Toe in vs toe out

[Petr Kantor]

I'm confused by various guides to setups where positive / negative values and toe-in / toe-out terminology seems to contradict from one guide to another.

Toe in is when wheels are turned into each other, toe out is the opposite.

Should it be for Race07 game as front goes toe in and rear goes toe out, or the other way around?

And what numbers would I enter then into the setups for front and for rear?

Also, would you go into the opposite numbers for any track or any car?

What is your highest number in setups for what track?

 

[Eric Estes]

In general, use negative toe (toe out) on the front - it helps with turn in. Use positive toe (toe in) on the rear to help stabilize the car under braking and improve grip through the apex. Excessive toe will hurt straight line speeds and may lessen tire life by increasing scrub.

I almost always use at least -.2 on the fronts, and +.1 on the rears. For touring cars I've gone at least as high as -1.0 on the fronts and +.5 on the rears. I'll use more toe at twisty tracks, less at long fast ones. I've seen more exotic setups but I generally stay lower than those numbers.
I'll do 0 rear at occasional very fast tracks (Monza '70 etc.). If you run with no toe at all you may end up with a floating, unstable feel down the straights. I never run edit: negative toe in the rear in RACE. It could theoretically be used if you had an understeer you could not otherwise get rid of, but I'd throw everything else at it first as you may end up with greater chance of snap oversteer doing this.
Positive toe in front can slow the response to turn-in, which could be beneficial in some cases, and I've run others' setups with +.1 or .2 that were fine.
GT cars generally run with less toe, and I don't have enough experience with open wheel mods for RACE to be sure, but I'd imagine numbers close to the GT cars.
Keep in mind ovals (iRacing etc.) are a completely different animal, with splits to each side of the car in some cases.

 

[Petr Kantor]

Thanks Eric, your input is greatly appreciated!

 

[Kennett Ylitalo]

Open wheelers usually have less toe in/out than GT and Touring Cars. If the setup is balanced you can finetune tire temperatures with small toe adjust. And i would add, never use negative toe at rear, it's a real recipe for disaster. 0 is the maximum there, otherwise the rear always moves sideways as it tries to decide where to go. Front is different thing, there the negative Toe In helps turning as the tires are more ready for sideways movement and since they linked to the black round thing in front of our noses, we can do the fine adjustments to keep it going straight. Racecars almost exclusively use negative Toe In at front and regular cars uses the opposite.

Race uses only Toe In values so take note when reading guides on the net...Some use mixed terms, using Toe In and Toe Out (like eric did by mistake.. sorry mate but i have to clear this one):

Negative Toe In= tires point outwards -> Toe Out
Positive Toe In = tires point inwards. -> Toe In

EDIT: this was in my bookmarks: http://www.ozebiz.com.au/racetech/theory/align.html

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

And i would add, never use negative toe at rear, it's a real recipe for disaster.

Don't agree. I have negative toe on the rear when the track is wet

 

[Petr Kantor]

Don't agree. I have negative toe on the rear when the track is wet

I was really surprised to see Kenneths post with no rear toe out and then his own link suggested that. Does it mean, toe out all the way? the car gonna break apart!

 

[Ivo Simons]

I always run most cars with -30.0 on the front and + 0.05 on the rear.

 

[Kennett Ylitalo]

I was really surprised to see Kenneths post with no rear toe out and then his own link suggested that. Does it mean, toe out all the way? the car gonna break apart!

John Hagerman:

However, it is rare to set up a rear-drive race car toed out in the rear, since doing so causes excessive oversteer, particularly when power is applied....

Front-wheel-drive race cars, on the other hand, are often set up with a bit of toe-out, as this induces a bit of oversteer to counteract the greater tendency of front-wheel-drive cars to understeer.

To maximize transient response, it is desirable to use a little toe-in at the rear to hasten the generation of slip angles and thus cornering forces in the rear tires.

Again, this toe out/toe in is what's causing confusion.. Negative Toe In = Toe out. Positive Toe In in RWD cars on normal conditions:

Don't agree. I have negative toe on the rear when the track is wet

Bram, i have to try that, good tip.

Front:

REAR:

 

[Eric Estes]

Race uses only Toe In values so take note when reading guides on the net...Some use mixed terms, using Toe In and Toe Out (like eric did by mistake.. sorry mate but i have to clear this one)

Oops, did reverse it once, thanks - edited to fix. I prefer to use the neutral term "Toe" with positive values being 'in' / \, and negative values being 'out' \ /.

Good graphical representation ^^^^^

 

[Jim Cole]

It would be a lot easier if the program actually used the terminology and usage that the real world does. In real shops, you are dealing with "Toe", and the values are positive if the front of the tires are closer together than the rear of the tires, negative for the opposite.

 

[Petr Kantor]

Honestly, preferably use the terminology that the game uses. With explanation how real word does, but advice what to set in game please. And if you want to be especially helpful, suggested setting for fast track like monza, slow track like monaco and city track like whatever because i hate them. Valencia

 

[Erik Tveit]

Monza Etc: -0,10 front, -0,05 rear
Valencia Etc: -0,25 front, 0,10 rear
Monaco Etc: -0,40 front, 0,15 rear
More or less.

 

[Kennett Ylitalo]

Those figures sound all right to me. I use more toe than the rest, i have a tendency for underheated tires, with toe i can get couple of degrees more so i don't need to start heating tires in the middle of race.. For Monza i need at least +20 in front. I need to test how toe out at rear works.

And we haven't even scratched the surface.. The whole camber/caster/toe geometry under different conditions, terms like camber torque or slip angle... It's very interesting field to study..

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

The first sim racing game that has an animated setup screen that actually shows you what part of the car you are changing gets my money

Can't be that hard to create.

 

[Senad Subasic]

The first sim racing game that has an animated setup screen that actually shows you what part of the car you are changing gets my money

Can't be that hard to create.

I'll go one better: you can see actual ride height/camber/whatever changes in netKar PRO's open wheelers while you're changing them

 

[Dan Costa]

The first sim racing game that has an animated setup screen that actually shows you what part of the car you are changing gets my money

Can't be that hard to create.

Live for speed since 2003.


quick video

In-depth video (quite amazing)

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you can see the linkage change in real time. Its how I learned stuff. Not only that but it also has a feature to "drop" the car one feet or so, in order to see how the suspension reacts to the changes.

Its helped by the fact you also have temperature monitoring of 4 sections per tire (in; middle; out and inner) which makes you learn real fast what everything does to tires temperatures and surface contact.

If someone is interested in starting to learn setups, I'd recommend LFS over any other game.
Most sims these days assume you already are a setup wizard and only give you values, having to resort to outside literature to understand what does what.