Daniel Allford
05-04-2012, 01:49 PM
Team 82 Red Shift Racing Set-up comments
I have had a great time racing with the CMC AI family. I have learned a LOT in the last 3 years which the Red Shift Racing Team would like to share with everyone. First off thanks to Richard for sharing his years of experience (and much of this document). To Craig for going racing with me for the last 15 years. To James, Michael, Glenn and all the other drivers who have shown me the line and answered my questions. I hope these notes help everyone to run in the front, or at least stir up some discussion. Some of the information is Camaro specific, sorry I don’t know ‘stangs, gotta ask Richard.
Cheap but important stuff
Tire pressure; Toyo currently recommends high 30’s to low 40’s hot. We guess cold pressures then bleed down to 40-42 front and 33-36 rear after the first session. Tire pressure needs to be taken within a couple minutes of leaving the track. Tire pressures taken 15 minutes later are useless junk. If you don’t have crew to do this, just ask Craig or Richard. That bulge in their pants is a pressure gauge.
The required cold pressures to get these hot pressures vary. Cold pressures are affected by the track, the direction run, ambient temperature, your driving style, and the amount of moisture inside the tire when it was mounted. So you need a test/warmup session to dial it in, but we have gotten good at guessing.
If you just grab our tire pressures and use them because they are “correct,” you are doing it wrong. Vary tire pressures to see what you like and what works best with your setup. Some very fast people are happy with hot pressures below 30. Remember that the front and rear tires are trying to accomplish different things and their pressures can be different.
Front camber on the Camaro -2 to -3 degrees. For us that is the limit of the slots plus another 1/8” of grinding. Make all the bolts tight and recheck camber periodically. I use a cheap digital level to check this. A bit more camber than this wouldn’t be a bad thing if you can get it.
Toe is important. An old autocrosser’s trick is to dial in a bunch of toe out. This gives the car great turn in and feels great. I recommend this… if you are going to autocross your CMC car. Toe out makes the car unstable under braking. We set toe at zero to 1/16” in BUT we run solid control arm bushings to avoid toe out under braking. If you still have rubber bushings (you shouldn’t), a bit more toe in wouldn’t be bad.
Caster; set it to the maximum the slots allow (fully forward). We don’t have a way to measure it so we just max it out.
Track width is important for overall grip. The difference between front and rear track is useful for tweaking handling. We use spacers to set the front track width to just under the legal limit. It helps turning and keeps the tires off brake ducts too. In the rear, wider will give less oversteer, narrower will tend to put power down better. Like tire pressure, the rear doesn’t have to match the front. Use good wheel studs( we use ARP) and quality wheel spacers.
Wear earplugs to save your hearing and cut distractions.
Costly but important stuff
Brakes; the best thing we added to the car was StopTech brakes. Solid, reliable, powerful. We are running Porterfield R4 pads. With the Stop Techs we were able to increase rear braking bias without wheel hop. On the rears we run cheap Auto Zone pads. We probably need to look into getting more rear brakes. We run Motul RBF 600 fluid.
Seat; the second best money we spent was on an Ultra Shield seat. It is safer and it holds me in place so I have one less thing to think about.
Brake bias adjuster; at least until we changed to StopTech front brakes this was essential to kill brake hop.
Brake ducts; The crew finds it disturbing to see glowing rotors and it doesn’t help pad or rotor life. We run Blaine brake plenums, ducting and scoops mounted in the bumper.
Tires; are going to be the biggest part of your budget, they are the price of admission. You can’t go fast, test or learn on crap tires. We shave to 5/32”
Rear spoiler; A small rear spoiler on a CMC car can both reduce drag and cancel rear lift. A bit larger spoiler can add a little downforce with minimal drag. Being slightly rear aero biased isn’t a bad thing. It allows the car to be set up to rotate well in tight, low speed corners while ensuring it will still be stable in high speed corners.
Springs, shocks and sway bars; Camaro specific, currently we are running very stiff at 1100lbs in the front and 300lbs in the back with 30 mm bar in the front and 19mm in the rear Unbalanced Engineering Bilstein shocks and it seems to work. Generally, softer rates will be easier to learn and to drive. We plan to experiment with softer rates. Report to follow.
Non Camaro specific, good balance is critical. Remember, loose is fast… well, unless you are in traffic, or trying to pass, or trying to keep from being passed, or trying to string together several consistent laps… like in a race. A collection of springs, sway bars, wheel spacers, etc. is useful to help get the car balanced. Your optimum solution could be slightly different for different tracks.
