Need to fix my refrigerator..., get it aligned for handling..... Options

[njccmd2002]

Yes, you read it right...

I took my convertible to the track this past weekend. Results were dismal.. lol. The engine cannot do everything. Of course the driver has to do a lot. But there are some things that help the driver.

The instructor took my car for a few laps. Scared the **** out me.. The power and torque are there, the handling and braking were not good, when he drove it...

His recommendations...

EBC yellow pads, need to go... they are good for a few laps, but they heat pretty quick..

Toyo R888 did ok job, he recommended slicks (not ready to go there yet), at first he did not know they were toyo, he thought tires were crap. When he gout out, and saw the r888, he recommended camber adjustments..


Facebook not the place to ask this.

What are the camber settings you have tried the most, and if any toe and any other recommendations...

the car felt like a refrigerator on wheels, hard to handle, and of course the added weight. not really going to buy a lotus, or a porsche..

but maybe adjusting the camber might improve..

front -1.5

rear -2.0

I Asked around, but are these good for the celica.......

other than fixing a few of my mistakes on the 2gr swap, the engine performed really good.... YAY

[Box]

I would try a little toe out on the front to help counter the wheels wanting to turn in under power as well as sharpen steering response, a little toe in on the rear for stability. So about 1/16th of an inch in both instances as a starting point. Being front wheel drive I'd run more camber in the front to reduce understeer. So might try -1.5 in the front and -1 in the rear as a starting point.

Of course that'd be a fairly conservative starting point, and you may need more aggressive to get it where you want but that should be the general gist of it since it is FWD. Ideally you could find someone that's been there and done that with a 6th gen. Another thing would be what suspension is on it in terms of springs, struts, and sways.

This post has been edited by Box: Sep 11, 2017 - 8:37 AM

[richee3]

I’m not at all surprised about the EBC pads. That’s what I’ve read about them from several other places. However, I’m stunned to hear that the R888’s didn’t perform all that well. I’m also surprised the instructor would recommend getting the R888’s off the car and go to slicks. Every instructor I’ve talked to has been adamant that you learn on a set of crappy all seasons and work your way up. All seasons will squeal and let you know they’re getting close to the limits, where R888’s and slicks just grip until they don’t.

I can’t really help you out with camber, but just wanted to throw my $0.02 out there.

[njccmd2002]

he did mention that about the tires, but when he realized it was r888 he just recommended camber settings. the ebc held well with my braking style. He did two hard laps driving it, and they were not doing a good job....

Box -

waiting to hear from anyone else, but that seems like a good start point, sad thing is, everytime i need to adjust, its 75 usd aligment lol...

[HardHead93]

This is all really good information! I was having a lot of cornering issues on the track as well. I think I will go in for a camber adjustment before the next track day. As far as brakes, I am using StopTech drill/slotted rotors and pads. They seem to be working well for me.

[njccmd2002]

This is all really good information! I was having a lot of cornering issues on the track as well. I think I will go in for a camber adjustment before the next track day. As far as brakes, I am using StopTech drill/slotted rotors and pads. They seem to be working well for me.

http://winhpde.com/

after research i found this...

http://winhpde.com/car-setup/track-alignment/

[Box]

I'd look into the Firestone lifetime alignment, especially since you're wanting to dial it in at the moment and it's a car you'll be keeping for some time it'd be worth it.

[Bitter]

What are your current alignment settings?

My off the cuff suggestion would be to start with -1.5 degree front camber and .2 degree toe in for the front and -2 degree rear camber with near zero rear toe. Those feel pretty good on my 7G, I know the rear suspension is totally different for the 6G, it should hold toe better under load being a 4 link rear setup. There's also the potential for the alignment changing under load if the stock rubber bushings are worn to mush.

[slavie]

Ok, saying the car handles poorly is like saying "Doctor, everything hurts". Does it understeer, oversteer, dive under braking, is it unstable at speed or in corners? What kind of setup do you have at the moment? Springs, struts, sway bars, bushings? I mean, there's a million questions to ask before any decent recommendation can be made.

If your instructor is suggesting slicks before you have the suspension dialed in, I would take his other recommendations with a grain of salt as well. Not all instructors are suspension wizards, and being one is not a requirement to become an instructor. Slicks won't fix anything for you, they'll mask some problems and make other problems worse. R888's are incredible tires, way more than you can handle to be honest in your first handful of track days, and/or until you learn more about car control and weight transfer.

As for brakes, here's what I have to say:
- more tire means you'll need more brakes. The more grip, the more heat brakes can generate before locking tires in shorter period of time. Go with slicks, and you'll likely need full race pads which will be intolerable and dangerous on the street (if you don't have dedicated brakes for track)
- removing rotor dust shields will help heat dissipation. The only downside is that your rotors will get wet in the rain, and will reduce your initial braking under such conditions. This is only applicable to the street, when you're driving down the highway in the rain for 10 min, your brakes wet and cold, and somebody cuts you off - your brakes will respond worse than if you had your heat shields on.
- rather than more heat-tolerant pad, brake cooling is a far, far better solution. Your brakes are overheating because they cannot dissipate heat as fast as you're generating it - help 'em out a bit, will you? I'm not saying this will allow you to stay with EBC Yellows, but it just might.

