Loose! Loose! Loose! I think?????

[TWISTER]

For quite some time now been fighting a "loose off" condition. It seems no matter what i do to the car the driver is always telling me the car is loose form the center off and has no drive or side bite. I have tried every set up known to man, i think, LOL, and the results seem to be the same. I have tried stacked springs, dual stage springs,bump stops,different shock settings, different weights, short torque arm, long torque arm, lots of bar angle, no bar angle, j bar up on frame, j bar down on frame, up on pinion down on pinion,put gear in the car, took gear out of the car, detuned carb to alleviate throttle response, lots of stagger,no stagger,rr lead,to lr lead, different sets of shocks,indexing lr,different spindles and front end settings, no lr front shock, gas lr front shock, and about anything else you can think of, LOL. The car is not bent as we have had that checked and nothing is in a "bind". Rear end in car is also straight as that has been checked as well. I've almost reached the point of giving up as it seems as i am making no headway on this issue. Tracks around here for the most part are relatively dry and slick and all we are doing is burning up tires every week. Mainly the rr but most of the time its both rear tires. we run all steel motor late models. Car is 2006 GRT under rail. Does anyone have any insight what might be going on here? Anything at all!
Thanks

[rubbinsracin]

how much wedge are you running? what are your percentages?

[dualdj1]

what do your tire temps look like coming off the track? What compound are you running? What gear and where are you chipped at? Give us details on your "best" setup attempt

Also remember that bad entry setup can cause loose out and burning tires, if he's breaking them loose to turn it.

[TWISTER]

Best set up attempt..... your opinion or mine? LOL.
Well lets see........
>LF Spring 500-525 Shock 5c/5r

>LR 200 lb spring Shock 7c/2r-9c/2r, no shock in front as i have been told on
a GRT that is how to develop the most traction.
>RF Spring-everything(i have been all over the place with this) Shock- 3c-6r mostly

>RR Spring 225-250(200 on an occasion) Shock 3c/5r mostly

>5th Coil Spring 300@36" preloaded 1/4" (tried as low as 250 and as much as 350)
Shock 3c/7r

>6th Coil Spring 400 lb.
>Shocks are Afco T2's.

>4 bar locations
TLR 7th hole up (2 holes above standard,have been all the way in the top hole)
BLR 2nd hole up (standard)
TRR 5th hole down (1 hole below standard)
BRR 3rd hole up (1 hole below standard)

>Bite usually around 150 lbs.
>Stagger 0"-1" front 3" rear

>Percentages:
Left- 54%
Rear- 55.5% mostly but been anywhere from 52.5% to 57%
These percentages are with driver in the car.

>Weight ballast, approx 125 lbs. is mounted mostly high in the car to get weight transfer to help with the side bite issue. Approx 75 lbs towards rear of car. 50 lb in middle of car.
>Rear end would be square.
>J Bar bottom hole on pinion and 9 1/4 inches on chassis.
>Gear varies depending on track.
>For the most part it is soft tires an occasional med tire. I am running same tire that everyone else in my class is running.
>This would be a "typical" set up for us and make adjustments from there.

Again this is pretty much where we would be at the END of the night on our set up for a relatively dry track. As i have already said i have been all over the place with this stuff.

Good Luck!

[routierracing]

I don't usually give a lot of advice because I'm no expert but seems like you need more rear stagger. 4-5 inches. What you could be seeing is that the car is actually so tight he's having to put it in a slide and break the tires loose coming off. This would make it feel like he is on the edge of spinning out and some would think of it as loose.

[rubbinsracin]

id probably put something like a 400-425 on the RF to see what that does. id also try running a traction shock. something like a 6c-0r with 125 psi.
you might want to try like a 250 on the lr and a 200-225 on the rr
maybe try dropping the TLR bar on the bird cage a hole or so and see what happens there.

also, have you tried having another driver from the track take the car out and see what they think. we did this one time with the driver of my car before i took over driving and he said the car felt great. biggest thing you have to do is setup for the "driver" and not necessarily what the "book" tells you to do.

since he is burning the tires he might be better served to go into the corner easier allowing him keep the car straighter and therefore make it easier for the car to gain forward drive.

[hall99]

TLR 7th hole up (2 holes above standard,have been all the way in the top hole)

This can cause to much steer creating a loose feel as well.

[joedoozer]

Like the saying if you screw up corner entry......then the entire corner is screwed up.

That's how it was in my case on the drier/slick track, I was over driving corner entry. Carrying in too much speed and the car had no side bite in the middle and it was spinning coming off. If I tried to back the corner up and roll into the corner off throttle, it was very tight and pushed badly. So I thought to solve that was to drive in harder....this causing the sliding around like a bar of soap in a bath tub problem I was having. Is the driver barreling into the corner faster than other guys? Once I was able to free up corner entry some more, I could roll the car in and pick the throttle up sooner. And then soon finding out my "loose middle and off" problem I had was me. Which ended up with me needing to loosen corner exit......which is the opposite of what I thought my initial problem was.

Not sure if that is your case. Just thought I would share what happened to me. It might apply.....

[Graff Spee]

Just throwin this out there, you sound as if you may be a bit tight. The driver could be getting the car loose just to get it to turn. That would explain the loose out problem. I would loosen the car and see what happens. What it does going in will dictate the rest of the turn. I have found this to be true on more than one occasion!!!

