't get free. In the rear you should run 0" to 1/16" IN. No convertibles or two seat sports cars allowed. Links for making a NEON faster, lots of this info will apply to any FWD 4 cyl car. (NOTE! Raise the rear ride height one more inch, move weight up and to the right in the car, and soften all of the shocks. Because AWD cars fundamentally are FWD cars with RWD added. 4m.net is a very large nation wide racing forum,,, THEy have a very good ministock tech forum,,,so register , then go to the Mini stock Tech forum and learn. Install softer rebound left-side shocks and softer compression right-side shocks. No matter how much we try to keep that unloaded, inside-front tire planted, however, itll still have less grip than the outside, loaded tire. > When adding lead to a FWD racer, where should the weight go? Steel brake lines only. LM: We can now begin to change the spring rates at the RF, RR, and LR. Call 800.979.0122, 7am-10pm, everyday. In the case of a rear-wheel drive car, you get those two rear tires, those two rear palm-prints, they always get to push you forward, and the front tires only have to turn you side to side, and usually stop you, too, because thats where most of the braking force happens of course. The .91 ratio transfer gears are needed along with the 2.86 ring and pinion gears. Are you the guy who likes to slow the car way down make the turn and then drive hard off the corner, or do you try to carry your momentum all the way through? But 90 to 95 percent of AWD cars are versions of FWD cars. This latest video by Cleetus gives the highlights from his weekend racing at the Cleetus McFarland Danger Ranger 9000 On Dirt . Make the rear of the car as light as you can. All you've got is the brake adjuster, and the rest you've got to handle the best you can with the throttle, the brakes and the steering wheel. Others are far more involved and only make sense for dedicated race cars. Richards: It depends. The whole challenge of a front-wheel drive car is the tire's friction circle. But McDowell and Hughes covered the topic so well we decided to move on to other areas that most often seem to trip up dirt drivers. I've always been a momentum driver, so that plays a big role in to the way that we tune the car. I wouldn'twant anything that tail happy on a road course as it does change directions rapidly. FUEL SYSTEM: Must have complete, unaltered, OEM fuel system for year, make and model of car used. SAFETY EQUIPMENT: Rules apply at all times car is on the race track. Caster will never add negative camber on turn in, because steering axis inclination takes camber away. You need to learn as much about them as you can. You want to soften the roll in the front and stiffen the roll in the rear. Gas tanks behind rear axle must be replaced with maximum eight gallon fuel cell and relocated to trunk area. These rebound adjustable performance Struts will improve the handling and performance of your Neon. Whatever that might be. Thanks for all those mopar part #s and neon links, now you gave out all my secrets, but thats ok the more neons the better. For Springport, you can install the commonly available 1.06 transfer gears and run fast. Look for a car that has been taken care of and not rusted out. All tubing must be minimum 1.50-inch O.D. No gutting allowed except for roll/door bar clearance. A FWD oval track race car, like most other oval track or road racing cars, should be as near 50%-50% front-to-rear weight distribution as possible. Once the track has hardened, it will quickly continue to change toward black and then to slick. No re-caps, softening, conditioning, siping or grooving allowed. Just aim for the gritty spots, and that can help keep the tires from glazing over. Heres what ACP has to say about how to drive the shit out of our FWD car: (Full disclosure: The following are ACPs statements as he ran through them with me over the phone. Now weve seen a bit of what the driver can do to help negate some of the front-wheel drive disadvantages, but what can the car do to help in return? The 1.06 gears are just about as quick if you're running by yourself, but if you get in traffic and have to lift off the throttle, it takes longer to get back up to speed. Upgrade is recommended for non-ACR Neons used for racing purposes. TIRES AND WHEELS: OEM DOT 13, 14, 15 or 16-inch passenger tires only. Part of the reason I still enjoy racing front-wheel drive cars is that over the years, Ive learned a thing or 10 about how to drive them quickly, but more importantly, how to set them up to be driven quickly. Now softer tires can be used with some siping. Is it faster? Essential floor careRobot vacuums, stick vacuums, high-performance mops and more are up to 35% off during this Target deal. I was just rereading this article yesterday, with the plan to take my econobox for an alignment, before Sunday's autocross. must remain in the OEM location. 