HOW TO TUNE YOUR CAR’S HANDLING: A Driver’s Guide

Important Stuff

You know that motorsport of any kind is dangerous. Therefore, I provide my

advice for you to use in the way you choose. I can't be held responsible for
anything that might happen as a result. You're a grown-up - you're responsible
for yourself – and by reading on, you are accepting that responsibility.
All of the
• changing the leverage on it.
• Changing the entire bar to one that is either larger/thicker or
smaller/thinner, thereby increasing or decreasing the ability of the bar to
twist.
By changing either the size/thickness of the tube/bar, or the leverage on it, you’re
increasing or decreasing its stiffness (ability to twist).
Some cars have front and rear bars, and some only have them on the front. To
maximize the softness of a bar, you could even disconnect it, which is a common
thing to do to the rear bar when driving in the rain (to maximize the amount of
rear grip on the slippery track).
Springs
Choosing the optimum spring rate is one of the most important setup factors
you'll deal with. Most cars have coil springs, although some may have leaf-type
(essentially, one or more metal blades that flex with the suspension movement)
on the rear. One other option is a torsion bar, which is a simple metal bar that
twists when the suspension moves.
Generally, finding the optimum is a compromise between having a soft enough
spring to allow the suspension to handle the undulations in the track surface,
while being stiff enough to keep the car from bottoming out when hitting a bump,
as well as making the car respond quick enough. There are many more factors
involved, such as your driving style or preference, the amount of aerodynamic
downforce you are running, the weight of the car, the shape and condition of the
track surface, and so on. Perhaps most important, though, is the balance front to
rear.
A good strategy to start with is to use the softest spring possible on the rear - to
help the rear tires achieve maximum traction under acceleration – and then
balance the handling with the front springs to achieve balanced handling (neither
understeering or oversteering – neutral).

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 HOW TO TUNE YOUR CAR’S HANDLING: A Driver’s Guide

Shocks
Tuning shock absorbers is a topic all in itself, and they should have a book or
eBook devoted to just them. Oh wait, I’ve done that already! See my Shocks for
Drivers by clicking here.
You can use the shock absorbers to alter the transient handling characteristics -
how responsive the car is to your inputs. If the springs and anti-roll bars
determine the amount of body roll and the distribution front to rear, then how
quickly that body roll occurs is determined mostly by the shock absorber rates.
It’s important to keep in mind that shocks impact your car’s handling mostly in
transient situations, as well as how well the suspension soaks up the bumps and
undulations on the track surface. But once the car has taken a set in a corner (is
in a steady state), they don’t impact the handling that much (a little, but not a lot).
Some shocks are not adjustable at all, so the only way you could tune your car’s
handling, then, would be to install completely different ones. Other shocks are
adjustable in one direction, but not the other; then there are some shocks that
have four or even more different types of adjustments.
What do these adjustments do? First, think of a shock absorber that is being
compressed. In tuning terms, this is referred to as “compression” or “bump.”
Now, imagine that same shock being extended. In this case, that’s called
“rebound.” So, you may have only compression adjustments, or both
compression and rebound adjustments available to you to help tune your car’s
handling.
Something else to keep in mind is the speed that the shock is either being
compressed or extended. Most of what we are concerned with while tuning the
car’s handling is considered “low speed.” That’s because the speed that the shaft
and piston moving inside the shock is relatively slow, and this is when the car is
rolling due to load transfer in cornering. “High speed” compression or rebound is
what happens when the suspension is moving quickly to soak up bumps in the
track.
Note that when referring to low- and high-speed shock rates or adjustments, this
has nothing to do with the speed that your car is traveling. It’s all about the speed
that the shock shaft is moving. You can imagine that when you hit a bump on the
track surface, the shock shaft moves fast; when you turn into a corner and the
car begins to roll, the shock shaft is moving relatively slowly.
Here are some general rules about shock tuning (again, see Shocks for Drivers
eBook for more information and detail):
• Adjust the low shock shaft speed (Low Speed Adjustors) to tune the
handling, feel, and grip of the car; and high shock shaft speed (High Speed
Adjustors) to control the car over track bumps. Low-Speed damping affects
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 HOW TO TUNE YOUR CAR’S HANDLING: A Driver’s Guide

the “feel” of the car when braking, turning, and accelerating. High-Speed
damping affects the car’s grip when travelling over bumps in the track
surface.
• To improve the ride quality over bumps, adjust the High-Speed
characteristics. This is done primarily with the High-Speed Compression,
but reducing the High-Speed Rebound can also help (to a point). In fact,
too much High-Speed Rebound can make the car feel very harsh over low
amplitude/low frequency bumps; too little and the car will continue to
oscillate for too long after the bump.
• Low-Speed adjustments control the handling of the car – the transient
response and the rate of roll, dive, and squat. Usually, an increase in
LowSpeed damping will make the car feel more responsive, without
affecting the ride quality too much. Often, that will also make the tires work
harder, and raise their temperatures.
• Low-Speed adjustments are a good way of controlling the feel at corner
entry (the initial turn-in), and when putting the power down (accelerating
out of a corner). To improve the initial turn-in responsiveness, increase the
Low-Speed Compression and/or Rebound at the front – primarily the
Rebound. This makes the car feel stiffer when turning into the corners,
giving you the responsiveness you’re looking for. To make the car put the
power down better, reduce the Low-Speed Compression at the rear,
making it softer, and increasing its grip level.
• When adjusting the oversteer/understeer balance, try to determine if the
imbalance is caused by the car being too stiff (not enough roll, feeling like
a go-kart), or if the car rolls too much (feels like an old Buick!).
• If the car is understeering too much, and it feels too stiff, reduce the front
Low-Speed Compression and/or increase the rear Low-Speed Rebound.
This will allow the front of the car to roll a little more – much like putting
softer front springs in the car or softening the front anti-roll bar. If the
understeer feels as though it is caused by too much roll – it feels like an
old Buick, the front end falling over – then increase the front Low-Speed
Compression and/or reduce the rear Low-Speed Rebound. This helps
support the front of the car, reducing the amount of roll.
• If you have an oversteering car that feels too stiff, reduce the rear
LowSpeed Compression and/or increase the front Low-Speed Rebound.
This has a similar effect as softening the rear springs or anti-roll bar. If the
oversteer feels as though it is caused by too much roll, increase the rear
Low-Speed Compression and/or increase the front Low-Speed Rebound.

