Advice setting up Nitrons
Discussion
Had the Cerb out for its first wet trackday on Friday, and boy was it wet - the conditions were as bad as I've ever seen Knockhill, and it was the first time I've ever seen them red flag a live session purely down to the weather. All not helped by a Skyline that blew an oil seal in the first couple of laps leaving some of the corners seriously trecherous.
Anyway, I was a bit disappointed with the Cerb in the conditions - it was proper tip-toing stuff. It wanted to swap ends under power, under braking, in the corners - everywhere. A p-ride in a jap-spec Civic Type-R showed that he was carrying more than double my corner speed through even the quick mid-radius stuff, where I would have thought the differences should be smallest.
Now, I know there's not much "wrong" as such, because I've had the car round the ring in the dry and the handling was amazing, so I suspect it's primarily down to a combination of geo and suspension settings (I know Joolz set it up as hard as was tollerable on the road for the ring trip).
Problem is, I've no idea what I'm doing, so I don't really want to start twiddling the knobs on the dampers, only to find that I've wrecked the handling for both wet and dry. I also want to know if I can make the car suitable for both wet and dry trackdays in its current form, or whether I'm better off going back to TCS and setting things up to be a better compromise (esp. given I live in Scotland and a fair portion of the trackdays are going to be wet).
Can anyone offer some adise on setting Nitrons up, or even better a set of ballpark settings for wet and dry?
Anyway, I was a bit disappointed with the Cerb in the conditions - it was proper tip-toing stuff. It wanted to swap ends under power, under braking, in the corners - everywhere. A p-ride in a jap-spec Civic Type-R showed that he was carrying more than double my corner speed through even the quick mid-radius stuff, where I would have thought the differences should be smallest.
Now, I know there's not much "wrong" as such, because I've had the car round the ring in the dry and the handling was amazing, so I suspect it's primarily down to a combination of geo and suspension settings (I know Joolz set it up as hard as was tollerable on the road for the ring trip).
Problem is, I've no idea what I'm doing, so I don't really want to start twiddling the knobs on the dampers, only to find that I've wrecked the handling for both wet and dry. I also want to know if I can make the car suitable for both wet and dry trackdays in its current form, or whether I'm better off going back to TCS and setting things up to be a better compromise (esp. given I live in Scotland and a fair portion of the trackdays are going to be wet).
Can anyone offer some adise on setting Nitrons up, or even better a set of ballpark settings for wet and dry?
Setting up a car's suspension is a bit of a 'Black Art'. Someone who really knows what they are doing, can just take the car for a drive, and will know exactly what to do just by "feel".
Having said that, quite honestly I'm not surprised that something like a Civic Type 'R' can run rings round a Cerb on a wet twisty circuit. The Cerb is an 'old school' (wether we like it ot not) powerful, rear wheel drive performance car, more suited to dry tracks with sweeping bends and long straights where it's power advantage can be used.
On a wet day my Wifes little Clio can be driven faster round a slippery roundabout than my Cerb.
Having said that, quite honestly I'm not surprised that something like a Civic Type 'R' can run rings round a Cerb on a wet twisty circuit. The Cerb is an 'old school' (wether we like it ot not) powerful, rear wheel drive performance car, more suited to dry tracks with sweeping bends and long straights where it's power advantage can be used.
On a wet day my Wifes little Clio can be driven faster round a slippery roundabout than my Cerb.
JensenA said:
Having said that, quite honestly I'm not surprised that something like a Civic Type 'R' can run rings round a Cerb on a wet twisty circuit. The Cerb is an 'old school' (wether we like it ot not) powerful, rear wheel drive performance car, more suited to dry tracks with sweeping bends and long straights where it's power advantage can be used.
On a wet day my Wifes little Clio can be driven faster round a slippery roundabout than my Cerb.
Oh, absolutely agreed. The Civic comparison meant more in terms of pure lateral Gs, and the sheer degree of the difference between the two cars. On a wet day my Wifes little Clio can be driven faster round a slippery roundabout than my Cerb.
