Tony-Bones

£80+ vat! i am "worried"

Reads spot on in my view. geometry is actual not "final" this is where i was wrong. Drift evolves from driver feed back but i assumed that the physics would cover all! I wonder this. "IF" i posted a perfect set-up? would it be cut down purely because some would not want the settings to be displayd? any gain could be seen as an advantage and geometry as we all know is one of the hardest areas to apply... Well whatever i can accelerate "toot" and that is proven, if any one wants the method then let me know? and like the rest of my site it is free!!!

i think my overlap with domestic geometry theory and drift has a major flaw! and that is the variables, domestic geometry is constant and reliable drift is not, it all seems to work well on paper but those in the know feel not!.. since i have never done drifting i must assume my theory is not valide, to the extent i feel i will remove all the set-up i suggested from my site, i dont want to be responsable for people wasting money on theory.. maybe those who do drift can use the sites explanation of the angles and develope those facts, and they are facts into a drift set-up?. But! one element of my theory for drift has evolved into fact... As you know all the primary angles can be set to taste, secondary effects on steering like rack ratio needs to be manufactured, on paper in my veiw one major benifit is the TOOT " toe out on turns" this angle is pre-set and seemingly not subject to adjustment...? "Oh but it is". i posted a methode to SPI in the USA in relation to toot and a methode for acceleration via the castor angle, and after some maths they said the effect is valide.

looking at the height of your car? i would be easier to lower the world than try to lift the car....lol, thing is some will be able to benifit and sadly some not, even if your tooooo low it can still be a good day out and maybe a geometry day with questions answered will be of interest, tyre wear, alignment, geometry, handling, wheels size, coilovers, arb's are an ongoing subject so a collaborated effort with a geometry meet may benifit future advice? and help with immediate problems, the date i will leave up to you all to decide.

i understand that? maybe any feed back will help you up in Leeds.. ← I dont have faith in anyone up in Leeds being able to adjust my cars settings, on my last car 3 garages couldnt even get my car on the ramp, most didnt have the right equipment to do 4 wheel laser alignment and I just didnt feel that any of them had any idea what to do anyway. Word of mouth goes along way these days Tony ← Just as well your in the GS now Brett coz your IS wouldn't get on Tonys ramps. :D ← sad to say i do have some limitations with the ramp? best advice is "if you can see the top of the tyre then your safe" a club meet and free geometry set would be an interesting day, i hope we can pull this off, it would be nice to meet the person behind the print...

The cameras sit at about "5 to and 5 past" and are about ten mill high, Scorpion can give the best "can do, cant do" opinion. Lets go for it! a club meet, Free geometry check, it will be nice to see all of us face to face and conclude some geometry issuses at the same time.

i understand that? maybe any feed back will help you up in Leeds..

Thanks for that Scorpion, i was getting a bit worried.. i think we could do this?? lets go for a geometry health check up day for "FREE"! arrange the meet for a saturday and come for a "test only" that takes subject to conversation about 30 min. there can be no adjustments because of the time limitation, but any geometry issues can be highlighted, where you go from there is up to you? but not on that day..we know that Lexus has a total of seven adjustments, and for LOC i set a charge of £25= test and a payment for one adjustment, even if all seven need to be set. but in fairness to stapletons i need to increase this to £25=test and a payment for two adjustments @ £16.50 each, the other five are done for free, the fine tuning including adjustments are free, i needed to make this clear so you all know what any future costs my be. So lets make it happen, a free day with me, free geometry test and print out, compare the reports and have a club meet, one draw back is this, i must be able to see the top of the tyre? reason being the camaras brace on the tyre, if the car is lowerd then i cannot do the job "you've been warned" Scorpion can give you the best advice on who can, and who can't benifit. "Scorpion" the fine tuning for your car is a one on one appiontment and somewhat personal, meaning just you, me and the IS.

same tyres on the same axle is a better situation. its not something I would be happy about. In fact, when I was in the same position with my IS (fed up with bridgestones, but only needed two fronts), I just bit the bullet and paid for Proxes all round ← Sound advise for sure... it's better to bite the bullet than bend the barrier.

the pilot is a directional tyre, the pirelli is symetrical so contact between the tyres will be bias, my best advise is lose the pirelli, be it front/ rear it's not for the car, in addition what's on the spare...