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 HOW TO TUNE YOUR CAR’S HANDLING: A Driver’s Guide

• To reduce chassis roll, and hopefully increase the grip, increase the
LowSpeed Compression at the end of the car that needs the improvement.
• Finally, shocks are just one part of the overall package. If you change to
much stiffer springs, for example, you will have to change the shocks to
match, and vice versa. Stiffer springs typically require less compression
and more rebound, and softer springs require more compression and less
rebound. Either too much or too little shock control for the springs will
mean the car’s performance will suffer.
Decision Time
Given the options of softening or stiffening the springs, anti-roll bar, or shocks,
which should you choose? First, go with Setup Tuning Principle #5, Adjust what
is easiest to get a direction from. If it’s difficult to change springs, but easy to
adjust the anti-roll bar, go with the bar.
Second, think about where on the track you want the change. Springs and bars
tend to influence the grip level most of the way through a corner, whereas shocks
mostly impact the car in transition. So, if your car is understeering or oversteering
in the middle of a long corner where it’s “taken a set” and the weight transfer is
relatively steady, look to the springs and anti-roll bars to provide more grip. But if
it’s in the transition as you turn into a corner, or as you’re unwinding the steering
wheel and applying throttle exiting a corner, then the shocks are going to play a
big role. This is why your initial Handling Debrief is so critical, as it helps you
determine not just what you want your car to do better, but where (and what
you’re doing when you want it to do something better).
And remember that you’re looking for a direction. For example, if your car is
understeering mid-corner before you begin to apply the throttle (by using the
debrief process, you’ve identified where the understeer is happening, and in this
case it’s not a transitional thing, so it’s less likely to be helped with just the
shocks), your first reaction would likely be to soften the front of the car. But,
should you soften the springs or anti-roll bar? Again, start with the easiest to
adjust? The anti-roll bar is often easier to adjust than changing springs, so start
there. If the understeer is reduced, but now the car is a bit “lazy” in the way it
turns into the corners, and it feels “roll-y,” then you’ve found the right direction –
softer in the front. But now you could put the anti-roll back to the stiffer setting,
and make the more difficult change: softer springs.
Tuning your car is a process. Just like improving one’s driving, there’s always
more, and often it’s a cyclical process.
You may find that when you make one change, that it helps solve the initial
problem you were trying to fix, but it’s made the car worse somewhere else. First,
think about what else you could do to have the same effect of the positive
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 HOW TO TUNE YOUR CAR’S HANDLING: A Driver’s Guide

change you made, but without the negative effects it caused. Then, weigh up the
trade-offs. If it improves the car in one part of the track, but hurts it somewhere
else, which is most important? Perhaps the improvement is not worth it, as it
hurts more than it helps, overall. Or maybe you can more easily live with the
downsides, since you can change your driving technique to deal with it, or it’s on
a part of the track that is less important.

TIRE TUNING
What about tire pressures? How can you use them to tune your car’s handling,
especially since they’re the easiest to adjust (see Setup Tuning Principles #4
Work with what you have; and #5, Adjust what is easiest to get a direction from).
When tuning tire pressures, think about two things:
1. Tire tread surface
2. Tire spring rate
A tire generates its most grip when
the tread surface is flat across the
track surface - when all of the tire is
working to grip the track. If the center
of the tire tread is crowned up due to
too much air pressure, only part of
the tread surface will be on the track. The opposite of this is also true if the
tire pressure is too low.
So, the first thing to keep in mind when tuning tire pressures is whether you’re
keeping the maximum amount of tread surface on the track.
Air pressure also affects the amount the tire sidewalls flex. If they flex too much,
the tread surface will deflect too much, and again you won’t have the maximum
amount of tread surface on the track. In this case, the tires will roll over so much
that you’ll wear on the very top edge of the sidewall, and that’s not what they’re
designed to do! Also, if the sidewalls of the tires flex too much, the car will feel
mushy when you initially turn into a corner (if you’ve ever driven a car equipped
with snow tires on a dry road, you know that mushy, non-responsive feeling). Air
pressure affects how responsive your car feels.
Air pressure also affects the tire spring rate. Yes, tires are another spring within
the suspension of your car, and the same guidelines you used for tuning the roll
stiffness relationship come into play. However, this is usually less important
than keeping the tread surface on the track, and the sidewall stiffness. Tire
Pressure

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 HOW TO TUNE YOUR CAR’S HANDLING: A Driver’s Guide

With that in mind, here’s the thing: Tires have an

ideal window or range for their pressures; too much
pressure and you lose grip, too little and you lose
grip; just right is…well, just right for maximizing grip.
That range could be a couple of psi (pounds per
square inch of pressure), or as small as half a psi or
so. So, if your tires are at the top of that range, and
you raise the pressures, you’ll lose grip. Conversely,
if you lower the pressures a psi or two, you may gain grip. Your take-away from
that experience would likely be that lowering tire pressures will always result in
more grip, but that’s not the case. If your tires are at the very bottom of that
pressure range, and you lower them, you’ll lose grip.
That leads to the obvious question, “How do I find that ideal range?” Like
everything else, do a sweep, and fine-tune from there:

1. Start with pressures that are recommended for your tire for track driving
(check out Tire Rack’s website, ask whomever you purchased the tires
from, and/or talk with other drivers running the same tire on the same type
of car that you’re driving).
2. If you can’t get a recommendation from a trusted source, find the
pressures that your car manufacturer provided (owner’s manual or on the
driver’s inner door frame), and raise them by 5 psi. Why? Because the side
loads you’ll be putting on the tires are far greater than those the
manufacturer based their recommendations on, and you need that extra
pressure to support the tire sidewalls so they don’t flex so much that the
tread surface is pulled off the track. Call these pressures, or the
recommended ones, your “baseline.”
3. Drive your car with these baseline pressures until you’re consistent with
your driving and you know that you’ll be able to sense changes in tire
pressures.
4. Raise all four tire pressures by 4 psi, and drive your car again. Make note
of how it felt – the overall grip level (more or less?), as well as the
responsiveness to changes in direction.
5. Lower all four tire pressures to 4 psi below your baseline (a total of 8 psi
less from the previous step), and drive it again, while making note of how it
felt. Is overall grip and responsiveness better or worse?
6. You should now have a direction. You will know whether more or less
pressure than baseline is likely to help you get the tires into their ideal
range. Set your pressures to whatever you felt provided the most overall

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 HOW TO TUNE YOUR CAR’S HANDLING: A Driver’s Guide

grip and responsiveness: baseline, plus-4 psi, or minus-4 psi. This is your
new baseline.
7. Go through steps 4, 5 and 6 again, but this time making only 2 psi
changes. Then again, but making only 1 psi changes.
8. If you liked the feel of your car’s handling with more pressure, or less
pressure, but you sensed that your car had less overall grip (it was more
responsive, but lacked overall grip), that provides a direction, too. Raise or
lower the pressures by 2 psi, and test it again, looking for a direction.
9. Carry on with this process, making smaller and smaller adjustments until
you feel that you’ve found the ideal range for overall grip and
responsiveness. Then, depending on track conditions and ambient
temperature, you can make fine adjustments to dial it in for individual track
conditions.
Notice that you should start off with large changes, and gradually work down to
finer adjustments as you home in on the ideal target pressures.
Through this process you’ll get a feel for whether raising or lowering the
pressures will usually help or hurt, and this is critical information, since you can
use it to tune the balance of your car. For example, if your car is understeering
and you want more front grip, you should have a good idea whether raising or
lowering the pressures will help. Sure, you won’t be right every time, but the goal
with following the steps above is that you’ll “guess” right more often than not.
Also, by following this process, you’ll learn just how small an adjustment you can
sense. You may find that with your tires and car, that you can notice a 2-psi
change, but not 1 psi. That’s important to know, as some drivers spend a lot of
time fiddling with 1 (or even 0.5) psi changes when, in reality, they can’t feel the
difference.
If you’re unable to go through this process, my recommendation is to start with
these very general guidelines:
• To improve grip on one end of the car, increase tire pressure on that end’s
pair of tires.
• To improve overall grip on both ends of the car, increase tire pressures.
• To improve the responsiveness of your car’s handling, increase the tire
pressures.
Am I suggesting that raising the pressures will always increase grip? No. These
guidelines work every time, except when they don’t! Again, if the tires are already
on the verge of being over-pressured (at the top of the ideal range), increasing
the pressure will only hurt the grip levels. Most often, when the tires are

