TECHNICAL

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How To Setup Your Toyo Proxes RA-1s back to top

The Toyo Proxes RA-1 comes molded at 8/32” of rubber, which is quite a bit of rubber for a race tire. There are two reasons for shaving:

  • Shaving makes the tread blocks shorter. This keeps the tread from rolling over during cornering and prevents the building up excessive heat - two factors which can lead to chunking and thus premature wear.  Shaved tires will ultimately last longer for track use!

  • Shaving makes the tire faster sooner.  Excessive tread block movement makes the car feel unstable and loose.  By shaving the tire, it will be immediately more responsive and strangely enough also helps the tire last longer.

The common shaved depth for a full race set-up is at least 4/32”.  One characteristic of the RA- 1 is that unless you shave them, the tires will take time to run in. Meaning that if buy a set at full skid, they will not be as fast as they will be when they wear down to 4/32” or lower.

Tire pressures should be started at about 32 psi cold.  Usual pressure build up is from 3 psi to 9 psi.  This must be taken in account when setting cold pressures.  Your pressure should end up in the high 30's to low 40's. If you take tire temperature, the normal operating range of the RA-1 is 160 to 220 degrees.   Hot pressures in competition will run from a minimum of 36 psi hot to a maximum of 46 psi hot, with 40 psi hot being a good starting point.  Remember that the tires will build up pressure in competition.  These numbers are arrived at with a properly set-up car in mind. Outside temperatures may make it difficult to hit these numbers, but in general these are temperatures you should be seeing if you have a properly set-up car.

All race tires need to have camber adjustments made to get the optimum level of grip.  If you have camber plates you will be able to get the most from the RA-1 and any other compound tire. To get the tire to work to its maximum performance, you need to dial in at least 2 degrees of negative camber in the front with stock components, and some creativity, i.e. swapping sides on the stock strut mounts.  If you have camber plates then dial in more, say upwards of 3 degrees negative camber or more.  This is required to get the car to handle optimally.  For more information on any other track tires and car setup information in general, please feel free to contact us.

How To Maximize The Performance And Longevity Of Track Tires back to top

Tracking your car is an inherently fun and expensive hobby.  As many of your track junky peers will tell you, tracking is also extremely addicting!  Tire costs should be budgeted into your projected tracking expenses early in the season.  With proper preparation and management, you can greatly extend the life expectancy of your tires and maximize their performance.  

Heat Cycling
Heat cycling increases the life of a tire because it allows the chemical bonds within the compound to break down when first heated and then to reform and align when subsequently cooled in such a way as to provide a consistency and strength that was not there before.   Common methods of heat cycling include use of the tires during a single track session, repeated parking lot figure eights in both directions, or 100 miles of highway driving.  The advantage of these methods is their cost. Although the highway driving method will probably provide sufficient flex for a decent, evenly distributed heat cycle, the potential risk of cutting the soft tire surface exists.  Commercial methods of heat cycling are also available.  Proper heat cycling is done by spinning the tire at speed under pressure from a large roller which acts to flex and heat the tire.

Shaving
If you run treaded track tires like the Toyo RA-1’s, shaving them will be the single most important factor in extending their longevity under strenuous track conditions.  However, several other DOT-R tires come from the manufacturer molded to this depth so that shaving is not necessary.  There are two reasons for shaving:

  • Shaving makes the tread blocks shorter. This keeps the tread from rolling over during cornering and prevents the building up excessive heat - two factors which can lead to chunking and thus premature wear.  Shaved tires will ultimately last longer for track use!

  • Shaving makes the tire faster sooner.  Excessive tread block movement makes the car feel unstable and loose.  By shaving the tire, it will be immediately more responsive and strangely enough also helps the tire last longer.

Suspension setting
Suspension setting is very important to extend the longevity of the tires and also to maximize their traction.  In the case of an understeering car, the front tires are working hard to deliver directional loading, but at the same time wasting much of its grip to fight lateral loading, commonly experienced when the front end of your car feels like it’s “plowing” or “washing out”.   Much of the vehicle weight shifts to the outside shoulder of the tires during hard cornering, causing the tire to roll on its outer edge, resulting in excessive heat build up and wear on the outside shoulders.  This can lead to premature tire wear and eventual failure when the tires are run down to their cord.  Negative camber is a must for correcting this type of wear.  By unloading the weight off the outside shoulders and evenly distributing it across the contact patch of the tire, shoulder wear will be greatly reduced and with the added traction on the front tires, you now have dialed out some of that nasty understeer!

Storage
For off season storage, tires should ideally be kept indoors with low humidity, away from ozone producing equipment or where electronic welding is taking place. Put the tires in dark plastic bags or tire totes for storage. Keep them dry and out of the sun and heat.  Winter or cold weather storage of the tires is also important. The tire should never be stored during the off season in temperatures below freezing.