very warm.. KPI is one of the hardest angles i have when training students, the KPI is three dimentional, and involves many factors within the geometry. The KPI/ CASTOR/ and INCLUDED ANGLE tend to be the ones that are missing on most geometry reports since they are the hardest to understand and explain.... let me address one area of KPI which is the most common complaint ( pulling ) please dont get the impression it's the only reason why a car can pull.. Effect: the KPI in a straight needs to be rested and even, the inclination lets say on the IS200 9 degrees ( not pos/ not neg ) just an angle, if you attempt to deviate from the straight line, lets say to the left, the ns KPI will decrease in the angular value to 8 degrees 30', os increase to 9 degrees 30', this means that the ns KPI wants to push it's self down, this is not possible so the body of the car has to rise up, now equilibrium between the angles are unbalanced, the weight if the car will want to pull back down to the rested state and return to the rested 9 degrees, if the KPI is uneven and not rested in straight line travel it will pull toward the lower figure, test the effect yourself? drive straight, move the steering wheel slightly left/ right, that resistance you feel is the KPI. I must add this as a personal note, today i have setup the geometry on one of the cars for the Drift Acadeny UK, www.driftacademy.co.uk, go there, go sideways.

I have had my full alignment done and have a printout of the results, they couldnt get two things in the spec (front caster and rear camber) and i still get that 'railling effect' you are talking about, I was wodering if it was something more serious such as a shock or a ball joint or something thats has gone? (I dont get any creaking or clunking) but sometimes (especially at speed on the motorway) the car seems to want to steer one way almost like the wind is suddenly taking it or something (and no it wasnt windy) also when I go around one corner in particular it seems as if the back wheels are bouncing or something ← i'm a bit concerned that the camber adjusters are max'd out!! the castor angle pre-set on the IS200 will be affected by the rear camber position ( ? ) you may think, the explination is long and will make my fingers bleed, can you post here or email me the geometry report..

Thanks for the feedback - at least now I know it's not full geometry. But at least it's better than just tracking. Does 1 hour seem like a reasonable time to set up the geometry. I'll have to have a look around for some one who knows about KPI and incuded angle next time. :) ← sorry i don't think i have explained myself properly, you have had a full geometry? but they haven't assessed the full report, hence the missing KPI and Included angle data. your camber and toe settings are fine, to be true with the IS200 30' neg front camber tends to still wear the inners, but the position is by the book without applied IS theory, in addition dont worry about the osf castor, have a look at my site www.wheels-inmotion.co.uk the KPI and Included angles are explained in full, from basic knowledge to full theory depending on your flavour, that my help and costs nothing...

the settings are OK, but where are the figures for KPI and included angle? a bigger wheel offers different load on the tyre, the KPI/ included angle would help with the final settings for the camber, im not saying they are wrong just inconclusive....

Could you explain in more detail about this? I dont quite understand the little diagram, unless the diagram is showing a car approaching a rh bend then it does make sense. I am very interested in the vehicle dynamics of geometry and their uses in drifting! ← the diagram shows it wrong, this set up will only help in a left drift, drifting is left and right corners, this is why i stated the rear wheel need to be set neutral.......... they brake traction through chassis set up as much as geometry........not geometry alone, on a drift car the suspension is set soft on the front and as hard as possible on the rear, alot of this rear set up is achived by hard coils/dampers and very stiff anti-roll bars on the front a softer spring rate and more compliant anti-roll bar is used, negative camber on the front is used for maximum grip under extreme steering angles, with toe in assisting in sharp snappy turn in. the car shell needs to be as stiff as possible, with maximum weiight at the front and minimum at the rear, with a usual HP of around 200-300 for a saloon car the size of an Altezza/IS200, and of course rear wheel drive ← your oppinion of the drift section on my jan up load to me will be valuable, sad mad or bad at least i know where i stand, this season i had the privilege of setting the geometrey on a nissan 200sx with 30' rear toe with seemingly good results, wont make the news but done well, still dont understand why the rear toe in a negative possition does not benifit towards rear steer, im not saying that the geometry is the do all but it is the all done.