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 HOW TO TUNE YOUR CAR’S HANDLING: A Driver’s Guide

overpressured, the problem is you’re no longer keeping the tread surface on the
track.
But if you have to make a fairly wild guess, start by increasing the pressures. You
can always reduce them if you don’t gain grip!
Keep in mind that your driving will have a big effect on the ideal tire pressure
range. If you drive your car closer to the limit than you have in the past, your
pressures will likely need to change. So what you think are the perfect tire
pressures today may not be in six months or a year from now when you’re
driving your car harder.
Tire Temperature
Just like tires provide the most grip with the ideal
pressures, they also work best in an ideal temperature
range. The temperature I’m talking about is across the
tread, including the carcass of the tire and the surface
of the tread where it comes in contact with the track.
Tire grip initially rises with an increase in temperature,
until it reaches its ideal range, and then tapers off with
higher temperatures. As a driver, you have likely
experienced this: cold tires don’t have the same level
of grip as hot ones do, and if you over-drive the tires (sliding the car too much),
they overheat and begin to lose grip. It’s this ideal temperature range we’d like
our tires to operate in. But not all tires have the same ideal temperature range.
A slick race tire will typically operate and produce maximum grip at a higher
temperature than one designed for average road use, with ultra-
highperformance street tires somewhere in the middle.
Measuring tire temperatures with a probe or infrared tool can be helpful, and yet
can also be misleading if not done properly. Mostly what you want with tire
temperatures is to get readings across the tread surface, from the inside, the
middle, and outside. In a perfect world, if you could measure the temperatures in
the middle of a long corner, readings would be the same across the full width of
the tire tread surface, meaning that the full width of the tire is in contact with the
track and doing its job of providing traction. The challenge is that unless you’re
able to take these tire temps while you’re driving through corners, you don’t have
perfectly accurate information.
By the time you slow down, drive into pit lane,
and back into the paddock, your tires have
cooled down. And the inside edge of the tread
will have cooled down less than the rest of the
surface, since it’s being run on while driving
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 HOW TO TUNE YOUR CAR’S HANDLING: A Driver’s Guide

straight (remember that your car will have some amount of negative camber,
meaning that the inner part of the tread surface is more in contact with the track
when driving straight; the outer part of the tread is not being used as much while
driving relatively slowly into the paddock, and therefore will cool down more than
the inner part). A typical temperature spread from the inner part of the tread to
the outer part can be 20 to 30 degrees (Fahrenheit) for a setup that is providing
good traction. If the tire temps are equal across the surface by the time you’ve
slowed down and stopped, it’s most likely you do not have enough negative
camber in your suspension; much more than 30 degrees and you may have too
much negative camber.
If you don’t measure the tire temps almost immediately after slowing down and
coming into the pits, the information you’re getting can be inaccurate and
misleading. Ideally, you should drive your cool-down lap as close to maximum
speed as possible, and come into pit lane and have the tire temps taken as
quickly as possible.
As a general guideline, if the tires on one end of your car are running hotter than
the other tires, that means those tires have a higher slip angle. Therefore, for
example, if the front tires average hotter temperatures than the rear tires do, that
means your car is understeering; the opposite temperature spread - the rear tires
hotter than the fronts - would indicate oversteer.
So, tire temperatures can be a useful bit of information for tuning, as they can tell
you or confirm your sense of whether the car is either understeering or
oversteering; they can also be used to home in on the ideal camber and toe
angles. But how and when you take the temperatures is critical; wait too long
before measuring them and you’re going to get information that could very well
lead you in the wrong direction.
I can tell you that more than a few of the very top race car engineers in the world
do not put too much emphasis on the spread of tire temperatures across the
tread, for the very reasons I mentioned above. Instead, they spend more time
simply looking at the tread surface, and "reading" them. If you take time after
every session to study the tread surface, and compare what you see with what
you felt while driving the car, over time you'll learn more about what works and
what doesn't work by just reading your tires. You can take this a step further by
taking a quick photo with your smartphone, and then add a few short notes about
how the handling and grip levels felt. Eventually, you’ll have a valuable library of
what tires should look like when your car is handling well.
A quick note on getting your tires up to temperature. Quick, back-and-forth
swerving of the steering does very little to build heat in the tires. Long, hard
acceleration and braking does much more. Why? First, when you build heat from
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 HOW TO TUNE YOUR CAR’S HANDLING: A Driver’s Guide

the inside of the tire, that’s more effective. So, when you brake hard and long,
heat builds in the brakes, and that temperature transfers into the hubs, then into
the wheel, and finally into the air inside the tires. When you quickly swerve back
and forth, only the very surface of the tires are sliding (slightly) on the surface of
the track. That, then, requires more time to build heat throughout the tire, and
that’s what matters most.
Temperatures versus Pressures
Never forget that temperature affects pressure: with increased temperature
comes increased pressure. Therefore, when you’re adjusting tire pressures to
find that ideal window, you’re looking for the pressures when the tires are hot.
For example, if the recommended pressures for your car and tires are 36 psi,
that’s a hot pressure. That means that you need to figure out how much the
pressures will increase from when you initially set them when cold.
It’s not unusual for tire pressures to increase by 5 to 10 psi from the cold settings.
Since all you really care about is the pressures when your tires are hot, you have
to figure out where to set them when cold that will ultimately end up where you
want them on track. That means that if you’re at the track on a cold day, you may
have to start with cold pressures a little higher than if you’re at the track on a very
hot, summer day, and vice versa.
A big factor in how much your tire pressures increase on track is how hard you’re
driving your car. If you’re consistently driving at the limit, then the tires are being
loaded more, and the pressures will rise more; if you’re driving well under the
limit, they will not increase as much.
Another factor that determines how much the pressures increase on track is the
amount of humidity in the air inside your tires. Since water (the humidity in the
air) expands more than air, the pressures can increase dramatically if there’s a
lot of moisture in the air that has been put in your tires. For that reason, it’s best
to use some type of air dryer on the air compressor that you use to fill your tires.
If you have to fill your tires with air from a local gas station, be prepared for your
tire pressures to increase more when they get hot on track. If you use air from
different sources from day-to-day, or event-to-event, be prepared for the
pressure increase to vary, making it difficult to dial in your ideal pressures.
Again, your goal should be to find the ideal tire pressure range when hot, when
you’re driving at your limit.

