Doesn’t matter which pill you use, top or bottom. But using the top pill is just easier and more convenient.
On an OTK (and most karts), they recommend keeping it within a range of + or - 2 holes on the pill. I run neutral usually, unless I want to fine tuning the lift action or if I’m looking to increase front tire temp I’ll add a hole or two of negative camber.
Just want to mention that you can adjust camber without adjusting caster using these pills, but its a bigger jump in camber. Let’s say you start at neutral with both of the arrows pointing forward. You can turn the top one on notch in one direction, and the bottom one one notch in the other direction, and you’ll have adjusted camber without adjusting caster. Problem is you just did two notches of camber.
Same thing with caster. You can turn one of the pills around to achieve a different caster setting without changing camber, but its a pretty drastic adjustment. The sniper pills are much better in this regard.
Correct. Apologies for the duff info. No caster change without camber change is only valid when using one eccentric pill and one neutral (concentric) pill each sideof the kart.
Thank you @DIG78x . This information is very usefull and cenlightening. I read and think a lot about how to use correct and precisely caster/camber as both are very sensitive, but I’ve never got this insight. Tks
Hi everyone, I got my front end aligned by my local shop before the season really kicked off and liked how everything felt when I practiced with it.
Unfortunately I got into an incident with the left front making contact during a race this past weekend that knocked the steering off center.
I don’t see anything bent at all and I was able to finish the race so I reset the sweep and toe using the sniper laser tools. I understand how to do this pretty well now (I think).
What I don’t understand is, will this incident have affected the caster? How do I check/know how much caster I am even running?
The chassis is a compkart covert 3.0 4R. I can post pictures of the lasers and kingpins if that helps.
This may help you on the way
Hey all, I had a wretched weekend where I was sliding around and way off the pace. I knew something must be wrong so had the shop at my track check the alignment I did before the race to make sure I didn’t get it wrong. Turns out I did, badly.
My previous chassis (older intrepid) required the snipers to be placed on the stub axle (where the spacers and hubs sit), but my new (to me - '20 compkart covert 3.0 4r) apparently requires the lasers to sit on the spindle right up against the kingpin as close to the actual chassis as possible.
When I set my front end I put the snipers on the stub axle, meaning my front end was way off.
Is this something that is just specific to different chassis?
I tried to use the video in the thread above (https://kart360.com/learn/steering-adjustment-basics/basics-of-caster-and-camber), the demonstration has the snipers on the stub…
I will go with what my shop suggested, but I am curious about this. How is one supposed to know where to put the snipers and why does this change across chassis?
In some cases the polished surface of the spindle between the chassis and the machined area for the hub MIGHT be flat or close to flat; however, I would only ever recommend mounting the lasers on the machined surface where the hub sits. In the video you linked to, you can see Justin has the lasers on the machined surface, just slid all the way in. How far in/out you mount the lasers on the spindle surface isn’t terribly important, I just try to be consistent from side to side. For example, if I am running one big spacer on each side, then I’ll keep that same spacer in place when mounting the lasers.
Not removing the hub is just a lazy way of conducting this operation. Front end alignment is a fairly precise job where every millimeter maters, so I would only go about this in the way I described above.
In the event you’re feeling curious, you could take your reading as described above, and then take another reading with the lasers mounted on the polished surface. If they are different (which is likely) then it reinforces my point. Take both readings without loosening the kingpin, so as not to introduce any slop. I’ve found that the CompKart may settle up to 2-3mm/side if you don’t pre-load the kingpins before tightening.
So after the horrible handling characteristics I experienced, the shop at my local track checked the alignment and it was way off, especially toe.
If I followed the correct procedure and my shop mechanic is wrong, I don’t know why my kart was all over the place last weekend. Maybe I got something else wrong on the alignment.
What do you mean about pre-loading the kingpin before tightening? How do I do that?
You’ll notice that if you tighten to 80% there may still be vertical play when holding the spindle on the outer end and moving it up and down. If you were to continue to tighten to 100%, check the laser reading, go out on track, and do another reading with the lasers immediately after, the camber reading may have “settled”, resulting in a reading that is 2+mm/side different than what you went out at.
I’ve found that in order to get more consistent readings it helps to tighten the kingpin just to the point where you have eliminated any of the aforementioned vertical play, lift up on the spindle so as to remove any of that play, and tighten the kingpin the remainder of the way.
This may not be necessary with all chassis; however, I always go through this process in order to allow for more apples to apples readings before and after making and alignment change.
I learned this the hardway… Make sure your kart is fairly close to level too. The bubble levels on the Snipers refference the ground, so ideally what you are measureing is on the same plane.
I set my front end up on my kartlift without it fully “up” so the nose was low, and wow my numbers were wonky. Leveled it back up and they made much more sense. Luckily caught it before I ripped my front end apart looking for bent stuff. I blame the setup whiskeys.
I’m still very new to karting, so this come from no authority whatsoever. But how valid is an alignment in the air? Looking at how much a chassis flexes with the driver on board, wouldn’t you prefer to do an alignment on the ground with full load? Or is it like measuring cold tire pressures - it might not match exactly what is on the track but it is worth it to have a steady baseline?
Worth having a baseline and knowing that it will toe out and camber a bit once you sit in it on the ground.
You can shift your body a few inches either way and affect the geometry, so a true baseline is taking with you out of the kart usually.
Some karts actually toe in quite a bit when loaded. It’s good to really check loaded and unloaded at least once so you know how it affects things. Then setting it unloaded is no big deal because you know what will happen.
Is that the consensus, that the kart should be level before using the snipers? I have never seen anyone put a level on the chassis before doing a front end.
On my stand, my chassis is a bit off level, but not drastic. Also, if the ride height is higher on the front or back, the readings on the stand would be different anyway, right?
Snipers don’t care if the chassis is at absolute level. The only major concern should be spindle heights being equal if doing it on the stand and not being extremely unlevel. IMO
When chassis mfg gives you a baseline setup sheet, is their baseline as measured on the stand or on the ground? If on ground - with or without driver?
Never thought about this until reading the posts above, relatively new to the scene and have not yet tried to measure alignment on the ground, with or without driver.
Baseline numbers assume kart is on the stand.
i’ve watched all the vids, and as a couple of dudes mentioned, i had to start doing my alignment on level ground, with weight in the seat. my kart is kinda old, but frame is supposedly straight. i’ve always thought i was following the on the kart stand method in the videos correctly, but my kart would always pull hard to the right once on the ground, and steering wheel was always off a little.
on the ground, what i ended up doing was completely taking the tie rods off. the spindles on my kart would flop, initially, but if i lifted the kart front end up slowly, then set it back down slowly, i could get the wheels to not flop, pointing forward in a somewhat natural resting state. if i blocked the front wheels to the front and the rear to the back, it would stay that way, and the wheels/spindles/hubs wouldn’t flop forward.
this allowed me to center up the steering wheel, and attach the tie rods very close to the length they should be. put the snipers on and just fine tuned the alignment, at that point. kart seemed to go a lot straighter this last weekend, so this really seemed to help me out.
hope this made sense.