Sprinting a Cerbera - Suspension set up
Discussion
Hi - hope someone can advise - I sprint my standard 4.2 V8 next Monday at Curborough - can't wait!!
Suspension wise it has recent GAZ Gold Pros all round
In terms of stiffness I had them all set at 3x clicks off softest setting - for the road this was very suitable and not too harsh
Last weekend I thought I would stiffen up and set them all to 5 clicks from the firmest setting (on full firm setting it would only be drivable on a dead flat surface) - this is pretty firm and I bob up and down on normal roads while driving far too much
For sprinting I was wondering whether the rear should be set a little less firm while the front could be set a little stiffer?
Any advise very welcome - many thanks
Nigel
Suspension wise it has recent GAZ Gold Pros all round
In terms of stiffness I had them all set at 3x clicks off softest setting - for the road this was very suitable and not too harsh
Last weekend I thought I would stiffen up and set them all to 5 clicks from the firmest setting (on full firm setting it would only be drivable on a dead flat surface) - this is pretty firm and I bob up and down on normal roads while driving far too much
For sprinting I was wondering whether the rear should be set a little less firm while the front could be set a little stiffer?
Any advise very welcome - many thanks
Nigel
Firstly well done on competing a Cerb!
Probably need to know some more details before I can give too much meaningful advise.
What spring rates do you have?
Are you still running rear ARB?
What tyres are you using?
What is your driving style? I.e are you comfortable with some oversteer?
Are the shocks two way adjustable or just singles?
Happy to help with any questions.
Mike
Probably need to know some more details before I can give too much meaningful advise.
What spring rates do you have?
Are you still running rear ARB?
What tyres are you using?
What is your driving style? I.e are you comfortable with some oversteer?
Are the shocks two way adjustable or just singles?
Happy to help with any questions.
Mike
The shock info dosnt say what the spring rates are, I would guess they have probably gone with 350 and 275 as that seems the norm for GAZ.
With just one adjuster that means they are a single adjustable, when you turn the adjuster you are changing both the rebound and the damping.
The Cerb is a very understeery car on the limit, once you get used to pushing on finding front end grip will become you main limiting factor.
You will find that the car understeer and then snaps into oversteer making you feel like the car is rear grip limited.
What I would recomend to start with is to stiffen the rear up a bit and leave the front.
You are quite limited with your shocks on what you can do so I would advise spending more time on getting the geo of the car correct. The Cerb loves negative camber at the front, I would aim for 3.5 degrees to start with. Easily changed on the Cerb.
I would also disconnect the rear arb, this will induce a touch more understeer but make the rear much more predictable.
Where is your sprint?
With just one adjuster that means they are a single adjustable, when you turn the adjuster you are changing both the rebound and the damping.
The Cerb is a very understeery car on the limit, once you get used to pushing on finding front end grip will become you main limiting factor.
You will find that the car understeer and then snaps into oversteer making you feel like the car is rear grip limited.
What I would recomend to start with is to stiffen the rear up a bit and leave the front.
You are quite limited with your shocks on what you can do so I would advise spending more time on getting the geo of the car correct. The Cerb loves negative camber at the front, I would aim for 3.5 degrees to start with. Easily changed on the Cerb.
I would also disconnect the rear arb, this will induce a touch more understeer but make the rear much more predictable.
Where is your sprint?
itsallyellow said:
The shock info dosnt say what the spring rates are, I would guess they have probably gone with 350 and 275 as that seems the norm for GAZ.
With just one adjuster that means they are a single adjustable, when you turn the adjuster you are changing both the rebound and the damping.
The Cerb is a very understeery car on the limit, once you get used to pushing on finding front end grip will become you main limiting factor.
You will find that the car understeer and then snaps into oversteer making you feel like the car is rear grip limited.
What I would recomend to start with is to stiffen the rear up a bit and leave the front.
You are quite limited with your shocks on what you can do so I would advise spending more time on getting the geo of the car correct. The Cerb loves negative camber at the front, I would aim for 3.5 degrees to start with. Easily changed on the Cerb.
I would also disconnect the rear arb, this will induce a touch more understeer but make the rear much more predictable.
Where is your sprint?
OK thanks will try it - sprint is at Curborough with RSSOC (Scimitar Owners Club - was going to sprint my Cossie 24v conversion but thought I'd give the Cerb a goWith just one adjuster that means they are a single adjustable, when you turn the adjuster you are changing both the rebound and the damping.
The Cerb is a very understeery car on the limit, once you get used to pushing on finding front end grip will become you main limiting factor.