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 HOW TO TUNE YOUR CAR’S HANDLING: A Driver’s Guide

SUSPENSION GEOMETRY/ALIGNMENT TUNING

Obviously, there are a multitude of adjustments that can be made to a car’s
suspension, with its geometry and alignment. But for most drivers, the three main
adjustments you can make reasonably easily are:
• Ride height
• Camber
• Toe
Guidelines for suspension tuning:
• Lower most often generates more grip. Therefore, if you want more front
grip, lower the front of the car; lowering the rear will generate more rear
grip. The exception to this guideline is when you get so low that the
chassis begins to bottom out, or the suspension geometry gets so far from
the original designed ride height that the camber and toe begin to work
outside their ideal range. There are aerodynamic considerations, too, but
we won't go into that, here. But, your car’s rake – the difference between
the front and rear ride height (positive rake is when the nose of the car is
lower than the rear; negative rake is the opposite) – can be a powerful
tuning tool.
• More negative camber (the top of the
tire leaned into towards the center of
the car) increases grip… until it
doesn’t. Keeping in mind what I said
earlier about the goal of keeping the
tread surface flat on the track, you
would think that you’d want the tire
standing straight up and down with
no camber whatsoever. But since the tires on the outside of a corner lean
outward due to chassis roll, beginning with negative camber will mean that
they’re straight up and down - and the tread is fully on the track - when
cornering hard. Increasing the negative camber will generate more grip
until the tire is leaning too much, to the point where the tread surface is not
flat on the track in the middle of the corners. Like tire pressures and
temperatures, your tires have an ideal camber range, and it’s your goal to
zero in on the middle of that range. And different levels of track grip, and
even ambient temperature, can make a difference to where that ideal
camber setting is.
• If your car has independent rear suspension, then the toe can be adjusted.
In practically every situation, you want some amount of toe-in on the rear,
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 HOW TO TUNE YOUR CAR’S HANDLING: A Driver’s Guide

as toe-out will make the car very unstable. Unless you’re very
knowledgeable, stick to factory specs for rear toe.
• Adjusting front toe is an effective tuning
tool. Too much toe-out and the car will
feel unstable when driving in a straight
line, as each tire will be trying to pull
the car to one side or the other.
However, toe-out will help improve the
car’s initial turn-in capabilities (because
the tire on the inside when entering a
corner is already pointing into the turn,
it makes the initial turn-in more
responsive). So, if you want your car to
have more turn-in response, increase the toe-out. If your car is set with
toe-in, decrease the amount of toe-in, or even go to toe-out. If you really
want to understand the impact of toe, do a sweep, where you test your car
from one end of the spectrum of toe-in to toe-out. In doing so, you’ll learn
more about slip angles and where your tires generate the most grip. Note
that tire temperatures can help you tune the toe, as well. If the inside of the
tread surface is much hotter than the outside, it may be that you have too
much toe-out, and that inside edge is scrubbing while driving in a straight
line. Also, keep in mind that more toe (either in or out) will increase
tire temperatures due to the scrub while driving on the straightaways, and
that temperature increase will show up more on the inside part of the tread
surface. So, if you want your front tires to run hotter, more toe is an option;
the opposite is also true.
To begin, always start with the stock, factory alignment if driving a
productionbased car, or the recommended settings if driving a purpose-built race
car. Not only does this give you a good, solid baseline to begin with, but it’s not
going to make the car undriveable. Start there, and make incremental changes,
while always keeping track of the changes in your notes.

BALANCE, RESPONSIVENESS & GRIP

Many drivers relate handling to responsiveness, and that’s why they think stiffer
springs and/or anti-roll bars and shocks result in better handling. If the car
responds quickly to your steering inputs, it gives you confidence. And confidence
is usually faster than overall grip. But balance is just as important – maybe more
so – than responsiveness. So, it’s important to separate your thinking - initially -
between responsiveness, balance, and overall grip.
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 HOW TO TUNE YOUR CAR’S HANDLING: A Driver’s Guide

When we talk about balance, we’re talking about the relationship of oversteer to
understeer. If the car understeers too much, that’s not balanced; same with too
much oversteer. Having said that, there is a time and place where you may want
a touch of understeer or oversteer. For example, most drivers are faster with a bit
of understeer in fast corners (since it gives you confidence that it won’t snap
sideways), and a little oversteer in slow corners (since it helps you change
direction, or rotate the car).
Similarly, there is a time and place for a very responsive car, such as in Esses or
a chicane, where you need to change quickly from one direction to another. But
entering a high-speed sweeping turn, you don’t need the car to be as responsive.
There, you likely want to “bend” the car into the corner. This leads us to a few
more general guidelines:
• Stiffer anti-roll bars, springs, and shock settings will result in a more
responsive car. You turn the steering wheel and the car will respond. It
feels crisp on turn-in.
• Softer anti-roll bars, springs, and shock settings will result in more grip.
Yes, the car will roll (lean) more in corners, but it will be generating more
overall grip.
• A touch of understeer in fast corners is good; a little oversteer in slow
corners is also good.
To complicate things even more, you could have a car with stiff springs up front,
and soft on the rear, relative to each other. This might make the car feel
responsive when you turn in to the corners, but it will likely be unbalanced. In this
case, it’s likely to understeer shortly after turning into the corner.
Whenever you’re tuning the handling of your car, think in terms of balance,
responsiveness, and overall grip. I’d recommend you focus your tuning in that
order.
Having driven thousands of cars on numerous tracks, I’ll choose a balanced car
first, over one that is responsive or has more overall grip. Of course, I’d rather
have it all - more grip in a responsive, balanced car. But if I had to choose one
over the other, balance wins most often. Why? Because I can make the car do
what I want, and drive with confidence, increasing my chances of making up for
the lack of grip.
But if I had to choose between balance and responsiveness? That depends on
the extent of each one, but I usually go with balance first (for the same reason -
it’s easier for me to work with a balanced car). Having said that, if the car is very
unresponsive, that makes it difficult to make the car do what I want (which, most
often, is change direction quickly).

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 HOW TO TUNE YOUR CAR’S HANDLING: A Driver’s Guide

Again, as a driver, balance and responsiveness are most often more important
than overall grip (Setup Tuning Principle #7, Balance is more important than
overall grip).
There are exceptions, but if the car gives you confidence that you can sense
what it’s doing, you’ll drive faster than when driving a car that has more grip - but
scares you because it has a lot of understeer or oversteer! Ultimately, it’s all
about your ability to feel what the car is doing.
There are two main things you need to consider when thinking about feel:
1. Is the car communicating what it’s doing, and can you sense it?
2. How responsive is it to your inputs?
Going back to the Vehicle Dynamics Principles, a softer car will usually generate
more overall grip since it doesn’t transfer as much weight from the inside to the
outside tires (keeping the load on each tire more equal). With that in mind, you
would think that a softly-sprung car would always be better. In many cases, that’s
true – especially on a low grip surface, such as slippery pavement, in the rain, or
to the extreme, when racing on ice. This is why the general guideline for tuning
your car for driving in the rain is to soften the springs, anti-roll bars, and shocks.
However, if you’ve ever driven a very softly-sprung car (again, think of an old
Buick), you know its handling is not responsive. When you turn the steering into
a corner, it takes a while to respond. And if you have a section of track where
you quickly go from a right turn to a left turn and back to the right again (tight
Esses, for example), you won’t like it. To make a car more responsive, the
general guideline is to stiffen the springs, anti-roll bars, and shocks. Yes, the
opposite from what could generate grip.
Keep in mind that a track can go from a relatively high-grip surface in the cool of
the morning to a low-grip one in the middle of a hot afternoon. In that case, you
might soften the car to adapt to the changing conditions. But, if the track gains
grip due to additional rubber put down on the surface, or cooler ambient
temperatures (but not cold) and cloud cover, a stiffer setup may gain grip.
Ultimately, your goal is to find the ideal compromise between overall grip,
responsiveness, and balance. There is no magic formula telling you how much
grip you should sacrifice for responsiveness, and vice versa. This is where driver
preference really comes into play, and why two drivers may prefer a very
different setup on the same car. What matters most is what provides you with the
most confidence to drive the car as close to the limit as you want.

