Monday, February 02, 2009 - 08:45 pm, by: Ben Lipman(Ben12a)
I played with a few settings over the day. I will reference all settings subtracted from full hard. ie full hard is 0, back three clicks is -3. No particular reason, just how I wrote them down.
I started off at -10 on both ends (I had it soft when doing the alignment). This was "sloppy" and I never got below 56 seconds for Oran Park sth.
I went -3 on the front and -6 on the rear and this felt pretty nice. Got into the 53sec bracket after a few laps.
Just for the experience I tried full hard (0) on the front and -3 on the back. I found this to understeer a lot, particularly when you quickly changed direction left right. Back up into nervous 54 secs area, with some close calls with understeer then oversteer as I lifted off.
At the end of the day I was on -3 all round. There was a hint of oversteer, but the times were no worse than -3F/-6R in the mid 53sec zone, and it was a little more predictable. I was actually hitting 180 by the turn 1 brake marker with this setting, up about 6-8 kmh, but that may have had more to do with receiving advice from the side lines as well.
The big point is with the camber, ride height and alignment as it is I had a lot more confidence to change settings, and actually notice the subtle differences. AND, I was working the car and tyres a lot harder than Wakefield as a result.
Yes I acknowledge the HSD are an entry level damper, and the 'clicks' are what they are, but the car felt different as I played with them. At my level, they'll do.
You can rotate the tyres with the R888s, but you have to take them off the rims and remount them on the opposite sides. It was part of the attraction over other brands which are made specifically for each side.