Could you explain in more detail about this? I dont quite understand the little diagram, unless the diagram is showing a car approaching a rh bend then it does make sense. I am very interested in the vehicle dynamics of geometry and their uses in drifting! ← the diagram shows it wrong, this set up will only help in a left drift, drifting is left and right corners, this is why i stated the rear wheel need to be set neutral.......... they brake traction through chassis set up as much as geometry........not geometry alone, on a drift car the suspension is set soft on the front and as hard as possible on the rear, alot of this rear set up is achived by hard coils/dampers and very stiff anti-roll bars on the front a softer spring rate and more compliant anti-roll bar is used, negative camber on the front is used for maximum grip under extreme steering angles, with toe in assisting in sharp snappy turn in. the car shell needs to be as stiff as possible, with maximum weiight at the front and minimum at the rear, with a usual HP of around 200-300 for a saloon car the size of an Altezza/IS200, and of course rear wheel drive ← i value every point of your post, but since the tyre has the final say would'nt rear toe out assist? any geometry settings would help, i cannot find any WW. i have a Jan web upload relating to drifting but your maths just shot my opinion in the nuts! any help on this topic would be gratefully and urgently appreciated.

the tyre condition will not effect the geometry, in fact on some machines you don't even need a wheel? the geometry position is dependent on the wheel size so if you intend to upsize the wheel then thats the time to have the geometry set..

Thanks that'll be awesome. Spoke to Lexus and they want to take a look at the car and check it all themselves, he did seem genuinely surprised for the angles to be incorrect and showed no signs of fobbing me off, so I guess that's a good sign ;) ← wow! did i miss the point or what? i am so sorry.. this week i have been building the site for the jan upload, replying to distressed email and nipping in and out of the forum, the situation with your car by mistake i confused with Scorpions car sorry! Scorpions castor angle is fine, your's is not. yes the castor can cause vibration but the effect will increase with speed. the attitude of Lexus regarding your problem is comforting and i am sure many people in this forum welcome the outcome. myself included.

what do you need?... most people on this forum require the best from their car and tyres? geometry is open to every aspect of abuse subject to those needs? the handling i assume will be of the IS200....cost about £50. ← I'll give you a buzz in the New Year. I take it saturdays are good for you? ← any day is fine by me but you need to book first.

My dad was sent across three lanes of the M6 at 85mph after his tyres blew up due to something similar to this. He was lucky, sincerest apologies gor yourself and close ones for not being so lucky ← thanks for the concern... why did your dads tyre blow out? was it camber?and what make of car was he in.

yes, yes and no? it's all about the rear i think? what do you think? ← As you would want the car to oversteer in the bends, would agree that the fronts will have crazy neg cambers and more neutral at the rear but would they have some toe out? ← "Give that man a balloon" you are in my opinion spot on... a true drift example is / / \ / from this you can see that through the rear toe in this example there are three wheels steering the drift. this now has hp and control of the rear steer, unless anyone knows better.....?

what do you need?... most people on this forum require the best from their car and tyres? geometry is open to every aspect of abuse subject to those needs? the handling i assume will be of the IS200....cost about £50.

On my car, he returned everything back to Lexus standard settings (as my car is totally standard) and will check it again in about 2000 miles (totally free of charge) to re-assess based on my driving style. It really has made a noticeable difference, the car is so much more stable in high speed cornering. If you're near Watford, you should definitely take it down because it really isn't much to pay and its much better when you can trust the person doing the work. Tony, if you're reading this, I just wanted to ask that there seems to be a very gentle vibration in the steering wheel between 50-60mph (nothing above or below that). No immediate cause for concern, but could that be because of the caster angle problem or something else? ← reads like wheel balance, you are correct castor will cause a vibration but not in your case "we know" that your castor angles are ok, the really strange thing about wheel balance is that it's a frequency? any wheel that is out of symmetrical balance is so at all speeds? so why can you detect it at 50-60? the tyre/ wheel/ suspension absorb the vibration to a tuned level, every car has a unique point of release compounded by the level of imbalance, the vibration with your setup is 50-60 mph, you must in reality have a bad example of imbalance since you have 17"wheels? the rpm on a 17" is low, so the point of frequency must be high... when you come down for the fine tuning i will sort this for you "no prob".

Geometry and all the problems that result does make good reading, but remember this "IT KILLS" sad to say someone very dear to me died because of geometry, camber being the criminal. something we rely on day after day through design can become our destiny, the Lexus has a prominant geometry this needs to be embraced and monitered, unlike my friends car the Lexus has the ability to sustain it's geometry assuming that You are aware. be safe, be wise. be alive

yes, yes and no? it's all about the rear i think? what do you think?