Front toe/tracking for GTI

[Carrera2RS]

Can anyone confirm the front tracking settings

Tks

[rich83]

Thats with the WALK fitted!

[Carrera2RS]

I had my TT arms fitted today, corner weighted and adjust the ride height a little. It's now running 1.75 deg f, 1.5 deg r of neg with 1mm of toe in front and back. It weighs 1444kg ! Ride heights now 325 r and 338 f so 22mm lower f and 35mm rear. The TT arms added nearly 16mm of extra movement on the rack to track back in. I suspect the extra camber will increase the track by 4-5mm per side. My fag packet maths suggest the top moves out 1-2mm, centre 4-5 and bottom 12-14mm.

Still testing but the reduction in arm weight is noticeable with less 'crash' over pot holes and a little more poise. Turn in is a touch better but mid corner grip and balance is much improved.

No wonder the GTi has a job to dial out understeer it comes in 37% rear 63% front.......

[vRSAlex]

What were the corner weight weight results before and after?

If you want sharper turn in then run the front toe straight or 0.5mm out.

I run 2.25 degs neg at the front on the tt arms with no inner tyre wear.

What caster did you see after the wishbones were fitted and did you conbine with the walk kit?

[Carrera2RS]

The corner weights after adjusting the ride heights came close, a quick adjust and then 470 449 front L,R, rear 265 261 L,R I had the walk before and after. I have not measured caster as not adjustable. The guys who fitted strung the car on flatbeds. They said for a roadie I would not feel the 20kg diffnat the front, plus this was for an empty car no driver and the diff was the right way round for rhd.

I might experiment a little with heights and keep movements matched left and right. I did notice that the front dropped when the TT arms were fitted. I tried 333 f then moved a full turn on PSS9's to 338 and it was much better. I am also running Neuspeed 25 roll bars front and rear, stiff rear, soft front.

I might try traight tracking and see.

[rex]

This is my current setup:



I would only change the toe out into toe in 0.05' (after the bruce explained why I need this).
You may see the discussion on my ride topic (http://www.mk5golfgti.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,24398.60.html)
Cheers

[Carrera2RS]

Initial impressions of the set up. Way better in mid corner grip and the chassis balance has improved. I am not sure how much the track at the front has increased it looks like a fair bit. I was hoping the top of the wheel would stay put and the additional camber would come mostly from the bottom of the wheel.

I will try to do a little maths here as 1 degree of camber needs 12mm of difference from the top of the tyre to the bottom, it looks like perhaps the top is out say 3mm, the bottom 15mm for 1 degree if this makes sense ? I'll have a look at the mounting points to see if I can fathom how much the adjust the track. Eg adjusting the lower arm xmm  moves the wheel centre out by Ymm and at the same time to top Zmm and the bottom Nmm. Eg move the arm 5mm the track per side moves by +4mm, the top of the tyre by 3mm and the bottom by 15mm giving one degree of neg. I am little concerned about room under the arch at the top with 8x18 ET45 and a lot of neg via this route.

By the way the TT arms are identical in length to the GTi, the extra length comes from the position of the ball joint on TT ball joints (which are adjustable too)

I also tried the bruce set up for toe and set the front 1mm in either side this is probably nearer 7 minutes toe in. I will actually change to toe out if this is factory as I want a comparison.

Can someone please confirm that the Golf front should be toe out and the rear toe in ?


I have seen threads suggesting that the factory is toe out at the front but settings are +ve, I am closer to parallel but still toe in.
I do find the straight ahead a little lighter and blunter, this could be from the toe. I always set up my road cars parallel or less toe in (RWD) before, front wheel drive is new to me !

[vRSAlex]

Everyone gets confused at toe in/toe out and positive toe and negative toe.

Toe in = positive toe
Toe out = negative toe

So if you have a plus figure at the front then the toe at the front is pointing inwards towards the front of the car.

I got round to doing a setup on the vRS yesterday.  The car by itself weighs 1473.5 kgs with half a tank of fuel.  With my weight added to the drivers seat its 1541 kgs.  I could only adjust the spring platforms on the front as i have removed the rears to get the car as low as possible to get the weight at the back.  I adjusted the front as much as I could without messing up the ride highs.  Idealy I would have some adjustable roll bars links fitted then the corner weighting would be better.

Before with no driver:



Before with driver:



After with driver (I would have liked to get the front better as its more important than the back but the ride hights would have been way off):



Im also now running -2.5 degs at the front.  It feels great now and moving the weight to the back has reduced understeer loads.

[Carrera2RS]

Thanks,

I am about to take the car out and play a little with damping. It feels slightly underdamped at the front now. I am running 3F, 4R out of 9. I usually prefer over damped, but found the front very crashy with too much damping. This is significantly better with TT arms. 

I have e-mailed center of gravity and will see how much they want to set it up.

[Carrera2RS]

I settled back on 3F, 4R after trying 7F8R, 6F6R, 4F5R and 4F4R