You will find that the car understeer and then snaps into oversteer making you feel like the car is rear grip limited.
What I would recomend to start with is to stiffen the rear up a bit and leave the front.
You are quite limited with your shocks on what you can do so I would advise spending more time on getting the geo of the car correct. The Cerb loves negative camber at the front, I would aim for 3.5 degrees to start with. Easily changed on the Cerb.
I would also disconnect the rear arb, this will induce a touch more understeer but make the rear much more predictable.
Where is your sprint?
Thanks again Nigel
[quote=The DogsterLast weekend I thought I would stiffen up and set them all to 5 clicks from the firmest setting (on full firm setting it would only be drivable on a dead flat surface) - this is pretty firm and I bob up and down on normal roads while driving far too much
[/quote]
And here is why you need decent shocks..
[/quote]
And here is why you need decent shocks..
Byker28i said:
Is it a single event or have you entered a series.
If it's a single event - would you be better leaving the car as you are used to?
I'd say this ... If it's a single event - would you be better leaving the car as you are used to?
it's impossible to tell you what you need really because nobody knows how your car is set up, what you are like as a driver, or even what the conditions on the day will be like.
curborough is tight and twisty, its not great for a cerb at the best of times .. do you want to be starting learning new car characteristics? Don't change too much.
If anything you need a pointy faithful front end and all youve got is the damper adjuster so on the front ramp that up quite a bit harder and leave the rear at road settings .. you sadly can't separate out the rebound and compression but what will really help your front end turn in is more compression damping which will initially prop up the outer tyre as load transfers and increase its grip during the turn-in stage. The long sweeping right hander at the top end might then become a problem with the extra rebound causing the inner front tyre to lift during the bumps as the tarmac drops away from the tyre which will give you a lot of kick back through the steering wheels as that tyre contact patch unloads/loads/unloads.
You will not get any temperature into the dampers so they will effectively be stiffer than on the road anyway where the oil will heat over time and thin thus reducing the damper oil viscosity... so even more reason not to go stiffening things up unduly.
Remove rear roll bar to give you more traction. corner entry front end grip and corner exit traction will be what you need on a short tight twisty track.
after a couple of runs, or even one run if youre in tune with your car, you could try some more adjustments, but only do the minimum to begin with and drive the car you already know, rather than a stiff, low bucking bronco. Keep a note of what you do and what the changes are .. it will be useful info for future reference.
spitfire4v8 said:
I'd say this ...
it's impossible to tell you what you need really because nobody knows how your car is set up, what you are like as a driver, or even what the conditions on the day will be like.
curborough is tight and twisty, its not great for a cerb at the best of times .. do you want to be starting learning new car characteristics? Don't change too much.
If anything you need a pointy faithful front end and all youve got is the damper adjuster so on the front ramp that up quite a bit harder and leave the rear at road settings .. you sadly can't separate out the rebound and compression but what will really help your front end turn in is more compression damping which will initially prop up the outer tyre as load transfers and increase its grip during the turn-in stage. The long sweeping right hander at the top end might then become a problem with the extra rebound causing the inner front tyre to lift during the bumps as the tarmac drops away from the tyre which will give you a lot of kick back through the steering wheels as that tyre contact patch unloads/loads/unloads.
You will not get any temperature into the dampers so they will effectively be stiffer than on the road anyway where the oil will heat over time and thin thus reducing the damper oil viscosity... so even more reason not to go stiffening things up unduly.
Remove rear roll bar to give you more traction. corner entry front end grip and corner exit traction will be what you need on a short tight twisty track.
after a couple of runs, or even one run if youre in tune with your car, you could try some more adjustments, but only do the minimum to begin with and drive the car you already know, rather than a stiff, low bucking bronco. Keep a note of what you do and what the changes are .. it will be useful info for future reference.
That's the kind of advice along with previous comments I was looking for thank you.....appreciate itit's impossible to tell you what you need really because nobody knows how your car is set up, what you are like as a driver, or even what the conditions on the day will be like.
curborough is tight and twisty, its not great for a cerb at the best of times .. do you want to be starting learning new car characteristics? Don't change too much.
If anything you need a pointy faithful front end and all youve got is the damper adjuster so on the front ramp that up quite a bit harder and leave the rear at road settings .. you sadly can't separate out the rebound and compression but what will really help your front end turn in is more compression damping which will initially prop up the outer tyre as load transfers and increase its grip during the turn-in stage. The long sweeping right hander at the top end might then become a problem with the extra rebound causing the inner front tyre to lift during the bumps as the tarmac drops away from the tyre which will give you a lot of kick back through the steering wheels as that tyre contact patch unloads/loads/unloads.
