Rear Trailing arm toe.

[Artie on Edge]

Hi guys, just my 2 cents worth (which is about what its worth!!!), rear toe, firstly, IMO, there is no "correct" setting.

It depends upon rear suspension design AND (more importantly) what driving characteristics you want from your buggy.

Remember, the following opinion is dependant upon the type of suspension, tyres, terrain, driving style and a million and six other variables.....

Some toe in tends to make the car track with the front of the car more, and this can induce some "push" or understeer. Some might call this "stability or stable"

Some toe out allows the car to change direction easier and can become "skaty" in the rear at. This can induce oversteer or as one guy I used to race against said, "it makes his bum happy", I never really went any further into that description!!! .

Soem might call this "unstable" not me though as I prefer a car that slides a bit My racing is on hard packed ground for the most part and I want to throw it around and slide some, steering with th rthorttle to a degree.

IMO, this builder should aim for Zero toe and leave some adjustment at either side of this so he can fine tune the machine to suit his own driving style as he become familiar with the buggys handling characteristics.

[masterfabr]

But sure as hell not 6 degrees as he seems to think is what the arms were designed for.

[weasel]

I opted for toe-in on my buggy just because of the short W/B of 71". The car will likely be steered with the rear end as well as the front with a live axle and 89 2 stroke HP. In my rear suspension it will be much easier to take some toe out than to put some in.

Its all an effort to stop the rear from coming around in a great power slide. Something I'm looking to do alot,, that's if it doesn't roll over all the time

[masterfabr]

How about stating how much toe? This topic is not really about whether or not toe is desirable.It is about whether or not the arms he has were designed for 6DEGREES of toe in.Actually what it is about is whether or not he understands the difference between toe in angle and trailing arm mount angle.OR IN OTHER WORDS whether or not he has TRAILING arms or SEMI TRAILING arms.What he has are semi trailing arms and is about to mount them as trailing arms. Do we all know the difference in trailing arms and semi trailing arms??????????

[masterfabr]

Yoshi(unless he's changed) uses true trailing arms. Most use semi trailing arms to achieve camber gain as the suspension compresses. Not a question of one being right and the other wrong. Just a difference in results.

[masterfabr]

TA's or STA's BOTH can be installed with toe +or - or zero.

[weasel]

No, I guess some (including me) don't know the difference. But I would think that any suspension with 6* of toe-in would likely take 1/3 of its throttle just to get it to move.

I have about 1* with a 3 link

[masterfabr]

Do you have a camber change when the suspension is cycled? If so you have have the arms mounted at an angle other than 90* to the cars centerline axis. That would be semitrailing. If you have zero camber change then you have true trailing arms and they are mounted at 90* to the cars centerline axis.

[weasel]

Originally Posted by masterfabr

Do you have a camber change when the suspension is cycled? If so you have have the arms mounted at an angle other than 90* to the cars centerline axis. That would be semitrailing. If you have zero camber change then you have true trailing arms and they are mounted at 90* to the cars centerline axis.

I'm glad you asked that cause I'm just at the stage where those rear control links are going to be added.

Bugpac,(sorry to get you involved) recommended that they don't come "straight out from the frame at 90*",, "let them swing" I think he said. My mounting points are a parallelagram (SP) at this point which don't seem to have a camber change in my erector-set model. By the model, I can crank in some negative camber but it will stay the same thruoghout its travel.

[masterfabr]

Then you are designing true trailing arms.