Spyder alignment adjustments?

[SailnDive]

I mentioned this once before but got very little info. What type of suspension adjustments are possible on the Spyder? It looks like toe is the only adjustment that can be made by turning a threaded part. On my racing car I could adjust toe, camber, caster, virtual swing arm radius, bump steer, dive and squat, etc. If only toe can be adjusted on the Spyder, then a laser hardly seems necessary...as I could accurately adjust all of those others with some string and a level. (and a fair amount of suspension design knowledge) I'll bet I can do it on the Spyder as well. I'll look into it this winter when the snow is deep and all of my other projects are completed.

[Lastchance]

Yep toe is it, mine seems ok but I'll be using your method after belt tension & alignment just to be sure, been in racing know just what you mean.

[hecoon]

Yep toe is it, mine seems ok but I'll be using your method after belt tension & alignment just to be sure, been in racing know just what you mean.


on my 09 gs phantom I got 10k out of the front tires. I put bridgestones on they now have 43k and thy still look good

[bmccaffrey]

Save the agravation.

Just do a laser alignment

[jcthorne]

Right and Left Toe and need to reference vehicle CL and be equal. Steering angle sensor must be set to zero at alignment point (handle bar centered and toe set true. Then DPS torque sensor must be set to zero in this position. The steering angle and DPS torque have a much to do with wander and veering to the side as the toe. Maybe more. These require BUDS to set.

[Highwayman2013]

The guy who invented the laser system is involved in racing. These old school methods may get you close but the reason for lasers is accuracy. They set the front tires from the rear tire so all tires are rolling in the same direction. Most dealers do not charge if your alignment is right on. What do you have to lose? You can set it your way and then have it checked.http://www.spydercomfort.com/about.htm

[PMK]

SailnDive, what type race car did you run?

FWIW, if you want to go forward with setting up the chassis, you can go inexpensive and insert the upper A arms and use rod ends. This will give some range of castor and camber. Toe is already there.

The Spyder is a pretty basic setup, most closely resembles an old school race kart or garden tractor when it comes to the front end adjustability.

In my opinion, the Spyder and whatever method of alignment is utilized, has no assurance to obtain true centerline thrust.

Here's why. The engine is installed during the initial build. While doing this it is aligned to some dimension and definition. Everything, is based off this, but it is never checked nor adjusted except on the initial build.

Based on the engine alignment, the belt is tracked and this positions the rear wheel.

If the rear wheel is positioned where the rear axle or the wheels centerline plane does not split the front treadwidth exactly, the vehicle must ride with some rear wheel offset. All the toe adjustment in the world will never correct this.

Can it be corrected, yes, but will be a detailed process.

To give a visual to those that may not understand, imagine the capital letter "I"

In this "I" it is obvious the vertical portion and the fake front tires (quotes) all point straight while the vertical and horizontal portion of the I are at 90 degrees to each other. The lower portion of the Irepresents the rear axle.Also, the vertical portion of the I is centered on the horizontal portion. This is a true alignment for the Spyder. Everything is square and centered.

Now consider the italic "I". If the rear wheel position (bottom of the I) is not square to the vertical portion of the I, the centerline thrust is deviated. On this, notice that the front wheels (shown as quotes) and the bottom of the I are all square or true. Sadly though, you can see the rear tire / rear axle (bottom of the I) is offset to the left from the true centerline, which is established by the equal distance of the front wheels to center AND the belt alignment based on an engine / countershaft not square to the vehicles centerline. The belt runs true, but the rear axle / rear wheel is not aligned with the centerline.

Using the simple keyboard to illustrate I hope this helped. The letter I is a simple representation.

To illustrate the vehicle traveling it is something like this.

"I" vs "I"

Regardless, I like the entire laser setup. I do admit though, our machine was aligned by myself using toe sticks and feel of how it handles.

The details of camber and castor are also important. Castor misalignment can have the vehicle pull to one side. Camber is also important, to establish the tire contact patch as the steering angle is turned away from straight. Currently, this is not adjustable and if balanced left vs right is a non issue, unless you reside where the roads are steeply crowned.

Again, hope it helped some folks understand how involved chassis design and setup can be.

PK

[Peter Aawen]

Good explanation PMK, thanks. :thumbup:

To add a bit more - Zero Camber is good for straight line driving but makes for poor or erratic steering response, a little negative Camber can improve steering/cornering response but too much negative can make the steering hyper sensitive. Incorrect positive or any negative Caster can cause 'steering wobbles' after you hit a bump &/or at certain speeds.... Teamed with little or incorrect toe, it can also make the vehicle 'dart' from side to side in response to irregularities in the road surface, & while dialling in a fair whack of toe-in can lessen that 'dartiness', it won't necessarily get rid of it & that much toe-in can cause excessive tire wear. Anything sound familiar yet??? :sour:

[PMK]

Wanted to add, in my opinion if it can be done, the best alignment is to square the chassis and wheels, then track the belt by aligning the countershaft.

