Brake Bias

[bigk44]

What is a good starting point for front to rear brake bias? Here is my problem: on a tacky track car is good. As the track dries out car gets extremely loose on entry off throttle on brake. I move all the brake to the front car gets better nut still loose, my guages show 500lbs front and 250lbs rear. Should I unhook the bias adjuster and put more front brake in? I have also tried moving the RH lower 4 link bar all the way down, car stays the same. Any suggestions would be a great help.
Thanks,
Kevin

[jason29a]

Im sure some people are going to want to know the rest of his set up.... But please address the brake question.... And mind as well go into caliper pistion size, rotor size and shape, brake pad compound and master cyclinder bore.... We could probably leave out driving style even though thats a big part of it.

I just believe this is a great question and Im interested in hearing what others are doing.

[AmickRacing]

Every driver is different, I personally seem to run better when all the brakes are doing their fair share of the work. I still move the adjuster front to back. I'm pretty close to even on the adjuster rods, I typically start 3-4 turns from the back (out of 16 turns) for tack, and usually end up about 5 turns from the front in the very slick conditions (don't happen much around here).

I know the brakes effect the car a lot, but I also like the car to do it's own thing when I'm going into the corner, so I try to adjust the car as best I can so it knows what to do, and the driver (me) doesn't have to do as much compensating with brakes and other factors that can impart human error into the equation.

If you go all the way to the front, and feel like you need more front brake, then give it some more front brake. The car will tell you what it wants. Just don't get too carried away or you'll start having problems steering since the traction is being used up for braking.

Also, if you're laying onto the front heavily going into the corner, those tires are planted harder, so they can afford to have some more braking forces on them vs the rear.

Lastly, trail-brake. Way easier said than done, but if you ride the throttle a bit going into the corner, you'll be taking away some of the rear tires braking abilities by over powering the brakes with the engine, and also by not letting the compression of the motor slow the back tires down in addition to the brakes. Seems like the more RPM you turn, and/or the higher # gear you're running, the more of an effect trail-braking has.

[Matt49]

If you're at full front brakes and the car is still crazy loose under braking, I would look at a softer 6th coil or look at stiffening the rebound on the 5th coil shock if that's an option. Especially if the normal tricks to tighten the car on entry are not working which it sounds like they are not.
I'm guessing that under braking in the slick, the rear end is pulling away from the race track abruptly which is causing a loss of grip in the rear. A softer 6th coil will help with this. Trail braking will help also but when you get into traffic and get to racing somebody you can't always trail brake the way you want and you'll be fighting a loose race car again.
Just my opinion.

[Egoracing]

If you're at full front brakes and the car is still crazy loose under braking, I would look at a softer 6th coil or look at stiffening the rebound on the 5th coil shock if that's an option. Especially if the normal tricks to tighten the car on entry are not working which it sounds like they are not.
I'm guessing that under braking in the slick, the rear end is pulling away from the race track abruptly which is causing a loss of grip in the rear. A softer 6th coil will help with this. Trail braking will help also but when you get into traffic and get to racing somebody you can't always trail brake the way you want and you'll be fighting a loose race car again.
Just my opinion.

I would also look at the adjuster unless you set it up and tested it. We had one on a car that was bought new complete, and we had issues. We could adjust the the thing to the way to the front and still turn the front tires by hand. We found that the gauges read front heavy but they were off, WAY OFF. A new set of guages showed that the setup was more like 30/70 front to rear.

[bigk44]

Thanks for all the advise. The adjuster was the problem. I adjusted the balance bar so I would get more front brake, WOW what a difference. I did not realize how important entry is, it makes a huge difference on the exit........