13. The more parameters you can modify (suspension pickup points, roll centers, custom uprights and control arms), the less you have to trick the car into doing what you want. What can you do to make your car safer in a wreck? The primary goal of the diff in a front-wheel drive application is to apply power efficiently to both wheels, without excessive wheel spin from the less loaded, inside front wheel. Hardened and more packed as the surface begins to dry out: 1.3 to 1.5 g's (still good corner speed while losing a little grip off the corner). Or if you are a three-wheel braking, you go to four-wheel brake. Reduce body roll and attack corners with condence on the street and track. So steering wheel angle, and lateral Gs, which it measures, will determine which of the front brakes to apply, in little amounts, in order to get you around a corner.. The key, again, is to be sure to make changes based on your track conditions related to your type of car. Kill switch required within easy reach of driver and must be clearly marked OFF and ON. CT: How hard is it to make the switch from Crate Late Models to Supers? In the back, you want a swaybar or a stiffer one than you already have. Ok, so now you have a car with a roll cage, seat, belts, fuel cell and the suspension has been set. The "truest" stock car racing in the USA, Front Wheel Drive racing features everyday folks taking FW All-wheel drive is an increasingly common feature on cars today, from grocery-fetching Subaru. The rear ride height would be set as low as possible, as this would raise the rear moment center and lower the CG to reduce the rear roll angle versus the front roll angle to help balance the setup. With a $2500 buy rule. 15. As little as 1/16-inch toe out in the rear can get the rear end of your car looking to pass the front at every opportunity. Raise the moveable weight up and to the right side as much as possible for a 50-50 percent side-to-side weight distribution. I want to say I've heard that before, but for some reason the way you said it just clicked with me. The racing line is the route a racing driver follows to take corners in the fastest possible way. Must use minimum 1.50-inch O.D. This is actually 52-55 percent using the LF and RR wheels for the calculation. The competition here is so good you really have to be smooth and on top of your game to keep those lap times down consistently. Any car missing the V.I.N. After all your very life may depend on how well the roll cage is welded together. If good, proceed to the next step. We keep the low CG (mount the weight low in the car) to reduce weight transfer to the right side to help maintain left-side weight in the turns. Use the data you have for your tyres or use the table above to get you going. Also All NEON racers should install the thicker ACR front hub listed In the catalog and sold by Dodge which is used in SCCA racing. ACP: So with left-foot braking, is basically keeping the throttle wide open, and dragging the brake with your left foot to make it work a little like the hand brake. DIRT Track Racing Action - IN-CAR Camera Saturday Night Heroes - SNHFeaturing - Rudi MostertS01E07Hosted by:Grant Burton & Rudi MostertIn this episo. It's best to purchase your first racecar already put together. Now that we have the car loose on corner entry, the driving style becomes what I like to call pitch and catch. You can pitch the car into the corner, and as the back end starts to come around, you catch it with the throttle. The weight moves off the front outside and onto the front inside. The hardened track condition may only occur for one heat or so. Eckert: Normally, dirt race tracks always gets slicker, so you are usually working to tighten your car up. Once your car hits the black groove, it will grip and you can accelerate off from the passed car. At Circle Track we are all about helping racers find success on the race track. Properly executed trail-braking shifts weight from the rear of the car to the front, increasing grip on turn-in. The stick shift PCM's will work with a Automatic trans. Eibach makes stiffer stock looking suspension springs For MOST FWD 4 cyl cars and they also lower your car,,. HS: We could maintain the previous setup as the track begins to smooth out, but it will keep a considerable amount of grip. I would call these "marathon posts" LOL! Driver-side window net required, minimum 16x20 ribbon or mesh style, and must be mounted so latch is at top front of window. But any modern car is going to say whoa, hey, what are you thinking? So what you want to do is control your weight transfer absolutely as well as possible. Front wheel drive racecars for sale Smooth driving is important now as any complete loss of grip in the front or rear tires will cause a great increase in the lap times. Eckert: If your car is too free in the corners, what you've got to do is back your corner up onto the straightaway. 1. Share your tips and tricks on how to get your car fast! Does not include seat, seat belts, or battery. Because youre asking so much from the front tires.. OEM bumper covers must remain. Also please expand your choice to intalling a different model Honda engine into a Civic,,, such as installing a bigger engine from a Accord or Integra,,. Toe in is more stable under braking but that is because it stops the rear from moving around. Road racing, where slalom doesn't really apply, additional caster isn't nearly as effective. But in terms of street cars, trying to drive it fast, youre going to be relying (mostly) on two things: A really good tire, and really good OEM electronics. This will get you a little more adjustment. Late Model (LM): A similar situation would apply to the LM car. Determining the best line is an essential skill to master for both track days and racing events. AND now that you just gave him all of that information, he will have no excuse not too!! Between dealing with braking, cornering and acceleration forces, the front tires really do have their hands full in any given corner. We could continue to move weight up and to the right in the car to raise the CG about 1 inch and further decrease the left-side weight percentage. I am only familiar with how to change the camber on the Mopar cars. Don't buy used belts, as all belts are dated and must be replaced every 3 years. Driver touch is most important in maintaining momentum). A rusted car will take a lot of repair before being able to weld in a roll cage. Same as lots of cars. The main thing for a driver to recognize is that in a