Setup Development Tool

The use of this tool is fairly straight forward and simple. You could treat it as a crew-chief or engineer, who will inform you on what you might want to do to better your setup. Simply answer the questions and your "engineer" will provide you the answers.

Included in each section are "pop-up" text boxes (noted by the red markings) that will give you further information about the changes you are about to make. They are only brief comments, but you can find more information on each item by reading the Setup Development Articles at Race2Play.com

Some of the answers you provide will be displayed from a top-down view of your car. Each corner of your car is represented with multiple suggestions being displayed for each corner of the car. Pay attention to which suggestion you may want to try first, but others are supplied for further refinement of your setup.

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About the tool
The purpose of this setup developer is to help you develop your setup over a period of time. It is not a "quick fix" or "cheat sheet". It will require an investment of time and effort, requiring you to navigate back and forth between sections continuously. You may want to focus on specific items for each time you have the time to sit and develop your setup. Do not overwhelm yourself by trying to work through this tool all in one session. Each section in the development tool correlates to a setup development article for you to better understand what changes you are applying to your car.

Questions, suggestions, corrections, and additions are always welcome. Visit the High Performance Driver Tutoring forum at Race2Play for discussions regarding this tool.

Good luck in your setup development!

Thanks Tim

Update to version 1.2

Download Setup Development Tool

- Added Pit Strategy worksheet
- Added some car graphics
- Corrected some spelling mistakes
- Removed all macros for compatibility

Basic questions related to car and track


Enter your pit strategy


See how it compares to others

Thanks Tim!

Great tool, thanks Tim. Picked it up of R2P a couple of weeks ago.

I just tried it out (before i just looked at it! ). Its a very nice structured way doing setups. I think people struggling with setups will want to use it. Heck, even i will start using it.

I think this thread should be stickied or a mention anywhere about mandatory stuff for people to use - this tool is soo much more helpful for people trying to learn about dampers, casters, or tyrepreasures then trying to digest the online reading. Learning by doing with some helpful hints. You need some basic knowledge though.

If i had three thumbs, you would have gotten it!

Wow, just downloaded this to take a look - very impressive. I will be using it shortly.


Here's something I've never been able to figure out. Camber is the direction in which the vertical plane of the tire is rotated along a line parallel to the car's centerline and intersecting the wheel mounting point. Toe is the direction in which the tire points towards or away from the front of the car with the wheel centered. But what is caster?

I've read in various setup guides that caster is the amount that the wheel is offset from some point, although what that point is is unclear to me. I've also heard it described as the amount to tire leans forwards or backwards. Since a tire is round, I see no significance here. Can someone help me to wrap my head around this?

It's the side view angle of the steering axis relative to the vertical, like this:
http://www.rqriley.com/images/fig-7.gif

There are two elements at work- the caster angle itself, and the distance between the steering axis and vertical wheel axis at ground level (or mechanical trail). Caster angle makes the wheel pivot on an axis offset from the tie rods, so in a turn you'll gain negative camber on the outside wheel and positive camber on the inside (which is usually what you want). At the same time, the offset rotation will make the tie rods "pull" and "push" the spindles vertically, changing wheel heights and providing diagonal load transfer. All things being equal, more caster = more load on the inside front and outside rear, which again is usually what you want on corner entry.

Mechanical trail is a major factor in driver feedback since it provides a lever arm for the tire forces to act on, though it might be less of a consideration in sims. RBR and maybe a few others compute the actual steering forces and moments for force feedback, so in that case more caster would make the wheel more difficult to turn due to increased trail. In real cars you can sometimes adjust the spindle offset to change trail without affecting caster and vice versa.

Ah, the steering axis isn't vertical. Now I get it. Thanks.

You can feel caster changes in sims, even without true steering rack FFB. rFactor is such an example (without realfeel).

Yea, the best way I have found to explain caster is the old '70s Chopper motorcycle. It's front wheel is way out in front of the steering pivot point. The angle of the forks (from the wheel to the handle bars) would be "laying down" at a huge caster degree. A car is no different, with some degree of leaning (caster) built in, usually just a few degrees. Not as extreme as a Chopper of course, but the analogy has worked with just about anyone I have used it on.

Now, picture that same Chopper as the rider rotates the handlebars. The front tire itself will turn left/right just as you would expect, but the tire will also *lean* horizontally to the left or right. The greater your caster, the greater the leaning to the left/right will be. So, as you turn that wheel it also dynamically changes your camber (aka "lean"). Even better, it changes if on BOTH of your front wheels in a car...

EXAMPLE: Left hand corner
The right-front wheel will lean left (inwards) when turning to the left giving you more negative camber which is good for the outside wheel. The left-front wheel will lean left (outwards) giving you more POSITIVE camber... which is exactly what you want. Caster = magic :-)