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 HOW TO TUNE YOUR CAR’S HANDLING: A Driver’s Guide

THE TUNING-DRIVER LOOP

Whether you’re adjusting the anti-roll bars, springs, shocks, tire pressures, or
suspension alignment, think of it was a funnel. Begin with big changes, and work
your way down until you’re fine-tuning with small changes. If your car has a
drastic handling problem, there’s no point in making a one psi tire pressure
change, or one click stiffer on the shocks’ compression settings. No, make a big
change, and that is more likely to be with tire pressures, anti-roll bars or springs,
or maybe ride height. Again, look to get a direction from a large change, and then
begin making smaller and smaller changes as you determine the handling you’re
looking for.
As I said earlier, tuning is an ongoing process, and part of the reason that’s true
is that your driving will change over time. As you make the car’s handling better,
you’ll drive with more confidence, meaning you’ll drive faster, which will expose
the next weakness in your car’s handling (and there will always be a weakness).
It’s a never-ending loop from car to driver to car to driver…and so on.

REVIEW
Let me recap the guidelines for tuning the handling of your car:
1. Think in terms of balance, responsiveness, and overall grip, in that order.
2. To reduce oversteer:
• Soften the rear anti-roll bar
• Soften the rear springs
• Soften the compression and/or rebound on the rear shocks
3. To reduce understeer:
• Soften the front anti-roll bar
• Soften the front springs
• Soften the compression and/or rebound on the front shocks
4. If the handling problem is in steady-state conditions, focus on tire
pressures, anti-roll bars, springs, and alignment adjustments. If the
problem is in transitions, then tune the shocks, as well.
5. To make the car more responsive, stiffen the anti-roll bars, springs, and
shock settings.
6. To make more grip, soften the anti-roll bars, springs, and shock settings.
7. A touch of understeer in fast corners is good; a little oversteer in slow
corners is also good.

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 HOW TO TUNE YOUR CAR’S HANDLING: A Driver’s Guide

8. Soften the anti-roll bars, springs, and/or shocks when driving on a low-grip
track surface; stiffen them on high-grip surfaces.

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 HOW TO TUNE YOUR CAR’S HANDLING: A Driver’s Guide

SENSING THE CAR

Just as you can tune the handling of your car, you can also tune your own ability
to sense what the car is doing. And when you really think about it, that’s more
than half the battle when trying to make your car faster. I’ve written extensively
about this topic (in my Ultimate Speed Secrets book, as well as in multiple issues
of Speed Secrets Weekly), as well as put on lengthy webinars (see Reading
Your Car webinar here) about how we, as drivers, sense the limits of our cars –
and how we can get better at it. So, rather than repeating myself here, I’m going
to just give you a basic bullet-pointed overview of what we sense, and how you
can improve your ability to sense it.
What Are You Sensing?
• Yaw (Body Slip Angle, Rotation)
• G-loads
• Weight (Load) transfer
• Steering effort/vibrations (steering is output & input device)
• Visual picture
• Tire/wind/engine sound
Improving Sensing (Learned skills)
• Personal sense of balance
• Exercises:
o Centering o Sports/training (cycling, balance
board/ball, etc.)
• Deliberate Practice sensing the car o Street practice o Light hands o
Sensory Input Sessions o G-load sessions o Setup sweeps o Skid pad o
Test the limits – steering, braking, accelerating o Make car show its
weakness

• Handling Debrief Process

Drivers are not born with a special gene
that gives them an ability to sense a
car’s handling better than another driver.
No, this is mostly a developed skill.
Okay, it’s possible that some drivers

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 HOW TO TUNE YOUR CAR’S HANDLING: A Driver’s Guide

have better senses of balance than others, but even that is a skill that can
be improved. Developing your ability to sense the limits of the tires and how
the car is handling should be approached like any skill – in a deliberate and
intentional way. Rather than simply going on track and chasing a lap time,
set aside sessions to solely focus on what you can feel, in a very detailed
manner, and at a deep level. Take time after each session to use the
Handling Debrief process, and write down on a track map what you felt.
Most importantly, while doing this, close your eyes and mentally replay what
you and your car were doing on track.
A strong psychological factor that will help develop your sensing abilities is called
“priming.” If, prior to driving on track, I tell you that when you come in at the end
of the session, I’m going to ask you to describe how the car initially turns into
Turn 3, your ability to recall that information improves dramatically. In this
example, I’ve primed your brain. But you can do the same on your own. Prior to
going on track, look at the Handling Debrief process, and know that you’re going
to ask yourself each of those questions, for each corner on the track. Your ability
to sense what your car is doing, and recall it, will improve by priming your mind
before driving.

COMMON DRIVING ERRORS

LEADING TO HANDLING PROBLEMS
Is it possible that your driving technique is causing a handling problem? Yes.
Therefore, I provide the following, simply to help you become more aware of
possible driving errors you’re making that can lead to handling problems. By
asking yourself whether you’re making these mistakes, you’ll be better at
identifying the real issue.
• “Crabbing” - easing away from the edge of the track before turning into a
corner (reduces radius of corner, often causing understeer)
• Turning in early (reduces radius of corner, often causing understeer)
• Turning in late (increased steering angle, often causing understeer; abrupt
turn-in can also cause oversteer)

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 HOW TO TUNE YOUR CAR’S HANDLING: A Driver’s Guide

• “Pinching” – not unwinding the steering when exiting a corner (often leads
to oversteer in a rear-wheel-drive car due to the steering angle not being
reduced while accelerating; or understeer in the front-wheel-drive)
• Early and/or abrupt brake release (often leads to understeer due to
unweighting the front tires while turning in)
• Early throttle application (often leads to understeer due to unweighting
front tires before beginning to unwind the steering)
• Aggressive throttle application (often leads to power oversteer, or possibly
understeer from unloading the front tires)
• Mid-corner steering increase (usually to force car to missed apex, leading
to understeer or oversteer)
• Overreaction to understeer (often causing oversteer when front tires grip
up and the car turns dramatically)

Crabbing into a corner, moving the car Early turn in (blue); late turn in away from the
edge of the track (yellow); abrupt turn in (red outline). before the Turn-in point.