[grt74]

pm me i can help some

[Matt49]

pm me i can help some

Ask the driver which way he is cranking the brake bias adjuster during the race. Or better yet, check it after the race for yourself. That will tell you everything you need to know about the car on corner entry. If its cranked to the rear, it's too tight on entry.
I'm not a GRT guy but J-bar all the way down on pinion with 9+" on the frame sounds like WAY too much rake for any car. I'm thinking that would make corner entry and middle VERY tight and then your driver is lighting up the tires to get the car turned.
Others are saying the same thing in different words. Free up your entry and see what happens.

[jedclampit]

With all you have tried........I'd have to change the nut behind the wheel and see what I had.

[TWISTER]

I do agree with you guys too. I do think the car is too tight on entry, but as we all know i have to go off the feedback from the driver. Well you are supposed too anyway. One thing i did fail to mention, which would have probably just solidified everyone's opinions, he is a "throw and go" style driver. Which is great sometime but not all the time as we all know. I talked to a couple of locals last night and they also agreed that it is the entry that is killing the car. I too had pretty much come to that conclusion as well, just wanted to help confirm my observation and diagnosis.
I have totally changed my set up for this week and i sure hope he don't try the throw thing cause he will be spun out. LOL!!!! But of course i am gonna tell him how "free" the car is set up. Not "loose", but "free". I have been working all this time to tighten up, this week i will be working on freeing up (the entry and let the exit fix itself). I do appreciate everyone"s thoughts and opinions on my issue, and appreciate all the help.


With all you have tried........I'd have to change the nut behind the wheel and see what I had.

THIS WILL BE THE NEXT STEP!!!!!! At least have someone else "try" the car in a practice session or something, or after the race, if the problem persist again this week after all my changes.

Again thanks to everyone.

[rubbinsracin]

id stick a 425 spring on the RF which will make him feel like a push going in if he is driving to hard into the corner. which would keep him straighter than he probably is now, which will make that car drive like crazy of the corner

[timmayb]

Might want to consider raising the rr spring if he's a throw n go. And start adding wedge, also check to make sure your ballspline isn't screwed up or something of that nature.

[racedad17]

do like i do when the driver doesnt want to make the same changes, make your changes during the week when hes not around and dont tell him, then see what he thinks, if he likes it then tell him what you did and then hell start listening to your suggestions on changes and more likely to go along with the next one. it seems to work for us.
good luck

[dualdj1]

Timmay by raising the spring, do you mean lowering your RR ride height?

[F22 RAPTOR]

I do agree with you guys too. I do think the car is too tight on entry, but as we all know i have to go off the feedback from the driver. Well you are supposed too anyway. One thing i did fail to mention, which would have probably just solidified everyone's opinions, he is a "throw and go" style driver. Which is great sometime but not all the time as we all know. I talked to a couple of locals last night and they also agreed that it is the entry that is killing the car. I too had pretty much come to that conclusion as well, just wanted to help confirm my observation and diagnosis.
I have totally changed my set up for this week and i sure hope he don't try the throw thing cause he will be spun out. LOL!!!! But of course i am gonna tell him how "free" the car is set up. Not "loose", but "free". I have been working all this time to tighten up, this week i will be working on freeing up (the entry and let the exit fix itself). I do appreciate everyone"s thoughts and opinions on my issue, and appreciate all the help.



THIS WILL BE THE NEXT STEP!!!!!! At least have someone else "try" the car in a practice session or something, or after the race, if the problem persist again this week after all my changes.

Again thanks to everyone.

Throw and go will never work on dry/slick, no matter what you do setup wise. You need to adjust the nutt behind the wheel, maybe even replace it if need be. JMO

[tomuchbite]

First thing to do is take the rear end out of car and check for bent tube or bell, if the rear end is bent it will never handle or respond to change. then pull and check both front spindles . Next dyno the shocks to see if a shock is bad.
Never just throw a different setup and the car and hope it works , Work the problem in the shop first and know what you are taking to the track , and test and improve, 50 % of the time a handling problem is lack of up-keep to catch a simple problem.


Good Luck!!!!!!

[TWISTER]

It appears the problem has been somewhat resolved. Car was too tight on corner entry. We loosened the car up tremendously on corner entry and the results were a whole lot better. Of course the driver about spun out a couple of times before he started driving thr car like it was supposed to be driven and picked up a lot of time. And no i didnt tell him what we had done to the car until after the fact and of course he was mad at first, but after i proved to him by this, that "HE" was the actual problem, by telling me the car was loose by his driving style and causing me to continue to tighten the car when it was already too tight, it was then that he chilled out some. Of course like "most" drivers, it is always the car and they never do anything wrong. LOL! He moped around and pouted for awhile,after realizing it was him, but he got over it and went out and drove a good race!!!!We didn't win, but we had a good race with improvements!!
Anyway, wanna thank everyone for their thought and opinions. Some i used.....and well.........some i didn't. LOL!!

[dualdj1]

Nice work!

[timmayb]

dualdj1

i mean raise the spring rate, should have been more clear about that. That may still work for you now that you have the car free'd up.

[dualdj1]

Thanks for the clarification.