ride height, damping & tracking setup

[The Wizard]

Hi all,

Need some advice plzzzz.....

currently the car is setup for drag racing (not changed since arrival from japan i think), back raised up a fair bit with the front sitting pretty low. it is fantastic in straight line but bends etc it is not as it should be (& its all sunny & dry too), lacking confidence etc.

after a wee bit of cleaning the dirt off suspension, i find hks coilovers which was a nice surprise  anyway, going to book it at micheldever since they are only 20 mins away and have read up on tracking numbers here as well. have a few questions if you dont mind:

1. alignment settings: long track or stock or ... ?
2. ride height (drop), F & R?
3. damping adjustment, F & R?
4. 225/50/16s all around at the mo, should I change the rears to 235/50/16s before setup?

Conditions: I do not want to compromise road handling much (very little if possible) as it will be driven on road mainly. Preference would be to have a setup that works well on & off road. damping can be adjusted for track use when required so road settings would be good.

apologies for all these questions, would like to take on board your suggestions and do it all once instead of repeat visits to the garages since the only thing I can adjust myself is the shock damping without messing up everything else.

Many thanks.

[zevans]

2/ As much drop as you can get without having wheel rub - the place doing it might have a suggestion there.

3/ since you can change that yourself, you should get it set somewhere in the middle and then go for short runs and play with it. You want it as hard as it will go without damaging your fillings or reaching the point of diminishing grip (should think you will be able to feel when it\'s skittering all over the tarmac rather than mopping up the bumps as it should - when it feels like that back it off a notch.)

Harder = twitchier tho, as well...

You can move between understeer and oversteer by using different levels on the front and back, so if you want a nice safe setting which understeers at the limit, leave the back hard relative to the front. (Bet it\'s set up the other way now, for good squat on launches.) Disadvantage is it will tend to snap from one to the other if you REALLY do something silly and you get tankslappers!

4/ Might as well leave tyres if there\'s no other reason to change them - but what are they? If they were put on with drag in mind then they might be perilous in the wet.

This sounds silly, but if you\'ve got GT4 have a mess about on there and see how it changes the car - it will help!