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front wheel drive and caster


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Can anyone give me a first hand idea of how much caster you have added and any negative effects on a Fwd car? Specifically my car is a 90 integra, caster is pretty easy to make adjustable although it will put the lower control arm bushing in a bind so I will have to adjust that also if I go very far. We run power steering so steering effort is not much of a concern. The car has upper and lower control arms with a radius rod and I will be making the radius rod adjustable. Just looking to make a medium swing at a change on a car that will have to go untested to the next event. 

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4 hours ago, 3G said:

How much caster is stock?  

From what I have read .5 to 1.2 is the range for a street alignment. The caster is not adjustable stock so that accounts for the range. The forums seem to have a lot of misinformation on axles breaking to weird handling tendiencies. I am going to add some caster but want to avoid any ill handling as I won't be able to test the car before next race. I have read a few setups running 3 to 3.5 degrees but that still seems very conservative. 

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We added caster to a FWD VW.  I believe Stock is near 0. 
While we have not accuratly measured it, I am fairly certain it is near 2.5deg.
I have also added camber on the same chassis, and it ended up ~6deg (accurate measure) but it was also converted to RWD.

On the BOTH  cars, the results are only positive in handling and high speed stability.

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You are probally limited by packaging and room more than from a performance standpoint. Think of these trade offs...

 

Caster (or castor for you fancy pants) will help (when turning) increase camber, self center the steering, transfer weight to loosen up car and help loosen up car the further you steer wheel. Taken too far the steering effort gets so high it masks any feel for the front tires, kills your arms, can make the car too loose when turning and can make the steering too responsive from very fast weight transfer changes with wheel angle (think tank slapper on a bike). If you make it over 10deg of caster call us, otherwise just toss it in.

 

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