Solid front control arm bushings; Get rid of the rubber stuff. We use a Global West kit. Similar stuff is available for other platforms.
Replace the front hubs once you get any bearing play. It plays havoc with your alignment and causes brake pad knock back.
Get a good shifter and you won’t miss as many shifts. We run a MGW shifter it has a strong spring so you know where the 3-4 gate is.
Safety
I run a halon fire suppression system and a fuel cell. Total cost is around $2,000 but you would gladly write that check if you were burning.
Braided steel brake lines; More durable and you get a firmer pedal.
Forged rear axles; We run Superior Axle parts and ARP studs.
Mostly labor but worth the trouble
Dead pedal; I fabricated one which I secure to the cage with hose clamps.
Get rid of the VATS crap. Go on line and figure out how to eliminate the key resistor. (GM specific.)
Rewire everything you can. I built a simple switch panel with fuses and relays for the basic functions of the car. I ran everything through a 30 amp panel breaker which protects the circuit and acts as a main switch.
Dyno till you get what you want. We noticed that the front guys all run higher horse power (and weights)
Build a defroster; I welded up a pan mounted to the fire wall which collects heat from the fire wall. The hot air is drawn through a hose to a cheap bilge fan from Academy to blow on the windshield. (We don’t actually know that this works, yet)
Build an air dam which is within the rules. An air dam reduces front lift and aids engine cooling. I used Kydex plastic for mine it is readily available and indestructible.
Going Fast
Drive, drive, drive. Sign up for test days and attend Drivers Education events. I have learned more teaching and driving at TheDriversEdge.net than I have on race day. At a DE event the stress of performing is off so you can concentrate on driving. Bring your helmet to a Driver’sEdge event and catch a ride in the OrangeThing™.
Follow and learn from every driver you can. Chasing Michael, Glenn and James is a great education. As I have told them: “everything you teach me can and will be used against you on track”. They ought to give out certificates of completion to every driver who successfully hangs on their bumper during a practice session.
Read. In my opinion, if you only read one book it should be Drive to Win by Carroll Smith. All his books should be required reading.
Learn how to left foot brake and do it when it is appropriate.
Let’s go racing!
Dan Allford #82 CMC
Red Shift Racing
I have had a great time racing with the CMC AI family. I have learned a LOT in the last 3 years which the Red Shift Racing Team would like to share with everyone. First off thanks to Richard for sharing his years of experience (and much of this document). To Craig for going racing with me for the last 15 years. To James, Michael, Glenn and all the other drivers who have shown me the line and answered my questions. I hope these notes help everyone to run in the front, or at least stir up some discussion. Some of the information is Camaro specific, sorry I don’t know ‘stangs, gotta ask Richard.
Cheap but important stuff
Tire pressure; Toyo currently recommends high 30’s to low 40’s hot. We guess cold pressures then bleed down to 40-42 front and 33-36 rear after the first session. Tire pressure needs to be taken within a couple minutes of leaving the track. Tire pressures taken 15 minutes later are useless junk. If you don’t have crew to do this, just ask Craig or Richard. That bulge in their pants is a pressure gauge.
The required cold pressures to get these hot pressures vary. Cold pressures are affected by the track, the direction run, ambient temperature, your driving style, and the amount of moisture inside the tire when it was mounted. So you need a test/warmup session to dial it in, but we have gotten good at guessing.
If you just grab our tire pressures and use them because they are “correct,” you are doing it wrong. Vary tire pressures to see what you like and what works best with your setup. Some very fast people are happy with hot pressures below 30. Remember that the front and rear tires are trying to accomplish different things and their pressures can be different.
Front camber on the Camaro -2 to -3 degrees. For us that is the limit of the slots plus another 1/8” of grinding. Make all the bolts tight and recheck camber periodically. I use a cheap digital level to check this. A bit more camber than this wouldn’t be a bad thing if you can get it.
Toe is important. An old autocrosser’s trick is to dial in a bunch of toe out. This gives the car great turn in and feels great. I recommend this… if you are going to autocross your CMC car. Toe out makes the car unstable under braking. We set toe at zero to 1/16” in BUT we run solid control arm bushings to avoid toe out under braking. If you still have rubber bushings (you shouldn’t), a bit more toe in wouldn’t be bad.
Caster; set it to the maximum the slots allow (fully forward). We don’t have a way to measure it so we just max it out.