How To Improve Your Stock Brakes Without Spending The Big Bucks back to top

To reiterate that tracking your car is an inherently fun and expensive hobby, let's talk about what you can do to maximize the performance of your stock brake system without dropping the big bucks on the big brake kits.  Contrary to what many people think, the reason for getting big brake kit is not because they are bigger, therefore grabbing harder!  
Two important desirable factors that the big brake kits offer are:

  • Firmer pedal feel due to less caliper flex
  • Cooler rotor and pad temperature due to the greater mass (better heat sinking)

How hard the brakes grab or bite mainly depends on the brake pad material compound.  A more aggressive compound will give you more biting torque, and likewise a milder compound will give you a gentler feel.  So we know we can blame the stock pads for not being as grippy as the aftermarket offering from Hawk, Performance Friction, and the alike.  

Let’s address the main weakness of your stock brake systems:

  • Compliances in the lack of rigidity causing mushy pedal feel
  • Over heating of the rotors and pads causing warping and premature wear and brake fade

Keeping economics in mind, we can confidently address the above issues with simple upgrades that yield amazing results from the stock brake system.

Let’s start by getting rid of the compliances that cause the mushiness in the pedal.  First, replace the factory rubber brake line with stainless steel braided lines.  The reduction in compliance will be an immediate improvement.  Second, replace the stock rubber caliper guide bushings with solid brass bushings.  This upgrade eliminates caliper twist, which equates to a further reduction in brake system compliance and contributes to firmer pedal feel.

Now that we have addressed the mushy pedal, let’s talk about over heating of the rotors, which causes premature warping and wear, not to mention the brake fade when the brakes get hot!   It’s not hard to figure out, that under the strenuous conditions, the rotors get extreme hot, and worst yet, the heat has no where to escape!  So you end up with warped rotors and a shaking steering wheel on your way home from the track -  everybody’s bitter sweet memory at some point of their glorified track careers!  Big brake kits are more resistant to warping because the rotors are bigger and thicker, so they act as better heat sinks and can take more heat before facing the same ultimate fate.

How about doing something to remove the excess heat?  By adding brake cooling kits to duct in air directly to the center of the rotors and utilizing the veins in the vented rotors to blow the hot air through, the brake rotor temperature is greatly reduced.  This not only prolongs the life of the brake rotors and pads, the temperature reduction also helps to prevent brake fade, everyone’s worst nightmare!

High performance brake fluid should always be used in cars that see track action.  The higher boiling temperature of aftermarket high performance brake fluids resists boiling when the
brake get hot.  Being hydrophilic, brake fluids like to absorb moistures.  When brake fluid boils, the water moisture absorbed by the brake fluid turns into water vapor, causing tiny streams of air bubbles in the brake lines.  This causes  mushiness of the brake pedal travel that you experience on the track.  Flushing your brake fluid can also prevent pedal mushiness by eliminating the absorbed moisture in your brake fluid.

Don’t get us wrong, sooner or later, as your driving skill and speed build up, you are going to want to move up to a multi piston big brake kit.  This tech write-up is just to show you what you could do to improve your stock brakes economically while allowing you to budget for other track related expenses.  Feel free to contact us for the specific brake pad compound combination and upgrades for your stock brake system.

Brake Pad Selection back to top

With the advent of friction material technology, there are many great brake pad choices today for the spirited drivers like us.  Factory brake pads are expensive for the meager performance they deliver and they dust like crazy!!!  We all know the pain of countless hours spent washing those cross spoke wheels.

For the many different levels of needs and application, Meisterschaft Motor offers a full line of replacement brake pads that suit your needs.  The categories listed below can be used as your reference in determining what might work for you best:

Performance Street
This category is meant for replacing your dusty factory pads for better everyday street driving.  The prices are substantially cheaper than the replacement factory pads from the dealership.  In the order of increasing brake biting-torque, we recommend:

Axxis Ultimate, Ferodo DS 2500, Hawk Ceramic, Ferodo DS 3000, and Hawk HPS.

Light Track Use
This category is meant for the occasional weekend trackers who want a slight notch above the regular performance street pads.  Again, these pads are very competitively priced to offer you a moderate performance improvement over stock pads.  In these applications, it is an option for you to retain the rear pads from the performance street category if you so desire, although running the same pads that are more aggressive in the rear will help to enhance the braking performance.  The selections in this category are:

Hawk HP Plus and Performance Friction Z Rated.