front-wheel drive race car, the front tires are trying to do several jobs at the same time. do not allow locked final dirves ,,like your class does. CT: What types of conditions do you see give new racers the most trouble? Nope. If your toes point away from each other then you are toed out. So we continued with our who's who of dirt racing with Dirt Late Model drivers Josh Richards, Dennis "Rambo" Franklin, Chub Frank, and Rick Eckert, then we switched over to the 410 Sprint Cars with Jason Johnson. For my fwd street stud tire class ice racers I've morphed into adding castor and leaving the camber stock. Now if you head up North and go someplace like Learnerville, that's a track that can get slick! All forward and reverse gears must be operational. I don't think enough people think for themselves to actually test and find out (and it certainly is a pain to do, so I understand it). to all members of the Texas Speedzone, you guys are very smart. . Normally there are lots of used seats available you just have to look around. If you are turning left all the time you should tip the RF tire in at the top. Take the VW Golf R. It has a Haldex center coupler, its a FWD car until you need the rear drive, then the rear engages. Rear kickers required. These are exceptions and won't be addressed here. 0 degrees works OK for the LR. I am switching to a Toyota for 2007 (or possibly 2008 as the car is still not done yet.) Thatll improve the handling characteristics of any car, but especially for front-wheel drive. Steering, braking, and power. Imagine drawing that line, out 45 degrees to the top left. 2. Here you go sell at will ..please be respectful of peoples post .if you. Front Wheel Drive, dynamics and tuning using ChassisSim 22,379 views Sep 13, 2016 This video explains the dynamics of front wheel drive (FWD) racing cars and how to tune this using. The Stock Neon hub may be too weak and may fail under racing conditions! Yes, you do have to be careful and make sure you carry as much momentum as you can through the corner with a Crate, but you also have to do that in the Supers too. On stock front-wheel drive cars without camber plates, a couple of degrees of negative camber is the most you can hope to get within the stock shock mount. They are more like asphalt anyway, and a team racing a dirt car on those tracks would do well to set up their cars more closely to an asphalt car setup. And physics haven't changed since. VEHICLE IDENTIFICATION NUMBER (V.I.N. And yes, you can make a FWD car oversteer all day long if you set it up right. Welcome to the internet home of Front Wheel Drive Circle Track Racing Podcast show is being worked on daily! On the Volvo C30 Touring Cars we ran in the Pirelli World Challenge last year, we had nearly a 10-psi spread between the front and rear of the Pirelli P Zero slicks. Perhaps jacking the rear inside up making it looser is why this is so common for people to add caster on a front wheel drive car? Most cars have some rust, you just don't want one that has rust HOLES. P5007314 Hub and Bearing Kit (199599 Neon ACR). Also read the old messages on this 4 cylinder tech link, they have a lot of guys who know both FWD and RWD 4 cyl cars,, so ask your question here or on the Spartan Speedway forums,, the michigan guys are alway willing to help. Johnson: I'd say for a guy starting out the condition that's going to the most trouble is dry/slick. for some back ground Info, with the setup Mr. Maurice Randall posted they won track championships and many features at a tracks that had about of these 30 cars every night, and the competition was close. Frankly, the advice that was given regarding front-to-rear weight distribution and spring selection for a FWD car is questionable at best. Either way, the effect is only noticable at high steering lock. And, contrary to what many would consider "common sense," the lighter the rear of the car is, the stiffer the rear springs need to be, especially the right rear spring. (You can watch the first episode, where an ancient Rolls Royce gets turned into a drift machine, right now on DiscoveryGO for free if you have a cable subscription.). If the track goes slick you probably want to tighten it up. We could raise the rear ride height an inch or so to be ready if the track begins to dry out some and affect bite off the corner. Meets SCCA Club rules. The LF spring = 375; RF = 350; LR spring = 185; and RR spring = 175. No remote reservoir power steering. All safety equipment required. Noticed they had a FWD class for 4 cyl. Often guys do it with very stiff sway bars, you actually need a very stiff sway bar in the front of a FWD car, but a lot of guys jack up the sway bars in the rear, and that causes there to be enough rear roll stiffness that the rear breaks early. There is one exception: Nissan GT-Rs are a little different, theyre more like RWD, because they have a ridiculous transfer case, heavy, complicated. Running camber in that range will allow the tire to lay completely flat in the corner, giving it the biggest contact patch and the maximum amount of grip. The last alignment trick used to get a front-wheel drive car to play nice is rear toe. Its just more efficient for them to produce. Because the weight is all in the bowl of the spoon, where your fingers dragging it down, and its dragging the rest of the car with it. This is a pretty sophisticated FWD set up story and conversation but I did have one question. If you run a cell you can keep less fuel in the car and the foam will keep it in check to allow the fuel pump to keep a good supply of fuel to the engine. WEIGHT: No ballast (extra weight) of any kind allowed. If you're out on the race track and that doesn't work, you're on your own.