Track width is important for overall grip. The difference between front and rear track is useful for tweaking handling. We use spacers to set the front track width to just under the legal limit. It helps turning and keeps the tires off brake ducts too. In the rear, wider will give less oversteer, narrower will tend to put power down better. Like tire pressure, the rear doesn’t have to match the front. Use good wheel studs( we use ARP) and quality wheel spacers.
Wear earplugs to save your hearing and cut distractions.
Costly but important stuff
Brakes; the best thing we added to the car was StopTech brakes. Solid, reliable, powerful. We are running Porterfield R4 pads. With the Stop Techs we were able to increase rear braking bias without wheel hop. On the rears we run cheap Auto Zone pads. We probably need to look into getting more rear brakes. We run Motul RBF 600 fluid.
Seat; the second best money we spent was on an Ultra Shield seat. It is safer and it holds me in place so I have one less thing to think about.
Brake bias adjuster; at least until we changed to StopTech front brakes this was essential to kill brake hop.
Brake ducts; The crew finds it disturbing to see glowing rotors and it doesn’t help pad or rotor life. We run Blaine brake plenums, ducting and scoops mounted in the bumper.
Tires; are going to be the biggest part of your budget, they are the price of admission. You can’t go fast, test or learn on crap tires. We shave to 5/32”
Rear spoiler; A small rear spoiler on a CMC car can both reduce drag and cancel rear lift. A bit larger spoiler can add a little downforce with minimal drag. Being slightly rear aero biased isn’t a bad thing. It allows the car to be set up to rotate well in tight, low speed corners while ensuring it will still be stable in high speed corners.
Springs, shocks and sway bars; Camaro specific, currently we are running very stiff at 1100lbs in the front and 300lbs in the back with 30 mm bar in the front and 19mm in the rear Unbalanced Engineering Bilstein shocks and it seems to work. Generally, softer rates will be easier to learn and to drive. We plan to experiment with softer rates. Report to follow.
Non Camaro specific, good balance is critical. Remember, loose is fast… well, unless you are in traffic, or trying to pass, or trying to keep from being passed, or trying to string together several consistent laps… like in a race. A collection of springs, sway bars, wheel spacers, etc. is useful to help get the car balanced. Your optimum solution could be slightly different for different tracks.
Solid front control arm bushings; Get rid of the rubber stuff. We use a Global West kit. Similar stuff is available for other platforms.
Replace the front hubs once you get any bearing play. It plays havoc with your alignment and causes brake pad knock back.
Get a good shifter and you won’t miss as many shifts. We run a MGW shifter it has a strong spring so you know where the 3-4 gate is.
Safety
I run a halon fire suppression system and a fuel cell. Total cost is around $2,000 but you would gladly write that check if you were burning.
Braided steel brake lines; More durable and you get a firmer pedal.
Forged rear axles; We run Superior Axle parts and ARP studs.
Mostly labor but worth the trouble
Dead pedal; I fabricated one which I secure to the cage with hose clamps.
Get rid of the VATS crap. Go on line and figure out how to eliminate the key resistor. (GM specific.)
Rewire everything you can. I built a simple switch panel with fuses and relays for the basic functions of the car. I ran everything through a 30 amp panel breaker which protects the circuit and acts as a main switch.
Dyno till you get what you want. We noticed that the front guys all run higher horse power (and weights)
Build a defroster; I welded up a pan mounted to the fire wall which collects heat from the fire wall. The hot air is drawn through a hose to a cheap bilge fan from Academy to blow on the windshield. (We don’t actually know that this works, yet)
Build an air dam which is within the rules. An air dam reduces front lift and aids engine cooling. I used Kydex plastic for mine it is readily available and indestructible.
Going Fast
Drive, drive, drive. Sign up for test days and attend Drivers Education events. I have learned more teaching and driving at TheDriversEdge.net than I have on race day. At a DE event the stress of performing is off so you can concentrate on driving. Bring your helmet to a Driver’sEdge event and catch a ride in the OrangeThing™.
Follow and learn from every driver you can. Chasing Michael, Glenn and James is a great education. As I have told them: “everything you teach me can and will be used against you on track”. They ought to give out certificates of completion to every driver who successfully hangs on their bumper during a practice session.
Read. In my opinion, if you only read one book it should be Drive to Win by Carroll Smith. All his books should be required reading.
Learn how to left foot brake and do it when it is appropriate.
Let’s go racing!
Dan Allford #82 CMC
Red Shift Racing