Medium Track Use
This category is meant for track junkies who hit the track and attend as many DE’s as their significant other allows them to.  These pads have a much higher torque bias and need to be heated up to an operational temperature to become effective.  With the increased biting torque, these pads are also more abrasive to rotors as the temperature builds, so brake cooling is a good addition to achieve the optimal performance.  In these applications, it’s an option if you retain the pads from the light track use category, but running the same medium track use pads in all four corners will ensure the best performance desired.  The selections in this category include:

Hawk Blue, Hawk HT-10, Hawk DTC-60, and Performance Friction 97

Serious Track Use
Ok, here we are, the big bad wolfs club.  This category is meant for serious tracking, and no less.  These are the same pads that the professional teams use, and are being offered here to the serious track warriors.  High performance rotors such as the Performance Friction Direct Drive floating rotors are recommended as well as brake cooling to optimize braking performance.  You have the options to run the medium track use pads in the rear, as a way to adjust the brake bias.  The selections in the category include:

Hawk HT-14, Hawk DTC-70, and Performance Friction 01

Feel free to contact us at sales@meisterschaftmotor.com to discuss your needs.

Definitions of Understeer and Oversteer back to top

You often hear people say understeering cars are safer while others argue that oversteering cars allow the driver to maneuver the car more effectively, what's the truth and science behind those claims? This first installment of the article will cover the basic definitions of understeer and oversteer handling dynamics.

I have been involved with high performance driving events as a spectator, as a student, and as an instructor for almost ten years now. In the summer of 1995, my dentist neighbor was the Porsche Club's president and a track nut with a Porsche 944 race car. He first introduced me to the whole thing; boy am I glad he did! After going to nearly every single track event to watch that summer, I was convinced I had to do it myself. I did my first driver school at Willow Springs in California in the summer of 1996 in my neighbor' John's (very nice, and GENEROUS neighbor) 944 race car. He was my instructor and he had no problems yelling at me as it WAS his car after all; he had all the best intentions. I remember John telling me that his race car was set up nice for the track. He had nearly gotten all the "push" out of the front end, and that I'd better be careful as the rear end was getting a little "loose".... I asked him what exactly he meant by that. The answer was seemingly a simple question that turned into a several hour long discussion over at John's house that night after the driver school.

I am sure you all have heard plowing/pushing vs. loose when you hear gear heads talk about how their cars handle. Now let's talk about what those conditions mean:

"Plowing/pushing" is also referred to as understeer when the amount of steering input by the driver on the steering wheel doesn't result in the vehicle's actual amount of turning. Example: The driver cranks the steering wheel and the car just wants to go straight with out turning.

"Loose" is also referred to as oversteer when the amount of steering wheel input by the driver on the steering wheel result in excessive vehicle directional change. Example: The driver enters a turn, barely cranking the wheel, and the car goes completely sideways or even spins out.

Ok, now we have some kind of idea on what understeer/oversteer mean in vehicle's handling dynamics. Let's go a step further and talk about what's happening in those conditions. When understeer is experienced, the front tires, whose job is to provide traction to guide the vehicle through the turn, lose their grip and start to slide. When this happens, the car stops following the curvature of the turning process and, instead, slides forward and off the turn.

When oversteer is experienced, the front tires maintains good traction and guides the vehicle through the turn, meanwhile the rear tires, whose job is to follow the curvature of the turn behind the front tires, lose traction and steps out. As a result, the car's rear end steps out and without proper timely driver reaction, the car can spin out.

So does everything makes sense so far? If not, drop me an email at geoff@meisterschaftmotor.com and we can talk off line. In the mean time, let's continue with the discussion. We now know what understeer/oversteer mean and what we can experience in those conditions.  Let's go a step further to do a quick recap in more concise words:

Understeer is when the front tires have less grip than the rear tires when the car is going through a turn and oversteer is when the front tires have more grip than the rear tires when the car is going through a turn. A neutral handling dynamic is when the front tires and the rear tires have equal grip going through a turn and both fronts and rears follow the turn's curvature equally. Think of a train with four wheels going through a turn on the railroad; all four wheels are following the rails' curvature. Since all four wheels are all riding on the rails, they all have the same grip ;therefore, no understeering or oversteering is observed, hence you hear people say their cars handle like they are on rails!!  In general, front wheel drive cars tend to understeer and rear wheel drive cars tend to oversteer. Ultimately, understeering and oversteering can be contributed to the difference in the amount of traction between the front axle tires and the rear axle tires; less front grip yields understeer and less rear grip yields oversteer.

How To Setup Your Spring Rates, Shocks, And Anti-Sway Bars back to top

Three commonly tunable suspension components in setting up a track car are the springs, shocks (dampers), and anti-sway bars.  Since these components are non-adjustable on most production cars, there are many aftermarket options available to replace the factory parts in order to allow the desired adjustability.

Let’s have a quick recap on the handling characteristics.  Oversteer is when the front end of the car has more grip/traction compared to the rear end, and conversely, understeer is when the front end has less grip/traction compared to the rear end. 

When you are in an oversteering car, the rear end feels like it’s breaking loose and stepping out sideways when going around a turn- “loose”, as the NASCAR boys commonly refer this condition as. 

