Das Gespenst
Go Kart Champion
- Location
- Glen Ellyn
GIACUser, looking at that picture you posted with the bracket, you're going to need a shorter bolt for all 3 bolt positions. Since the mount no longer ties the 3 points together and doesn't have the OEM style mount. So especially the outer bolt that goes to the subframe will need to be shorterebuilt unless there's enough room on the other side of the threads. Does it include all hardware?
Got you PM, figured I'd respond in here so others are informed as well. Basically, you have to think of the wheel base to track width as a ratio. The longer the wheel base the more straight line high speed stability to you have (example: rail cars/dragsters). On the flip side of that, the wider track width you have the more stability in turns you have (example: shifter kart). There is a theoretical perfect ratio but no actual agreed upon one in the racing community since everyone's needs or use is different. Using a gokart as an example here, they have tons of grip in the turns right? But when you exceed the mechanical or created grip the end result is a violent loss of that grip and a very uncontrollable ammount of spin/rotation. The reason for this is most high speed Racing karts are 50:50 in wheel base and track width. Now apply the same theory to a car with 5-10× the ammount of weight, speeds 2-3× higher and power obviously higher. While I wider car can indeed provide more stability and physical mechanical grip via wider tires the closer you get to wheel base width track width the more violent loss of grip becomes. I've found with our cars, due to the shorter wheel base than most there's only so much wide you can do before the car becomes very unpredictable at the limit of grip. Now look at the car from the top down and use simple geometry and physics to see what different shapes will do when pushed passed their limits. A square will spin with much more ease than a rectangle. Now imagine them as three dimensional objects, a very skinny rectangle will topple easily to one side as you push at the top fulcrum, make it wider and it becomes more difficult to knock over. Finding the right balance between track width and wheel base is tricky, I've been working on it for 3 years now. Applying what I just talked about you can see that there is indeed a point when you are too wide and no suspension or geometry altering chassis work can change that.
What I've come to find as the sweet spot on our cars is 40-45mm wider per corner which totals to 80-90mm wider per axle (front and back) From that point it was about dialing in scrub radius, toe, caster, etc to work with the widened geometry of the car. I've also found that ~1.5"-2" lower than stock is about as low as you want to go. There are some things you can do to correct roll center if you go lower but the added stress on components and price to do it correctly doesn't outweigh the benefits.
Hopefully this helps you understand what I meant when I said "turns it into a top".
Got you PM, figured I'd respond in here so others are informed as well. Basically, you have to think of the wheel base to track width as a ratio. The longer the wheel base the more straight line high speed stability to you have (example: rail cars/dragsters). On the flip side of that, the wider track width you have the more stability in turns you have (example: shifter kart). There is a theoretical perfect ratio but no actual agreed upon one in the racing community since everyone's needs or use is different. Using a gokart as an example here, they have tons of grip in the turns right? But when you exceed the mechanical or created grip the end result is a violent loss of that grip and a very uncontrollable ammount of spin/rotation. The reason for this is most high speed Racing karts are 50:50 in wheel base and track width. Now apply the same theory to a car with 5-10× the ammount of weight, speeds 2-3× higher and power obviously higher. While I wider car can indeed provide more stability and physical mechanical grip via wider tires the closer you get to wheel base width track width the more violent loss of grip becomes. I've found with our cars, due to the shorter wheel base than most there's only so much wide you can do before the car becomes very unpredictable at the limit of grip. Now look at the car from the top down and use simple geometry and physics to see what different shapes will do when pushed passed their limits. A square will spin with much more ease than a rectangle. Now imagine them as three dimensional objects, a very skinny rectangle will topple easily to one side as you push at the top fulcrum, make it wider and it becomes more difficult to knock over. Finding the right balance between track width and wheel base is tricky, I've been working on it for 3 years now. Applying what I just talked about you can see that there is indeed a point when you are too wide and no suspension or geometry altering chassis work can change that.
What I've come to find as the sweet spot on our cars is 40-45mm wider per corner which totals to 80-90mm wider per axle (front and back) From that point it was about dialing in scrub radius, toe, caster, etc to work with the widened geometry of the car. I've also found that ~1.5"-2" lower than stock is about as low as you want to go. There are some things you can do to correct roll center if you go lower but the added stress on components and price to do it correctly doesn't outweigh the benefits.
Hopefully this helps you understand what I meant when I said "turns it into a top".
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