Total Lateral Load Transfer Distribution

[Sleeper68]

More updates. After Event #4 I found that the bushings in the rear dampers were virtually destroyed. This seemed to happen because the the shock was initially mounted "cantilever style" which put the bushing in a big bind. I did not run the car like this but only mocked it up. Ended up making clevis mounts to keep the bushing from binding but the bushings were old and the damage was done. Got new bushings after the event. One was beaten out of the shock and the other was almost gone.

Event #5 was also an SCCA event @ Bristol Motor Speedway. Very fast course, placed 2nd in CAMT, 18th PAX, 52.872s Car felt alot better here but still pushes. I found that I can get the car to rotate is some situations with throttle, but in others it wants to push.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4fypAEUd48

Event #6: SCCA National Champ Tour @ Bristol. Day 1 was rough. Car pushed alot, could not get heat in the tires in 3 runs, and my driving sucked. I was way too timid. 7th out of 11 in CAMT, 208th PAX, 59.601s.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MTUs7z9aJA

Day 2 I did alot better but stayed in 7th of 11 due to the addition of time from both days. I bumped up the rear tire pressure 2psi and stiffened rear rebound 2 clicks. This reduced the grip in the rear (not what I wanted to do but was forced to at the time) but made the car alot easier to drive. It turned in alot better. Additionally I drove the car a lot harder and used the throttle more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9eYX6oQzeA

At the latest event I worked on my driving. No setup changes. 1st in CAMT, 12th PAX, 17th RAW.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rFlDfnxd40

The next event is this coming weekned. I did some thinking over the past few weeks and came up with an idea, that alot of others have talked about, to use jounce bumpers (aka bump stops) to tune the front end stiffness easily since I am on leaf springs and regular, factory style front springs. I purchased an array of bumpers of varying stiffnesses to test out.

The first thing I am going to try it to remove the front jounce bumpers completely. Looking at pictures of the car mid corner it became clear that the car was in some way pivoting on the outside front tire to some degree. My theory is that this is due in part to the jounce bumper being loaded, not allowing the front end to articulate as much as I would like and thus not taking advantage of the "improved" camber curve as described in previous posts. The distance between the bumper and the bumper "landing" pad is about 1/2" - 3/4" at ride height. Not alot of movement allowed. You can see this somewhat in the attached picture. Outside front tire appears heavily loaded and camber relative to ground plane is poor - possibly even positive. Alignment is -2.0° Camber +6.5° Castor 1/8" total toe out. Tire pressures 33.5psig front 33.0psig rear on 275/35R18 BFG Rival S 1.5s.