So as much fun as this car is to drive, it's got a bit of a wild side with a lot of corner entry oversteer, lets see if we can fix that with some Roll Center Changes!
Brilliant Colin. One of the best channels on here. An Army mate back in the day jacked the rear of his bright yellow 3 litre auto ford capri by 6 inch and fitted the widest wheels ever!! I needed quite a few safety beers before getting a lift with him. So funny!
I always smash the like button first in case I forget to do it later. What a fantastic build and channel. Colin while you're in Sweden, post a vid of any quirky or unusual cars you might see there.
Thanks for the technical explanation especially regarding roll centres and roll axis, there doesn't seem much info about these out there. Generally rwd cars seem to be reducing thier rear roll centre due to camber change on acceleration / squat. I managed to change the rear RC on my classic mini(rear RC originally at groundlevel) and found it feels better on initiating a turn (roll frequency) and also I believe means the rear contributes more to overall roll stiffness / potentially less understeer in a mini. The car feels great IMO. People seem afraid of high roll centres due to jacking it took me quite a while to come to the understanding of jacking you showed in this video so should be useful to others.
Thanks for the comment, I probably should have spoken a bit more about outright roll center height vs roll axis angle. As the rear RC moves closer to the CG the weight transfer will happen quicker as it's not being reacted through the springs and dampers, which usually leads to more OS, and harder to read. Like everything with suspension setup, it's all a balancing act! Cheers mate
Me too! There has been a massive delay as I got the alfa out of retirement for a while pending a rally that never happened, but I'm back on the stratos now and test day should be soon!
Brilliant again, you explain and demonstrate so well. Enjoy Sweden Colin, hope you get over the shock of how much a safety beer (säkerhetsöl) costs over there. But don’t scrimp, remember - safety first.
Great work as always Col. I find you are real inspiration. Just about to leave Sydney (for Blighty) after visiting my daughter for the last couple of weeks. So near, but yet so far...Cheers mate! 🍻
Thanks mate, yea was very low, didn't want to stray to far from the original setup to start off, but now I've driven it a bit, worth a try to change it
Really simple explanation of the subjectand not boring at all. The car was a prototype so the people building it may not have had the knowledge to design and tune out it's problems. Did you rotate the wheels when doing the alignment to check they weren't buckled and putting your measurements out ?
Hey mate, due to cancelation of events and then getting the alfa ready for a rally, that didn't happen I havnt, I havnt driven the stratos in anger yet, but we've booked it in for a track day soon, and I'll try and make an update vid, cheers
%100 agree, raising the rear roll center will increase the geometric weight transfer and laod the rear tyres quicker and potentially create oversteer but as everything with suspension there are a lot of things at play, just trying to find the right balance!
