I am being a bit of a blonde I think. I was adjusting my tracking last night by loosening the nut that holds the rod end on and then turning the rod end by one full turn inwards our outwards. One full turn of the rod end = 2mm of toe adjustment. So if I turn the left and right rod ends by one full turn each I get 4mm of toe adjustment on the steering rack.

This is the only way of adjusting the toe in/toe out isn't it?


Thanks,


Charlie

 

it sure is how comes you are ajusting it? are you useing tracking gauges?

 

For the last season of racing my car has had 10mm of toe out, measured at the front and rear edges of the tyres. Now that I have raised the ride height and added 3 door hubs, coilovers, etc I want to start testing on Monday at Brands Hatch with the front toe set neutral and maybe adjust it outwards.

If I can only adjust by one turn of the track rod ends that means the adjustment is simple - do a few laps, turn the rod ends one turn, do a few more laps. Spot the difference. No need for measuring or tiny adjustments.

So although I don't have the ability to make tiny adjustments I do have simplicity on my side.

Cheers,

Charlie

 

im more used to setting up road cars tbh but 10mm tow out seems alot to me

 

On a car I used to have years ago I welded two flat sections of metal so it had "wings", this made adjstement easier, and gave a better "viewpoint" say 1/4 of the wing etc, had to grind off when doing gaiters and reweld but!!
tabetha

 

Yes it is. And I think it was set like that to get the car to turn in on track. The car was much too low and the camber much too negative. The inside of the tyres has always been hotter than the outside which indicates too much neg camber.

The wear pattern on the R888 tyres looks like the rubber has folded towards the centre which is indicative of too much toe out.

Charlie

 

You added wings to the rod ends? I understand that you can turn 1/4 turns but as the rod end has to face upwards to locate into the hub it can only turn a full turn in or out. Am I missing something?


Charlie

 

I am talking about the RODS themsleves not the track rod ends, sorry if I didn't make that clear, welded wings on the rod between rack and track rod end.
tabetha

 

Gotcha. I don't mean to sound like an idiot, and I am at work and not near the car, but can I turn the rods for finer adjustment? With welded on wings does this mean that you could turn the rods by hand?

Thanks Tabetha, your advice as always is very useful.


Charlie

 

Interesting, trackday cossie i work with has on the front neutral toe in/out
and 3,5degrees camber. And still the outside of the slicks wear faster then the inside.

( Car is very low, and i'm about to tackle the bump steer issues for next season coming up, more on that later)

 

Rinus do you take tyre temperatures? Inside / middle / outside

Is your front end polybushed?

Charlie

 

Hi guys,

Can someone tell me pls.how I can adjust the rear TOE in -Out of my 1989 Ford Sierra Cosworth 2WD ?
Thanks
Sami

 

2 ways I know of
1/ a cheap way http://www.randbmotorsport.co.uk/sho...?ProductID=178

2/ a rear beam that has toe adjustment such as offered by SCS, Grove Garage, Adrenaline

Do you know what your current settings on your car are?

 

haven't looked at the temps yet, but got myself a decent temp measure device/thingy. and yes it's polybushed and inside tca is uniball due the adjustable tca's. Did align it last week to max toe in 0,12 degrees (according the factory spec)
rear end happens to be the same toe, and 2,5 degrees camber. (standard beam and polybushed aswell) But will be in july to find out how it drives (trackday)

 

Out of interest do you know what your caster setting is?

Is the car the 3-door in your post sig?

 

my advice would be to get on ebay and look for a cheap set of tracking guages, we picked up a set of techlamit (sp?) optical guages for £50, worth double that for the results they give and the ease of setting IMHO.
On the 205 (completely different car admittedly, the ride height is slightly higher than standard (gravel spec) and we run 1 degree toe out. played with it at oulton a few weeks back as we do the odd tarmac event and we found that parallel gave bucket fulls of understeer, 2 degrees toe out made the backend want to overtake the front, but 1degree out brought it nice and balanced.

 

Charlie,

To adjust toe, you turn the threaded track bar (drum stick) from the rack itself, you dont remove the track rod end from the taper. The adjustment if therefore infinate, not dependant on full turns of the track rod end..

We run all our cars with toe in pal, toe out will make the car feel very nervous and i've never heard of any car (road or competition) having 10mm of toe out...

We continually check toe during events and make minor adjustments, we acheive this by using a tracking bar, simply a box section bar with two upstands one end touches the rim and the other end uses a ruler, measure front of the rims then rear of the rims and you'll see toe in/out. I'll post you a pic later if you want to see it...

We have optical tracking gauges and access to 4 wheel alignment but we can acheive very accurate settings on event with a tracking bar...

HTH

Ian

 

No I dont Mike , could you tell them to me pls.or send pistues for adjustment points if you have them..
Thanks
Sami

 

Hi Sami

I might have confused you here chap.....I won't be able to tell you your current rear toe setting but a good geometry/wheel alignment place should be able to measure your car and give you a printout with the front and rear toe setting, front and rear camber settings and the caster setting. At least you'll know what you have currently then to work from.

The setting may vary depending on how far your car is lowered from standard but ideally you want 0' toe or a very small amount of toe in at the back for most road use. Toe out will make it want to self-steer and feel a bit unstable at the back.

The problem with the normal rear beam is that as the suspension travels up and down throught its arc, the toe setting can change from toe in to toe out quite markedly which is not desirable.

If you get the shims you get a diagram showing you where they are fitted.

If you get an aftermarket beam, depending on type there is either slotting or an adjustable joint to set up the toe

 

Hi Mike,
Do you us skype or MSN for live chat pls. My problem is that the car with 7,5" LSD is not holding the road till 70 Mph.!! I also need a good tire recommedation please. I am adviced to use Potenza Adrenaline tyres.
I would appreciate if I may ask you few questions over the netline.
I live in Turkey and its very difficult to find parts and expert to have the fixed.
Thanks
Sami

 

Hi Sami,

To be honest chap I am far from being any sort of expert on Cosworth handling! I don't use the MSN or skype things either, I just make adjustments to my own cars based on what I read/try out and see what effect it has.
I do know that optimizing the camber and toe settings especially on the rear of the cars makes a BIG difference to how they drive/handle. If you've lowered your car a lot and it's squatting on acceleration it won't be making the best use of the tyres you've got till some of the 'squat' has gone. If it's lowered a lot on the standard set-up you introduce a lot of negative camber which means the tyres are running more on the inside edge. Combine that with worn bushes etc and it will struggle for grip till higher speeds.
Everything is a bit of a trade-off really with suspension depending on what you want to do with the car.

When I got my car it was running very low springs. For my driving I noticed a big improvement just replacing them with std height and uprated jobbies.
To be honest I've noticed that most people with Cosworths are mostly interested in getting more poke/etc out the engine ( understandable considering how easy it is ) rather than doing much to the suspension ( other than lowering it ). Just recently more people have started to take an interest in handling/suspension and what is available to adjust/upgrade.

Cheers

 

Yes you can turn them by hand for easier and far more precise adjusting. Just loose the rod nut turn the rod with a grip plyers (or as tabetha said do the trick with the winds if you need to make a lot and fast adjustments otherwise a good grip plyers is perfect) and retight the nut. Easy, fast and no need to remove the ball joint from the hub.