[ncmx5]

Has anyone here had the car in for a real track alignment?
What kind of negative camber can you get with the stock suspension?
Im planning on getting the Abarth soon and was curious of how much
is possible.

 

[Good-Win Racing]

We have raced our Fiat, and extensively raced our ND Miata that uses the same chassis.

If serious about track you will want coilovers so you can lower it, and gain access to MUCH more negative camber, use higher spring rates, etc.

Right now our ND Miata has our OHLINS, which for Fiat124 are at THIS LINK
Alignment numbers are:
Front Camber -2.8
Caster 6
Toe Zero

Rear Camber -2.4
Toe in 1/32 per side.

Fiat 124 lowered with coilovers can get the same numbers given the chassis is precisely the same.
BUT NOTE this is beyond the camber most folks can run without screwing up a set of tires, but I race our cars enough for track and autocross that my wear evens up nicely.

For more mild setup, that you can track and drive daily without any concern for tire wear consider our lowering springs and numbers more like this:

Front Camber -1.2
Toe IN 1/32nd per side (some shops call this 1/16th 'total' toe in).
Caster 6

Rear Camber -1.2
Toe IN 1/32nd per side

That's what we had for first SCCA day on our Fiat 124, enough to get in the trophies even without limited slip we added later (you can hear LOTS of tire spin in video below).

Complete RoadsterSport Exhaust System, camera on rear bumper for first Fiat 124 at an SCCA Autocross Event.
Again, this is with our Springs and KONI shocks but before we added the limited slip.

 

[ncmx5]

Cool, yeah i've been following what you guys have been doing, Im not sure if they are out yet for the ND/124 but it seems like alot my racing friends love the JRZ setups, personally I have a koni yellow/RCE tarmac spring setup on my BRZ and I love it, Not enough camber but it could be fixed with plates. Im trading in the car soon so im not dumping any more money into it. I was curious about stock camber because I may race the car stock for a season and then probably go into SM.

 

[ncmx5]

And yeah I really don't care about wear because I go through a set of race tires every season, the only thing that's going to suck is not being able to carry my race tires in back like the BRZ

 

[ncmx5]

And as far as a wheel/tire setup would you go 16x8 or17x8? I know on the BRZ 17x9 is the ticket but it seems like these cars won't fit that?

 

[Good-Win Racing]

Assuming you stay 'stock', which SCCA calls 'STREET' these days, that means stock springs and KONI shocks. At stock height you are lucky to get the 1.2 negative camber I listed above but the KONI are lower pressure than stock monotubes and car sits a bit lower even with stock springs such that we can usually get at least 1.5 negative camber and you want all you can get for Stock/Street class. You also want the KONI in there for control over balance with the front sway upgrade you can run under class rules (and you need that front sway bar upgrade for greater roll stiffness to be competitive). And if really getting into the details, you want upgraded bumpstops too

We run 16x8...shown below.

And we run 17x8...shown below.

And we run 17x9....shown below.

Wheel size is about the class you run, stock/street class is stock 7 inch width. Once beyond stock/street class you need to jump to width limit of the next class which is 9 inches. Thus, 8 inches wide would not be competitive. We do not yet know if SCCA will put the Fiat 124 in STR with ND Miata, or push it to SSM, etc. But either way, 17x8 will be slow compared to limit of at least 9 inch width allowed. Whether looking at 17x8 or 17x9 the plug/play tire is 235/40/17 but rules beyond stock/street allow fender rolling so figure the FAST setup beyond stock/street classes will be 245/40/17.

 

[Good-Win Racing]

Has anyone here had the car in for a real track alignment?
What kind of negative camber can you get with the stock suspension?
Im planning on getting the Abarth soon and was curious of how much
is possible.

It should be noted stock roll hoops are NOT for track use...unless dying in the car is your idea of fun.

Stock plastic hoops hide 1 inch aluminum tube bar designed to merely prevent you getting killed in SLOW street flips that can happen if you slide into curb at intersection at 25mph, etc. Once we are talking track days at 100 mph you want real protection, like our SCCA legal bar at THIS LINK.

 

[Good-Win Racing]

Here is what lurks under stock plastic hoops:

Fortunately, that is bolt in setup. Bolt in replacement looks like this:

 

[ncmx5]

Thanks for the all the insight, and yeah the first thing I was going to do was get this rollbar. And yeah im curious to see if the 124 gets to be in STR, but to me its too tempting to get that euro-compulsion race tune, full exhaust and just go crazy in SM

 

[Sonny Burnett]

What offset are you running on the wheels? Clearly it doesn't look like fender rolling needs to happen.