I ran EBC Yellows on all-season tires on my LeMons 6GC in the race and the brakes were wonderful. I have no dust shields or inner fenders though. Minimal pad wear, and I could brake really late into the corner, and never experienced any brake issues. I have Tein springs, 1/16" front toe out (about 2 degrees on each side) w/ -.6 camber (bent susp components, couldn't do any more though would rather run at least -1.5), stock rear toe and camber, worn out stock shocks, stock sway bars. Car handled great - turn in was fantastic, car overall felt neutral and very controllable. Welded in roll cage probably helped quite a bit, too, but that comes with the territory. Again, cheap all season tires.
The only problem I had was suspension bottoming out in long sweepers - result of **** shocks and no bump stops. So I'll replace shocks and put in bump stops next.

[jordisonjr]

I'm sure Tigawoods can chime in on this, I know he's done a bunch of AutoX racing. Too bad we can't tag members here.

[cheela]

I'm sure Tigawoods can chime in on this, I know he's done a bunch of AutoX racing. Too bad we can't tag members here.

don't worry, I got this. I'll tag him on fb.

[SwissFerdi]

Here is my last setup that served very well in autocross; neg front camber and zero toe to keep under steer at bay, some toe in at the rear so it swings around mo betta. I've never run anything but stock pads though, and you've got a lot more tire than I do (and brake).



This post has been edited by SwissFerdi: Sep 12, 2017 - 11:37 AM

[Tigawoods]

make the rear rotate.

The car is fine, you are the fridge, keep racing.




i have F1.5 R2.5

Unlimited alignment at Firestone so I can go in twice a day and make changes. You should just get out on track more before worrying about specs more than you already are.

I TL;DR slavies response but he covered most of it.
R888's are fine, you want tires that you can hear, you wont be able to hear slicks.
Yellows should be fine, just cool the brakes a bit more.


You should really get your car weighed and corner balanced. Your chassis and swap are odd and it would be helpful to figure out what you are working with

[njccmd2002]

lol, thanks for responses..

the car really feels like a brick. Tigawoods possibly nailed it. The engine swap and the car being a convertible must make it a handle odd. Im guessing my curb weight is 2800 if not more.

Really wont be able to corner balance the car for now. Dont have coilovers...

Im running trd lowering springs and kyb struts... I have sway bars, Suspension technique. The car feels heavy when cornering and hard to steer.

Im fine with the R888, not changing them. I question the yellow pads with the cars weight, will see into cooling them off..

As far as alignment, i wish i had the specs. but they are the OEM ones from firestone... lol...

One of the biggest issue is I need better seats and seatbelts.

need to have the car weighed. and need a dyno very soon....


lol oem curb weight is 2755....

anyone has an idea what is the weight of the 5sfe..

[njccmd2002]

the 2gr according to wikipedia is 366 pounds with fluids.... mr2 forums state 383 pounds

found in the mr2 forums the 5sfe is 385


different source is

5s-fe 429 lbs
3s-gte 413 lbs (no turbo on it and w/o intercooler)
1mz-fe 401 lbs
3vz-fe 459 lbs
2gr-fe 369 lbs

S-54 (na tranny) = 90 lbs
E-153 (turbo tranny) = 135 lbs

so on average i should be equal or heavier by a few pounds give or take 10 to 20 more

This post has been edited by njccmd2002: Sep 12, 2017 - 3:10 PM

[Box]

Feeling heavy and hard to steer would lead me to think alignment is partially responsible. If the struts are older and have close to 50K miles on them they're probably due for a change. Really don't have much options for coil-overs anymore outside of the Taiwan parts bin stuff, though I have come across some Tein sets at a cost. I would say you could just try some new performance struts, but no one makes them for the 6th gen apparently. Another thing that comes to mind is how wide are the rims front and back?

[Bitter]

Heavy steering could mean that the caster is off, especially since you had the front frame off and stuff.

[Tigawoods]

having better seats and belts will have you sliding around alot less. Not having to worry about keeping your body straight lets you focus more on the wheel and give you a better feeling of how the car is pitching and rotating

[slavie]

But really, best alignment will simply be more track time. A different instructor might be able to give you better pointers. Some instructors are good, some make you wonder...

I've had great instructors. I've had terrible instructors. The worst was this former indy car driver; I'm sure the guy was a great driver - you kinda have to be to work your way up that high - but the dude could not explain sh!t to another human being cause all he was tripping over his giant ego all the time. Same weekend as that (this was winter driving school), the other instructor was this women whom I think had rally background: she was able to read a student and what they were doing wrong, and explain it in terms that student could understand. Another time I had this 993 Porsche owner who could barely mask his condescending attitude towards my peasant Camry and told me that I need to back off the throttle cause I'm "driving too close to the limit" (whereas all the instructors I've had in it till and since that weekend always ended saying they never imagined a Camry could be made to drive like that). You get the drift.

Back off the gas on the straights - it's fun to go for top speed the first couple of times, but braking at the end of that straight puts a lot of heat into the brakes right before the turns start.
Don't go into a turn too hot, you'll bleed all the speed and time to tire squeal. Play around with your corner entry speed. If the car "feels heavy", you may be understeering, probably carrying too much speed into the corner.
Check your air pressures (easiest, though limited, way to adjust balance). Check how much your tire's contact patch actually makes contact in corners.

And remember, don't blame the car. The master never blames his tools.

[Bitter]

Always blame the car!

Toe out being off can make heavy steering too since you're fighting with the tires wanting to go two different directions all the time, it'll make initial turn in feel heavy and then it'll want to whip around the turn and not go back to center easily. Get a good alignment with stock settings all dialed in right and then go and make changes from that. Have you had it aligned at all since the swap?