Damper settings for FD3 on Tein Monoflex...

[suba]

Hi Guys,

I\'m hoping to take the RX sprinting at the beginning of next month and will be getting the allignment setup shortly.

Could someone advise me on the damper settings for sprinting / track stuff to get the car to be neutral / oversteerish?

The car has been lowered a bit, but nothing too extreme.  Currently on 17\'s and road tyres...

[clive]

I have fitted many Monoflex kits to both RX-7\' and RX-8\'s one as recently as last week and have always found that the best base starting point is to wind the dampers off completly then click them up 8 clicks as many people are happy with this setting for both road and track,

So much so that I tell people not to bother with the EDFC system as most find they never need to play with the settings anyway after setting up at 8 clicks

Hope this helps

[suba]

Thanks - is there any need to run different damping front and rear?  I guess I can wind up / down the front or back depending on how the car behaves and how I want it to.:Thumbs-up

[clive]

Set that as a base then you can fine tune from there if you wish, more damping on the front will induce understeer , more damping on the back will induce oversteer,

Too much understeer is where the car will want to go straight on and feel reluctant to turn into a corner,

Too oversteer is where the car back of the car will want to come around and potentially spin the car.

It\'s worth knowing that Road cars always have lots of understeer built into them, achieved  normally by employing a stiff front roll bar and a thin or no roll bar at the back as this is the safest set up for Mr & Mrs Average

O\'yes when your winding the car up n down always keep the nose a little lower than the back

[ashc]

from my recent nurburg trip, i tried various settings with my monoflex, and maximum hard all round was the clear winner on the track! But i might take clives advice and put the rear on 2 or 4 or something, see what thats like to reduce chance of oversteer (not that i felt it was going to!)

[Papercup]

Hi Guys,
 
I\'m hoping to take the RX sprinting at the beginning of next month and will be getting the allignment setup shortly.
 
Could someone advise me on the damper settings for sprinting / track stuff to get the car to be neutral / oversteerish?
 
The car has been lowered a bit, but nothing too extreme. Currently on 17\'s and road tyres...

I\'ve already won my class in the Tunbridge Wells Sprint Championship this year and with two rounds to go i am winning the entire championship.
 
While on trackdays I start with around what Clive is saying and end up going up and up until i am running almost full hard front and rear, sprinting is a different kettle of fish.
 
On trackdays you and the car warm up, and as you get more comfortable and push harder you can dial in more stiffness until things are quiet precise. Your brake and most importantly TYRES are fully warm by then and there\'ll be no surprises.
 
Sprinting is completely different. In my sprint series you get practice of a lap or two. Then you wait, sometimes up to an hour or even two, for your first run. While you can warm the engine up, you are starting on stone cold tyres, brakes and gearbox. While the gearbox and brakes being cold is just a matter of mechanical sympathy (or a lack of it!), the tyres are a bigger problem. You are not allowed tyre warmers.
 
So in my experience i start with my Mono Flex on full soft, and recently I\'ve been leaving them there all day. I used to start soft and try going harder for the 2nd run; i always got slower. The harder the damping the less forgiving the car is, and with cold tyres its not that forgiving at all! Stiffen the car up on cold tyres and things simply happen faster, and you get less time to correct them.
 
Also, most of your questions about understeer/oversteer are mostly taken care of by geometry rather than damping rates. While Clive is correct that you can increase one or the other by damping rates, how your car handles at a base rate is all setup beforehand, and is far more important than messing with damper rates afterwards.
 
Go to Wheels in Motion and get Tony to use my set-up. \'Andy with the black RX-7\'. I am there all the time, he\'ll know. You\'ll need the corner-weighted before you go, Re:Worx did it for me (well, Max and I did it together). Then get the geometry done. Vague memory says:
 
1.5 degrees negative camber front, 2 rear
As much caster as you can get, mine is 7 degrees
10 minutes toe IN on the front, nothing on the rear
 
That will give you a safe \'mild understeer\' setup meaning if you go into a corner too fast it will understeer until you scrub some speed. Apply throttle; too much and you get oversteer. Its a nice neutral setup as it means you can apply steering input without any throttle and the back won\'t come round on you, which is an unnerving thing.
 
Good luck. Sprinting is fun; very intense as its basically a qualifying lap from a standing start on cold tyres. You don\'t get the comfort zone of getting quicker and quicker like you do on a trackday, you have to perform straight out of the box. Its a different buzz entirely.
 
Take it easy first time...
 
Andy

[suba]

Thanks Andy - nice write up.

I was at Wheels in motion yesterday and got the car setup as follows:

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a198/suba11/lastscan-4.jpg

I\'m running road tyres this time out - can you give me any advice on tyre pressures?  What do you think of the way that Wheels in Motion setup the car?

[Papercup]

Thanks Andy - nice write up.
 
I was at Wheels in motion yesterday and got the car setup as follows:
 
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a198/suba11/lastscan-4.jpg
 
I\'m running road tyres this time out - can you give me any advice on tyre pressures? What do you think of the way that Wheels in Motion setup the car?

I would say he has set it up for a \'fast road\' setup which if you use the car all the time is going to be much nicer. Thats basically less camber. 1.5 all round is nice; i am running 2 at the front and 2.5 at the rear and its a bit nasty on the road - very \'tramliney\', hence why i didn\'t recommend that.
 
On road tyres...not sure about tyre pressures. I run R888s and use 24psi all round....on road tyres i would probably run 28/30 on the road, maybe a bit less on track.
 
Road tyres won\'t even warm up within a lap on a sprint, if at all, so err on the soft side and they\'ll warm up quicker.
 
Andy

[suba]

Thanks - I\'ll go for R888\'s or hancook RS2\'s when the current set have worn out.

I asked for the car to be neutral / oversteer rather than snappy - that will do me fine until I get the hang of it.

[suba]

A bit of feedback from the day sprinting - the car is almost too neutral.  Going into a corner without power hard meant all four wheels would drift wide...came off a few times.

I\'m still getting used to the car coming from track days / sprints with FWD, so it\'s more than a little different - you can\'t get away with planting the throttle mid corner.