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 HOW TO TUNE YOUR CAR’S HANDLING: A Driver’s Guide

GLOSSARY
Ackerman: The inside wheel of a vehicle driving through a corner travels on a
tighter radius than the outside wheel. Therefore, the inside front wheel must be
turned more sharply to avoid it scrubbing. The geometry of the front suspension
is designed to achieve this, and this is called Ackerman steering.
Anti-dive: When you apply the brakes, the front end of the car dives. The
suspension geometry can be designed in such a way as to resist, or reduce this
tendency. Generally, this is something designed into the car and requires - or
even allows - little or no adjustment, except on purpose-built race cars.
Anti-Roll Bar: An anti-roll bar (sometimes wrongly referred to as a sway bar) is
used to resist the vehicle's tendency to lean (roll) during cornering. The anti-roll
bar, usually a steel tube or solid bar, is used to alter the front or rear roll
resistance, therefore affecting the car's handling characteristics. Some cars have
adjustment controls in the cockpit, so that you can make changes as the track
conditions, fuel load, and tire wear change throughout a race. Adjusting the
antiroll bars is often the easiest and quickest change you can make to the
suspension setup.
Anti-squat: When a car accelerates, the rear "squats" down. As with Anti-dive,
the suspension geometry can be designed to limit this. And again, very little
adjustment is required or available on most cars.
Balanced: When a car is neither accelerating, decelerating, or cornering, it’s
balanced. Why? Because the weight of the car is distributed equally over all four
tires. Well, as equal as its static weight distribution. Any time you brake, turn the
steering wheel, or apply the throttle, the car will not be perfectly balanced due to
this weight or load change (see “weight transfer”).
Blow through the tire: This is a phrase that drivers use to describe how the car
feels when it begins to lose traction and either understeers or oversteers. A tire
will grip the track surface for only so long, and then, if the load or lateral
cornering expectations are increased, it eventually lets go and slides. This can
feel as though the load of the car has “blown through the tire.”
Bottoming, bottoming out: When either the bottom of a car’s chassis contacts
the track surface, or the suspension reaches the end of its travel and some
component contacts the chassis, it has “bottomed.”
Brake bias: An important factor in braking is how the brake bias is set and/or
adjusted. Braking forces are not equally shared by all four wheels. Due to the
forward weight transfer under braking, and therefore more front tire traction,
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 HOW TO TUNE YOUR CAR’S HANDLING: A Driver’s Guide

more of the braking is handled by the front brakes. So, the brake forces will be
biased towards the front. This is why practically all vehicles have larger brakes
on the front wheels than on the rear.
Ideally, you want to adjust the brake bias so that the front wheels will lock-up (or
activate ABS) just slightly before the rears. This is a more stable condition, as it
gives you more warning of a skid. You will feel it in the steering immediately if the
front tires begin to skid. Plus, if the rear tires lock-up first, the car will tend to skid
sideways.
However, different conditions will require a different ratio, or bias, of front versus
rear braking forces. In the rain, because there is less forward weight transfer to
the front (because traction limits are lower, heavy braking is not possible without
locking-up), you want to adjust the brake bias more to the rear (if it’s adjustable).
Some cars also change dramatically as the fuel load diminishes during a race.
This is where a driver-actuated brake bias adjuster is beneficial.
Bump steer: Bump steer should be avoided. This is when the front or rear
wheels begin to either toe-in or toe-out during the vertical suspension
movements caused by a bump or from body roll (sometimes called "roll steer").
Although it has been used to help "band-aid" a handling problem, generally bump
steer makes a vehicle very unstable, particularly on the rear wheels. The goal is
to have no bump steer whatsoever.
Camber: Camber angle is the inclination of the wheels, looking from the front or
rear of the car. A wheel inclined inward at the top is said to have "negative
camber"; a wheel inclined outward at the top has "positive camber." The angle is
measured in degrees.
Caster: Caster angle provides the self-centering effect of the steering (the
tendency for the car to steer straight ahead without holding the steering wheel).
The front wheels on a shopping cart have lots of caster. It is the inclination angle
of the kingpin, or upright, looking from the side. Positive caster is when the top of
the kingpin/upright is inclined to the rear. Negative caster is never used.
The more positive caster, the more the steering will self-center - which, generally,
is a desirable effect. However, the more positive caster, the more effort it takes to
turn the steering against this caster. There has to be a compromise between
easy self-centering and heavy steering.
Caster also affects the camber when the steering is turned. The more positive
caster, the more negative camber on the outside tire during cornering. This must
be kept in mind when adjusting for the optimum camber setting. Perhaps, instead
of dialing in more static camber, you may be better off adjusting in more caster (if
you have this option). Remember, this will result in more negative camber on the
outside tire during cornering.
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 HOW TO TUNE YOUR CAR’S HANDLING: A Driver’s Guide

Contact patch: As you drive down the track, there is only a small part on each
tire that is in contact with the track surface at any one moment in time. If you look
at your tires while your car is sitting still, it’s easy to see that the amount of your
tire touching the road is relatively small. It’s this part of the tire that is referred to
as the “contact patch.”
Obviously, if you have a wider tire, it will have a larger contact patch. But if you
were to push down on your tire harder, putting more weight on it, its contact
patch would grow larger, too (think of pushing a balloon against a table surface –
the more you push on it, the larger the area of the balloon touching the table).
And, generally, the larger the contact patch, the more grip or traction the tire has
with the track surface.
Corner Weight: If you place your car on four separate scales (each tire on its
own scale), they will give you the corner weights of the vehicle. From there, you
can determine the front-to-rear and left-to-right weight distribution, as well as
total vehicle weight.
Usually, for a road course, the left-to-right corner weights should be the same;
with practically any mid-engine car the rear corner weights will be higher than the
front; front-engined, and especially front-wheel-drive cars usually have more
weight on the front tires. For oval tracks, often the setup will be biased to one
side or corner.
Adjusting corner weights is an important suspension tuning tool - one which is
often overlooked by many inexperienced drivers/tuners.
Entry: If you divide a corner up into thirds, the corner entry is the first phase; it
begins at the turn-in point.
Exit: This is the third and final phase of the corner, and includes the exit or
trackout point.
Fall over: A phrase used to describe the car when it feels as though it has rolled
too much, causing it to begin to understeer or oversteer. In a corner, the car may
initially have grip, but then let go and start sliding. If you feel the car’s chassis roll
a lot, then the grip let go, it may be due to the car “falling over.”
Flat slide: This is a phrase that describes a condition similar but very different
from “falling over.” In this case, the car doesn’t feel as though it’s rolling too
much, but rather that the tires have let go and begun sliding across the surface of
the track.
Free: Another term used for describing oversteer. If a car is oversteering too
much, it can be described as being “free.”
Friction Circle: The Friction Circle (sometimes referred to as Traction Circle) is a
graphic way of showing the performance of any driver in any car. Basically, it is
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 HOW TO TUNE YOUR CAR’S HANDLING: A Driver’s Guide