PK

[SailnDive]

Thanks for the excellent info PK, that's about what I assumed just looking at the Spyder setup. My first race car was a Lotus super seven knockoff that raced as a Clubman in Australia. The Clubman formula was based on a front engine 1300 cc rear wheel drive that seated two(in theory). But the formula allowed a design that far exceeded the Lotus 7 that the class was based on.. My last (and best built) clubman had the engine set 6" off center and set so far back in the chassis that the drive shaft from transmission to live rear axle was only 8".

With me and fuel in the car the weight was 40% front-60% rear and nearly even side to side. All suspension pick-up points were by rod-ends and also adjustable up and down. The car ready to race was just under 1000 lbs and the engine produced over 140 HP. We were required to run a production transmission but we could use any gear ratio that the manufacturer listed...so we made up close ratio boxes with a first gear that did 60 MPH in first gear...and that took about 3 seconds. These cars are little rockets that handled great. I loved building and racing them. I'm currently building one that is designed to be road legal using a VW Rabbit engine mounted in the rear.

[SailnDive]

PMK said
"The details of camber and castor are also important. Castor misalignment can have the vehicle pull to one side. Camber is also important, to establish the tire contact patch as the steering angle is turned away from straight. Currently, this is not adjustable and if balanced left vs right is a non issue, unless you reside where the roads are steeply crowned."

If toe is the only thing that can be adjusted then this seems a moot point. It's hard to accept that the rear tire would not be installed straight with the engine/transmission assembly. Does that routinely happen? My dislike of computer control seems to rear it's head again.

[jcthorne]

PMK said
"The details of camber and castor are also important. Castor misalignment can have the vehicle pull to one side. Camber is also important, to establish the tire contact patch as the steering angle is turned away from straight. Currently, this is not adjustable and if balanced left vs right is a non issue, unless you reside where the roads are steeply crowned."

If toe is the only thing that can be adjusted then this seems a moot point. It's hard to accept that the rear tire would not be installed straight with the engine/transmission assembly. Does that routinely happen? My dislike of computer control seems to rear it's head again.




No it does not. It would be near impossible for a misaligned engine to track the belt straight with the rear sprocket AND have the belt positioned 1/16th off the inner flange. The chances of the frame and swing arm misalignment to coincide with the engine misalignment that precisely is not likely.

[PMK]

Thanks for the excellent info PK, that's about what I assumed just looking at the Spyder setup. My first race car was a Lotus super seven knockoff that raced as a Clubman in Australia. The Clubman formula was based on a front engine 1300 cc rear wheel drive that seated two(in theory). But the formula allowed a design that far exceeded the Lotus 7 that the class was based on.. My last (and best built) clubman had the engine set 6" off center and set so far back in the chassis that the drive shaft from transmission to live rear axle was only 8".

With me and fuel in the car the weight was 40% front-60% rear and nearly even side to side. All suspension pick-up points were by rod-ends and also adjustable up and down. The car ready to race was just under 1000 lbs and the engine produced over 140 HP. We were required to run a production transmission but we could use any gear ratio that the manufacturer listed...so we made up close ratio boxes with a first gear that did 60 MPH in first gear...and that took about 3 seconds. These cars are little rockets that handled great. I loved building and racing them. I'm currently building one that is designed to be road legal using a VW Rabbit engine mounted in the rear.

Ever heard of a Dutton. Friend had one he sort of inherited, Lotus 7 based body style with Ford 2 litre engine. Similar front end setup on his, rod ends and A arms. He gave it to another friend after he lost interest. The car was originally a club racer in Argentina, then brought to the US. I tried to convince the latest owner to make life easy and not deal with the 2l engine, find a 5 litre 90s Mustang and use it for the drivetrain and electronics. Would have been far less expensive.

I need to help my daughters hubby finish his car. He bought a mid 90s RX7 street legal racecar. Twin turbo rotary with intercooler and open exhaust. For some reason he gave up jut as the rotary was getting dialed in. Sold the entire rotary powerplant, gearbox and forced induction stuff and install a built LS1 setup. My daughters need to let him finish it and stop demanding he do yard work.

PK

[SailnDive]

I don't really like the idea of putting a heavy V8 in a light car and I know that the US hot rodders like to do this. But don't try to follow me thru a corner with one of these front heavy configurations. I will try to get 160 to 170 HP out of the VW 1600 bored out as far as I can and this will be really fast in an 1100 lb car. I could easily adapt many east/west engines to my design and I may consider a bigger one if I'm not happy with the VW.