When you are in an understeering car, the front end feels like it’s stubborn to the steering input when entering a turn; no matter how much more you turn the wheel, the car refuses to turn and instead pushes, or “plows” into the turn- “tight”, again as the NASCAR boys call this condition

You can improve the handling through alignment settings to a point, we’ll cover that briefly, more details in the E36/E46 alignment setting tech article.

In order to correct or improve the handling of an oversteering car (to dial in some understeer), you need to give more grip to the rear tires, or take some grip off the front tires.  Here is the check list of things to do:

Front Rear
Increase spring rates Decrease spring rates
Increase compression damping Decrease compression damping
Decrease rebound damping Increase rebound damping
Stiffen sway bar setting Soften sway car setting
Decrease negative camber Increase negative camber
Narrower tire width Wider tire width

In order to correct or improve the handling of an understeering car (to dial in some oversteer), you need to give more grip to the front tires, or take some grip off the rear tires, pretty much the opposite of the check list above. Here is the check list of things to do:

Front Rear
Decrease spring rates Increase spring rates
Decrease compression damping Increase compression damping
Increase rebound damping Decrease rebound damping
Soften sway car setting Stiffen sway bar setting
Increase negative camber Decrease negative camber
Wider tire width Narrower tire width

Performance Alignment Specification For E36 And E46 back to top

Arguably, the BMW 3 series cars are amongst the best handling cars on the road and track year after year.  With simply modifications and adjustments, these cars can be even more agile and more responsive when pushed hard to the handling limits.

Alignment settings on these cars are relatively simple and can produce very noticeable improvements in handling.  The boomerang control arm setup in the front is simple and effective.  Without the addition of adjustable camber plates, the only alignment adjustment is the toe setting, while camber and caster settings are fixed.  With a suspension upgrade, ride height can be reduced to gain some negative camber and slightly more positive caster, both of which are favorable in improving the handling characteristics.

Many track junkie talk about dialing in “toe out” in the front, because “they” heard that it helps with turn in.  Despite what you have heard, we do not recommend getting our cars with toe out, simply because that adds unnecessary inner tire wire, and added wear and stress on the front control arm ball joints.  We suggest that you always set the toe to zero on the front end, because that will ensure good tire wear and minimize the stress on the suspension components.  In the rear, we suggest setting a slight toe in at 1/16” per side, or 1/8” total toe in, to help with straight line tracking, and high speed cornering stability.

Negative camber helps with the cornering and ensures even tire wear such that the outer shoulders of the tires aren’t excessively worn when driven hard into the turns on the track.  Instead of the tires rolling over and wearing only on the outer shoulders, negative camber setting allows the tire to lay flat evenly on the track under corner loads, better distribute the contact area, and thus providing more grip.

The E36/E46 come with a slight inherent understeer built in, so running slightly more negative camber on the front than the rear will help to reduce the understeer.  By using adjustable camber plates on the front, you can dial in the desired amount of negative camber.  While in the rear, the factory lower control has a slight range of adjustment, but in aggressive cases, adjustable rear control arm will be required to dial in the desires camber.  Generally, we recommend setting the front to have one extra degree of negative camber than the rear, for example, if you are running 2 degrees negative on the front, than run no more than 1 degree negative on the rear, or if you are running 4 degrees negative on the front, run about 3 degrees negative in the rear.  Generally, we like seeing at least 2.5 degrees negative on the front and 1.5 degrees negative on the rear.

The caster, again, is only adjustable on the front with adjustable camber plates.  When using camber/caster plates, try to maximize the amount of positive caster that you can get by leaning the top of the front struts as far rearwards as possible.  Positive caster contributes to better steering feel and quicker turn in response.

Below is a sample E46 M3 alignment specification. Feel free to contact us for your specific custom settings.
Front
Rear
Toe
0"
Total toe in 1/8”
Camber
-3°
-2°
Caster
Maximum positive
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BMW Chassis Codes back to top

Chassis Code
 Production Year
 Model
E3 68-77 2500 - 3.3Li Sedan
E9 65-75 2500-3.0 CS/i/L Coupes
E12 72-81 5 Series
E21 75-83 3 Series
E23 77-87 7 Series
E24 77-89 6 Series
E26 78-81 M1
E28 82-88 5 Series
E30 84-91 3 Series
E31 90-98 8 Series
E32 87-94 7 Series
E34 89-96 5 Series
E36 92-98 3 Series
E36/5 94-98 318ti
E36/7 97-02 Z3
E38 95-02 7 Series
E39 97-04 5 Series
E46 99-05 3 Series
E52 00-04 Z8
E53 00-current X5
E60 05-current 5 Series
E63 05-current 6 Series
E65/E66 03-current 7 Series
E83 03-current X3
E85 03-current Z4
E90 06-current 3 Series sedan
E92 06-current 3 Series coupe

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