an X-Y axis graph produced by a data acquisition system of the g-forces during
braking, cornering, and acceleration that the car experiences while being driven
around a track.
A tire has relatively equal traction limits in each direction - braking, cornering, or
acceleration. As an example, a car and tire combination is capable of braking at
1.0 g, cornering at 1.0 g, and accelerating at 1.0g before the tires begin to break
away and start to slide. If you exceed the tires' traction limit, they will begin to
slide - slowing you down, or, if not controlled, resulting in a spin. On the other
hand, if you do not use all the tires' traction available, you will be slow.
These g-forces can be measured and graphed as you drive through the corner. If
you use the proper driving technique, the graphed line will follow something
similar to a circle - the Friction Circle - telling you that you are using the tire's full
potential. Actually, it will not be a circle, but rather an ellipse, as the acceleration
forces of a car can rarely ever match the braking and cornering forces, and
therefore the bottom of the “circle” tends to be flat.
The Friction Circle demonstrates how a tire's traction limit can be used and
shared. It shows that if you are using all of the tire's traction for braking, you can't
expect to use any for cornering without easing off the brakes; if you are using all
the traction for cornering, you can't use any for acceleration until you begin to
"unwind" or "release" the steering (straightening the wheel); if you are using all
the traction for acceleration, you can't still be cornering near the limit.
The Friction Circle really demonstrates the key to driving fast is balancing the
pedal application with the steering angle.
Hooks around the front: This is a phrase used to describe when the car turns
well in the corner, and then feels as though it suddenly gains grip at the front and
loses grip at the rear, causing the car to oversteer – but the oversteer is coming
from the “hooking around the front.”
Loose: Another term used to describe oversteer. Oval racers most often use
“loose” to describe a car that is oversteering.
Loose in, loose off: Again, this is how oval track racers talk about a handling
characteristic, but it also applies to driving on a road course. Oval track racers
tend to have more ways to describe a handling issue because they fine-tune their
cars more than most road racers. “Loose off” refers to when the car oversteers
when accelerating out of a corner (also see “throttle steer” and “power
oversteer,” as they may be related – but not necessarily). “Loose in” means the
car begins to oversteer when entering a corner. Both terms are good because
they not only describe what the car is doing (oversteering), but also where in the
corner. Maintenance throttle: You’re applying just enough throttle to maintain
speed – you’re not increasing speed, or accelerating; nor are you decelerating.
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 HOW TO TUNE YOUR CAR’S HANDLING: A Driver’s Guide

On a flat track surface, you won’t be changing the position of the gas pedal, but
when going up or down hills, you’ll either be adding or decreasing the amount of
throttle to maintain speed.
Mid-corner: This is the second phase of a corner, if you divided it up into thirds.
Typically, the apex of the corner is in this phase, as is the part of the corner
where you’ve ended your braking and transitioned to throttle.
Nervous in: You’ll hear this term used to describe a car that oversteers entering
a turn. As the driver turns in, the rear wants to step out, making the driver unsure
of whether he’s going to spin or not. No wonder the word “nervous” is used,
right? If, just after turning in, the car immediately begins to oversteer, one could
describe that as being “nervous in.”
Neutral: This is the term used to describe a car that is neither understeering nor
oversteering. If, when pushed slightly past the limit, the car slides the front and
rear equally, it’s considered to be “neutral” with its handling balance. This is what
we’re most often aiming for when tuning the car’s handling.
Off-throttle: Essentially, you’re coasting, as you’re not applying any pressure to
the gas pedal.
Oversteer: Oversteer is when the rear tires have less traction than the front tires
do, and the car turns more than you intended – it has “over steered.” The effect
is having the rear slide out and make the car rotate or almost spin out. Yes,
taken to an extreme, the car will spin around. The rear tires have a larger slip
angle than the fronts do.
Plow: Another term used to describe understeer, since a car plows straight
ahead when it’s understeering.
Power oversteer: If the driver aggressively applies the throttle, causing the rear
tires to break traction and get some wheelspin, this will reduce those tires’
cornering abilities. This also leads to the rear of the car having a larger slip angle
than the front, so the car oversteers. In this case, though, it’s power-induced
(actually, driver-induced!), so this is “power oversteer.”
Note that you cannot produce power oversteer in a front-wheel-drive car; it may
be possible in some all-wheel-drive cars, depending on how the power is divided
between front and rear wheels.
Push: Like “plow,” this is another term used to describe understeer. Oval track
racers tend to use “push” most often.
Push center-off: This phrase is used to describe a car that understeers when
accelerating out of a corner, essentially from the center of the corner to the exit.

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 HOW TO TUNE YOUR CAR’S HANDLING: A Driver’s Guide

As it describes not only what the car is doing (understeering), but also where, it’s
very useful.
Rake: The difference between the front and rear ride heights. Positive rake is
when the front is lower than the rear, so the car has a “nose-down” stance.
Ride Height: The ride height is the distance between the road surface and the
lowest point on the car. Adjustment of the ride height - particularly the rake - is
used to tune the handling.
The ride height is usually determined by running the car as low as possible
without the chassis bottoming out on (or, at least, just barely touching) the road
surface, or the suspension running out of travel. Usually, the lower the car is run,
the better the aerodynamics; as well, the lower center of gravity is advantageous.
Roll: Think of roll as the amount of “lean” your car experiences when going
around a corner. If you hear someone say their car has “too much roll,” they’re
not suggesting it’s going to roll right over and onto its roof. A car can roll fractions
of a degree, and yet it’s still rolling.
Roll Stiffness: Roll stiffness is the total amount of resistance to the car leaning
or rolling provided by the springs and anti-roll bars. This is measured in pounds
per inch of spring travel at the wheel and is a function of the spring rate and the
anti-roll bar stiffness.
The distribution of the vehicle's roll stiffness between the front and rear
suspension is called the roll stiffness distribution, and is expressed as a
percentage, front to rear.
Generally, it's the roll stiffness distribution that we use to fine-tune the handling
balance of the car, using the springs and anti-roll bars. Adjusting the front roll
stiffness (with springs or anti-roll bars) in relation to the rear, and vice versa, is
the most common method of altering the handling balance of the car.
Shock Rate: The purpose of a shock absorber is to slow down and control the
oscillations of the spring as the suspension absorbs undulations in the roadway.
Actually, a shock absorber is a damper - it dampens the movement of the
springs. Especially in Europe, a shock absorber is called a damper for this
reason.
Shocks work in both directions: compression is often called bump; extension is
called rebound. A shock absorber, therefore, is rated by the rate of deflection at a
given shaft speed, both in the compression and rebound direction. The car’s
springs are force sensitive, but the shocks are velocity sensitive. For more
information on shocks, see the Shocks for Drivers eBook.