You will not get any temperature into the dampers so they will effectively be stiffer than on the road anyway where the oil will heat over time and thin thus reducing the damper oil viscosity... so even more reason not to go stiffening things up unduly.
Remove rear roll bar to give you more traction. corner entry front end grip and corner exit traction will be what you need on a short tight twisty track.
after a couple of runs, or even one run if youre in tune with your car, you could try some more adjustments, but only do the minimum to begin with and drive the car you already know, rather than a stiff, low bucking bronco. Keep a note of what you do and what the changes are .. it will be useful info for future reference.
The Dogster said:
Jhonno said:
And here is why you need decent shocks..
They are decent enough for me - I am not planning a sprint campaign - it is a one off - the coilovers do a good job outside of sprinting so they are fine thanksAre you doing the course that starts at the bottom of the circuit with the long straight to start or are you doing the Circuit that starts at the pit area which some clubs do.?
Good advice from Joolz.
I dialled up the front Dampers, kept stiffer antiroll bars front and rear and ran on Toyo tyres reducing the pressure by a couple of psi in the summer.
This led to reasonable front end and loads of rear wheel action which is always entertaining!
Good advice from Joolz.
I dialled up the front Dampers, kept stiffer antiroll bars front and rear and ran on Toyo tyres reducing the pressure by a couple of psi in the summer.
This led to reasonable front end and loads of rear wheel action which is always entertaining!
Jhonno said:
A decent shock would both ride and handle better in the same breath. Gaz are old tech, that go from under damped to pogo-ing down the road as you describe.
Decent shocks bring multiple benefits. You hear it all the time that "i don't need good shocks because i don't drive fast" .. well that's even more reason to have good shocks.!A good damper and spring package will minimise contact patch grip variation therefore maintain more consistent grip levels, a poor quality spring damper package will not give these benefits, so your inexperienced driver who is not used to driving on the limit will suffer more with a poor quality damper than an experienced driver who would be more used to catching slides, dealing with single wheel grip loss, etc etc.
Bottom line is that all drivers benefit from good suspension, but poor or inexperienced drivers potentially benefit more when things start to go wrong ..
itsallyellow said:
The shock info dosnt say what the spring rates are, I would guess they have probably gone with 350 and 275 as that seems the norm for GAZ.
With just one adjuster that means they are a single adjustable, when you turn the adjuster you are changing both the rebound and the damping.
The Cerb is a very understeery car on the limit, once you get used to pushing on finding front end grip will become you main limiting factor.
You will find that the car understeer and then snaps into oversteer making you feel like the car is rear grip limited.
What I would recomend to start with is to stiffen the rear up a bit and leave the front.
You are quite limited with your shocks on what you can do so I would advise spending more time on getting the geo of the car correct. The Cerb loves negative camber at the front, I would aim for 3.5 degrees to start with. Easily changed on the Cerb.
I would also disconnect the rear arb, this will induce a touch more understeer but make the rear much more predictable.
Where is your sprint?
Isn't 3.5deg of camber extreme for road use? OP is only doing the one sprint I believe, not campaigning the car. With just one adjuster that means they are a single adjustable, when you turn the adjuster you are changing both the rebound and the damping.
The Cerb is a very understeery car on the limit, once you get used to pushing on finding front end grip will become you main limiting factor.
You will find that the car understeer and then snaps into oversteer making you feel like the car is rear grip limited.
What I would recomend to start with is to stiffen the rear up a bit and leave the front.
You are quite limited with your shocks on what you can do so I would advise spending more time on getting the geo of the car correct. The Cerb loves negative camber at the front, I would aim for 3.5 degrees to start with. Easily changed on the Cerb.
I would also disconnect the rear arb, this will induce a touch more understeer but make the rear much more predictable.
Where is your sprint?
Also, interesting that the two main comments of advice are opposing (stiff rear v stiff front).
I love these topics!
The last thing you want on a tight twisty circuit is a car which is unfaithful to steering inputs .. a softly damped front end will understeer as soon as you start to turn the steering meaning you will have next to no chance of getting anywhere near the apex. If you run the front dampers stiff then the front becomes very responsive to initial steering inputs, and you will at least be aiming somewhere towards the apex before it might start to wash wide
I think where the confusion lies is that there is a difference between talking about stiffening springs, roll bars, and stiffening dampers.
I think where the confusion lies is that there is a difference between talking about stiffening springs, roll bars, and stiffening dampers.
Edited by spitfire4v8 on Friday 16th April 15:11
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