 

[MotoPete]

Here is what lurks under stock plastic hoops:

Hidden under plastic covers or not, Mazda ought to be ashamed they're putting out a car with such amateurish welding...

 

[GuidoVeloce]

It sure looks ugly, but I don't think that it is an amateurish weld. In fact, it is not a weld at all, because you can't weld Aluminum to steel. The nasty-looking weld is filling material that holds the Al tube in place inside the steel bracket. Perhaps someone who knows about Aluminum welding could give more explanations?

 

[MotoPete]

In fact, it is not a weld at all, because you can't weld Aluminum to steel.

Seems Mazda's been doing it for years already with the boot lid...

http://www2.mazda.com/en/publicity/release/2005/200506/050602.html

 

[GuidoVeloce]

Seems Mazda's been doing it for years already with the boot lid...

http://www2.mazda.com/en/publicity/release/2005/200506/050602.html

Excellent, thanks! However, friction welding is still another beast.

 

[Chipshot]

Here is what lurks under stock plastic hoops:

Fortunately, that is bolt in setup. Bolt in replacement looks like this:

While the replacement sure looks nice, I'd like to know two things:
1) The strength of what it's bolted to.
2) Its effect on rearward visibility.
I might also prefer it in black (or red?) and perhaps with some strategically-located padding.

 

[Good-Win Racing]

Mazda designed the car for a roll bar...so as you might expect the mounting points are reinforced key points in the heart of the chassis.
No impact on rear view, I cannot see it in the mirror.
Our site offers Black....and even option for custom red.

The one thing that is different in daily use is raising and dropping top while at a stoplight...which becomes a two-handed affair as one hand lifts top to bar height, the other hand lifts it from there to closed, etc.

 

[skeeler]

What offset are you running on the wheels? Clearly it doesn't look like fender rolling needs to happen.

All the 4-lug, 17-inch versions of the 949 Racing 6ULs have offsets of +45 mm. As Brian said, you'll need to roll the fenders to fit 245s.

 

[HaZ]

I made a surprising discovery at the track today. -1.2 degrees camber front and rear is actually too much camber! This is the spec I went with today and, using a tire pyrometer to measure inner, mid, and outer tire temps, I found that inner temps are significantly higher than outer temps, no matter what pressure I set the tires to. This is especially true for front wheels. The rear wheels are actually pretty close to ideal, I would say maybe -1.1 degrees should work for the rear.

The stock camber spec for the front wheels is between 0 and -0.5 degrees, depending on ride height. Now that I think about it, it makes perfect sense. Double wishbone suspensions are supposed to camber automatically under load, you don't need to add more camber! The rears do however need a small amount of static camber and the service manual does state this.

I'm going to go back to stock alignment and hit the track again to see if I can gain any time.

 

[Chainringtattoo]

I made a surprising discovery at the track today. -1.2 degrees camber front and rear is actually too much camber! This is the spec I went with today and, using a tire pyrometer to measure inner, mid, and outer tire temps, I found that inner temps are significantly higher than outer temps, no matter what pressure I set the tires to. This is especially true for front wheels. The rear wheels are actually pretty close to ideal, I would say maybe -1.1 degrees should work for the rear.

The stock camber spec for the front wheels is between 0 and -0.5 degrees, depending on ride height. Now that I think about it, it makes perfect sense. Double wishbone suspensions are supposed to camber automatically under load, you don't need to add more camber! The rears do however need a small amount of static camber and the service manual does state this.

I'm going to go back to stock alignment and hit the track again to see if I can gain any time.

How many sessions did you do? I have -1.8 degrees and thought the same thing until the tires kept getting hotter and hotter in later sessions when the grip level picked up and I was pushing harder. Then I saw the heat shift to the outside of the tires. It has to be way too cold where you are to push very hard and get any decent grip.

 

[HaZ]

How many sessions did you do? I have -1.8 degrees and thought the same thing until the tires kept getting hotter and hotter in later sessions when the grip level picked up and I was pushing harder. Then I saw the heat shift to the outside of the tires. It has to be way too cold where you are to push very hard and get any decent grip.

I did push it pretty hard and I think the longest session I've done was around 10 laps, but you're right, it was freezing cold out here.

I talked to a GT4 race engineer today and he said the higher inner temps is normal, there's usually a 40 F temp difference between inner and outer in GT4. They over-camber the wheels to generate camber thrust. Maybe it's just textbook wisdom that tire temps should be equalized across the tread I don't know if I should still try stock camber again to see if I can notice any difference.