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 HOW TO TUNE YOUR CAR’S HANDLING: A Driver’s Guide

Slip Angle: The difference between the direction the wheel is pointing and the
direction the car is traveling. Due to the way tires deform and interact with the
track surface, when there is a small difference – typically somewhere in the 4- to
10-degree range – between where the tire is pointing and the car is traveling, the
tire will generate its maximum traction.
Spring Rate: The spring rate is the amount of force needed to compress a spring
a given amount, and is usually measured in pounds per inch of deflection. The
diameter of the spring wire, the overall diameter of the spring, and the length or
number of coils determines this rating, or resistance to being compressed.
Squat: When accelerating, weight (actually, load) transfers to the rear, causing
the back of the car to “squat” down, and the front of the car to rise. How much the
car squats depends on a number of factors, such as the acceleration abilities of
the car, its suspension geometry (whether it has “anti-squat” designed into it),
and spring and shock absorber settings.
Sweep: When beginning to dial in the setup of the car and learn how it responds
to changes, do a “sweep" of various adjustments. For example, start by adjusting
the front anti-bar to full stiff, then go drive the car; then adjust it to full soft, and
drive it again. Thus, you’ve gone from one extreme to the opposite end of
adjustability, doing a “sweep” from one end to the other. With each setting, make
note of how the car feels and its handling balance. This will help you decide
which direction you should go to get a good balance with the car. Ideally, you’d
do this with the full range of adjustments with tire pressures, shocks, springs,
anti-roll bars, and alignment options.
Take a set: As you turn into a corner, weight transfer occurs. Usually, just after
the Turn-in point, the load is coming off the front tires as you release the brakes,
and at the same time, the outside tires are being loaded more and more as
weight transfers laterally from the cornering forces. If the corner is relatively tight
and short, immediately after the weight transfer has occurred from corner entry, it
changes as you progressively unwind (straighten) the steering and begin
accelerating. At this point, the load is transferring more to the rear and beginning
to balance out as the cornering forces are reduced.
But, if the corner is long enough, or you’ve done everything smoothly enough,
there could be a point in the corner where all the load shifting is complete and
the car is in a steady state of cornering. It’s at this point where the car has “taken
a set.” In reality, there is rarely a time when there isn’t some amount of weight
transfer happening, but when it’s at a minimum, the car has taken a set. Once a
car has taken a set, it’s easier for you to sense the limit and manage it. When
load is changing, it’s a moving target that you’re having to sense. If you’re able to
make the car take a set by deliberately balancing the weight, you’ll be better able
to drive the car at the limit.
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 HOW TO TUNE YOUR CAR’S HANDLING: A Driver’s Guide

Toe: Toe can be either "toe-in" or "toe-out." It’s the angle of either the two front or
two rear tires looking at them from above. Toe-in is when the front of the tires is
closer together than the rear; toe-out is the opposite - the front of the tires is
farther apart than the rear. Toe can always be adjusted at the front, but can only
be adjusted at the rear on cars with independent rear suspension.
Toe plays an important role in the car's straight-line stability, as well as its
transient handling characteristics - how quickly the car responds to the initial
turn-in to the corner. Generally, front wheel toe-in results in an initial understeer;
toe-out results in an initial oversteer or makes the car more responsive to turn-in
(but not always!).
Rear wheel toe-out, which would cause instability and an unpredictable
oversteer, is rarely used on a road course.
Trail braking: This driving technique is where you ease your foot off the brake
pedal while simultaneously turning into a corner. The term “trail” comes from this
easing off of the pedal, as you’re trailing your foot off. Any time you have some
amount of brake pressure applied while turning into a corner is trail braking,
whether that’s for just a foot or so into the corner, or all the way to the apex.
TTO: Trailing Throttle Oversteer is initiated by the driver lifting off the throttle,
causing weight to transfer forward, and reducing rear tire grip. This may be a
deliberate and useful technique to help the car follow a tighter line around a
corner, or an instinctual thing triggered by some level of fear. In the latter case,
it’s as if the emotional response makes the driver want to curl up in the fetal
position, lifting the right foot off the throttle!
Understeer: Understeer is when the front tires have less traction than the rear
tires do, and the car does not turn as much as it should – it pushes or plows on a
larger radius than you’d like. In other words, it “under steers,” not turning or
steering as much as you intended. Technically, the front tires have a larger slip
angle than the rear tires do (they’re slipping more than the rear tires are).
Here’s another way to think about it: the rear tires are driving your car straight
ahead; the front tires are trying to change its direction; the rear tires “win” – they
drive the car straighter than you’d like.
Unwind: The act of straightening the steering wheel as you exit a corner on a
progressively larger radius. For most drivers, this begins as a deliberate act, but
eventually becomes part of a subconscious movement, allowing the car to “run
free.”
Weight Transfer: When you apply the brakes, the car “nose dives” – the front of
the car drops. That’s because a percentage of the weight of your car has

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 HOW TO TUNE YOUR CAR’S HANDLING: A Driver’s Guide

transferred forward, compressing the front suspension. It puts more load or

weight on the front tires.
When you accelerate, weight transfers to the rear, causing the rear suspension
to compress, and the back of your car to squat. Going around a corner, weight
transfers to the outside, causing the suspension on the outside of the turn (the
left side tires when going around a right-hand corner) to compress.
Every time you brake, corner, or accelerate, you cause weight to transfer. But
keep in mind: the less weight transfer you cause, the more overall traction your
car will have – as I explain in this video.
Wheel Rate: The wheel rate is the amount of force needed to move the wheel up
and down a given amount, and is measured in pounds per inch of deflection. It is
determined by the geometry of the suspension and spring mounting location, and
the spring rate. Understand that even though you have the same spring rate on
the front and rear suspension (or two different cars), the wheel rate may differ
due to the amount of leverage a suspension system applies to the spring.

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 HOW TO TUNE YOUR CAR’S HANDLING: A Driver’s Guide

RESOURCES
I have a number of resources to help you dig further into the understanding of
how to tune your car’s handling:
• Reading Your Car webinar
• Data for Drivers webinar
• Shocks for Drivers eBook
• Ultimate Speed Secrets book
Also, check out these videos:
• How to Adapt to Handling Problems
• Oversteer: What Is It & How Do You Control It
• How to Control Understeer on the Race Track
• The Friction Circle & The 100% Tire Rule
• Make Your Car Show Its Weakness
• Why Smooth Is Fast
Learning more about your car’s suspension and setup, and how to tune its
handling, will make you a better driver, so I encourage you to use these
resources.
In the end, though, you’re driving the car, and you have more of an influence on
your car’s handling than any suspension adjustment. While you need your car to
help you do your job of driving well, never forget that you can most often find
more in your driving than you can in your car. Even bolting on a new set of tires
will make you faster for only so long, whereas learning to improve your driving
technique will never wear out.
There’s always more….

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE…

That’s all I have to share with you (for now), at least regarding tuning your car’s
handling – until I learn more and update this eBook. If you’d like to make
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 HOW TO TUNE YOUR CAR’S HANDLING: A Driver’s Guide

suggestions for future updates, or you have questions, please email me at

[email protected].
I definitely have more to share on other topics, though, and they’re all available at
SpeedSecrets.com.
• Speed Secrets Podcast
• Ask Ross (weekly Q&A column)
• Free track maps
• Speed Secrets Weekly e-newsletter
• Car club presentations & group seminars, in-person & online
• Webinars
• Virtual Track Walk videos
• Speed Secrets Books
• eCourses
• Speed Secrets gear (t-shirts, hats)
• Online chalktalks
• And many other eBooks

Keep learning and having fun!

Ross
Web: SpeedSecrets.com
YouTube: speedsecrets1 Facebook:
DriverCoach
Instagram: @rossbentley
Twitter: @speedsecrets

Copyright Ross Bentley. All rights reserved. 31