Alignment advice? After reading all the info I could find on the web and in this forum I’m looking for some current advice on setting up my 90 348. Most of the info I can find is really old or pertains to tire wear. I know there are not to many guys looking at performance only settings for these cars but I’ll bet somebody has been there done that with a “modern” setup. Tire wear isn’t a concern my car is on R comp street tires Yokohama A052 on challenge wheels, aggressive Nitron coilovers with stock sway bars and bushings, Hill Engineering 15mm spacers front and rear. I’m sure there are better settings than the factory 30 year old ones, considering the change in street tire tech. I’m guessing whatever you guys that have used the latest 355 challenge settings would know if that would good spec to look at, and then kinda go from there? Would anybody be able to share those specs if available, or any special tricks or tips that might have been figured out over the years? Thankful for this forum and everybody’s willingness to help out, any advice will be greatly appreciated. Yes I’ve searched
The proper way to "go about this process" is with a probe-tipped tyre pyrometer and a test track:: When there is a linear temperature gradient across the tire the air pressure is correct. When the inner edge is 10º-to-20º F hotter than the outer edge, camber is correct. When steering is stable at high speeds (say 150+ MPH) caster is correct. Toe-In can be used to adjust overall tyre temperature front-to-rear (more Toe-In = hotter)
Got that. Just looking for a baseline to start at. Besides the 30 year ago base setting. After that Ill tune to my liking.
Don't laugh, but for "non-track", countryside driving, I'm trying out a probe-tipped digital meat thermometer for $7 Stooge-y, or what??
Lol. The only way to do this properly is to rent the Nordschleife and hire Adrian Newey for $80k a day. It’s the only way.
Street speeds on streets need street alignment. Nothing is gained unless doing a track setup for a track day.
Included a screenshot of my setup. Went with book values, but added a little more negative camber front / rear Image Unavailable, Please Login
How do those compare to f355 regular and fiorano alignment settings? I would think fiorano settings (including ride height) with stock 348 caster would be a good starting point. They didn't change geometry much for the 355 but they managed to get much better handling from it.
Guys that Ive talked with and that have owned both don’t really agree that the 355 is much better just a little easier to drive. Adding the rear wheel spacers and wheels to a 348 is kinda not an issue, plus whatever alignment update they made. Then there is the one change in the rear arm location by a few MM. Supposedly to make the car more progressive. I’m not counting the damper and spring changes, just chassis changes. There also isn’t any real data that says a 355 challenge car was faster than the 348 challenge cars. Not to start a debate about 348 vs 355, but I would like to use data from both cars since the chassis are so similar. Of course I don’t have any meaningful real life personal experience with driving both cars hard, so I’m just going off of what guys have told me. Knowing what the Fiorano specs and changes from standard are would be interesting.
They ran together in '96, 355's were 3-5 seconds a lap faster depending on track. This is about as good a comparison as you can get as it was same track, same day, same tires, same session(s). See this thread starting near the bottom of this page for results with fastest lap times: https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/threads/ferrari-challenge-series-historical-records-and-information.621715/page-4 The best I saw a 348 do was 4th against the 355's. Smallest difference was lime rock with a 1 second difference (really short track, 57s lap time) and 5 seconds at Road Atlanta (1:43 lap time). Most other tracks were 3-4.
Yeah, iirc all period reviews commented on how much better the 355 handled. I think it was a combination of chassis revisions for stiffness, 18" wheels/tires and the slightly revised suspension geometry and alignment. That's why I would use the 355 settings (except caster, you don't want power steering caster in a manual steering car) as starting point instead of 348 settings. FHP cars were revised further with the only geometry changes being ride height and again a slight rear mounting point change (to same as 348 iirc). However, I don't know how 355 settings compare to stock 348, GTB/SS or GTC alignment.
I don't know, this guy felt similarly when the car was pushed: Does not seem like he'd be trying to push any agenda. I've never driven one hard enough to have an opinion, and I think that's what it'd take. I've driven my 355 hard enough to understand it and it's extremely neutral, 2lbs tire pressure one way or the other can change it from neutral to over or understeer.
Why so much rear camber? Really it was to get the amount of toe that I needed with my frame and without removing the base spacers. It's a bit limited in the amount of adjustment you can do, but to bring the toe into alignment, I had to add a lot of spacers on one of the wheels. Adding spacers increases negative camber. Then it was about balancing out left to right with the wheel that had the least negative camber. Priorities I had: 1. Cross Weight (dial until perfect) 2. Ride Height (accept that it might not be perfect) 3. Toe settings (dial until perfect) 4. Camber (starting point is set by shims for toe, so limited in what you can do)
Rear toe has at least a ±3mm range in unbent subframe, more if you start shimming the upper control arm too. {to hand waving accuracy} When you take a 1mm shim out of the front of lower control arm and add it to the back of lower control you are adding 2mm to the toe without changing camber. When you take 1mm shim out of both lower A-arm points, you subtract 2mm of camber. "spacers" add track by moving wheels outward, and do not affect suspension alignments. "shims" are used to move the chassis attachment points in/out. Ride Height and Corner Weighting should be done with the spring perches not shims. Only after these are in the right ball park do the suspension alignments mean anything.