I know its not a tyre issue, because straight line traction wasn't too bad, but on some of the corners, especially those with camber changes or crests, it was like a pea on a tight drumskin.
If Camber changes on the road affected your car badly, get the Geo settings checked, they make a big difference on the Cerbera. I've been working at Euphoria Racing recently and he sets up cars for the track. One of the things he mentioned is that having the suspension set up 'hard' is not always the best way to go. He showed me a Tuscan Racer in the garage, and I was amazed at just how soft the rear suspension was.
To be fair the road car v race car comparison isn't really valid, race tuscans rarely have to carry luggage, passengers, 60 litres of fuel etc .. however the advice about running soft is good : i always say run as soft as you can get away with on the road meaning the minimum damping which gets you the ride/handling/grip compromise you require.
In the wet you would want to run softer, but as the damping is the only thing you can reasonably adjust you're bit stuck with the springs/roll bars. Softening off your dampers may well have helped make the car less twitchy but to be fair if it's pouring down with rain and you can't get access to a dry pit garage and a couple of high lift jacks to make access past dirty wet wheels and tyres easier you're better off leaving alone, staying dry and modifying your driving style to suit the conditions rather than modifying the car.
If you think the car is too stiff as a package at the moment for the type of work you intend doing then you can certainly go softer.
Geo in the wet makes surprisingly little difference to the handling unles you have proper wet day race tyres which generate more grip than road tyres.
The other thing to look at is your wet da driving style. Some people like me enjoy provoking the car to slide early and dealing with that through throtle and steering inputs, others like to gently massage the car towards the braking/cornering and try to avoid sliding at all cost. Some dedicated wet track tuition could well reap rewards if you think teh cr is too twitchy .. it could be that the car is fine and you need to drive it differently, or it could be that as you say the car does need changing.
In the wet you would want to run softer, but as the damping is the only thing you can reasonably adjust you're bit stuck with the springs/roll bars. Softening off your dampers may well have helped make the car less twitchy but to be fair if it's pouring down with rain and you can't get access to a dry pit garage and a couple of high lift jacks to make access past dirty wet wheels and tyres easier you're better off leaving alone, staying dry and modifying your driving style to suit the conditions rather than modifying the car.
If you think the car is too stiff as a package at the moment for the type of work you intend doing then you can certainly go softer.
Geo in the wet makes surprisingly little difference to the handling unles you have proper wet day race tyres which generate more grip than road tyres.
The other thing to look at is your wet da driving style. Some people like me enjoy provoking the car to slide early and dealing with that through throtle and steering inputs, others like to gently massage the car towards the braking/cornering and try to avoid sliding at all cost. Some dedicated wet track tuition could well reap rewards if you think teh cr is too twitchy .. it could be that the car is fine and you need to drive it differently, or it could be that as you say the car does need changing.
trackcar said:
The other thing to look at is your wet da driving style. Some people like me enjoy provoking the car to slide early and dealing with that through throtle and steering inputs, others like to gently massage the car towards the braking/cornering and try to avoid sliding at all cost. Some dedicated wet track tuition could well reap rewards if you think teh cr is too twitchy .. it could be that the car is fine and you need to drive it differently, or it could be that as you say the car does need changing.
My driving style is somewhere in between those two extremes - I generally try and keep things neat and tidy and maximise corner speed, but with a little showboating out of the slower stuff. Given the conditions on the day, I was being a bit more sideways, coz there wasn't much fun to be had chasing lap-times, although the amount of standing water scared me off getting too lairy.I wouldn't describe the car as "twitchy" - its pretty progressive in its sideways-ness (although quite quick to go), and always very responsive to correction - its just that the limits of lateral grip were so shockingly low.
Given today's comments, and last week's "brown trouser moment", I think I should bring the car in to get the geo checked, just in case.
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