Chassis Setup

Hi,
Need to understand the concept of having a lower “C” on one side in a Kart Chassis Setup.
Under what circumstance(kind of Tracks) and How Much should it be done?
Should it be done at all?
Any document or explanation on the topic would help.Trying to help my 11 year old do well.

what chassis? what engine? what track type? what class?

what is “C”?

To my understanding doing this is only done if the chassis has a small bend somewhere and it isn’t scaling properly. Its a weight distribution thing.

Changing the ride height on one side relative to the other will cause the weight to be distributed differently and can help a out of true chassis to scale “better”

Is it advisable and done by the pros, i have no clue

Changing front ride height affects how the kart jacks weight.

Raising the front ride height is going to jack weight more, so if you do it on one side, you’re going to jack more weight in one corner.

I wouldn’t run them different side-to-side unless you are running a track that is mostly one direction or your kart has a bend somewhere and you need to even the weight out.

The reason for this topic is to understand the difference in Chassis setup between a Left Handed and Right Handed Tracks.
Some tracks have more tight corners on one side or faster sweeping turns in a direction.There cannot be a global chassis setup for all tracks.

What TJ has said above is that most times they are set evenly. It is not normal practice to set them differenltly unless the track is like 90% in one direction or the chassis is bent.

My home track was 8 corners, 6 lefts and 2 rights. Some guys even tried using off-set chassis there to be faster in the lefts. The standard kart still was almost always faster. We’ve tried tons of different off-set handling adjustments over the years there to try and emphasize the left-handers and give up in the right-handers, yet an even side-to-side setup is still almost always faster.

The track would have to be very unique or 90% one direction for it to work. Sometimes minor off-set adjustments like staggering track widths 5-10mm can help somewhat, but going too extreme just simply sacrifices too much on the few opposite corners.

Hey @stealth, please update your profile to reflect your real name when you get a chance.

That makes a lot of sense in theory, but in practice it tends to not be practical. The difference is very nuanced and there’s a myriad of things to adjust before you tweak the chassis. If you’re looking to experiment with ride height offsets, or rake, my recommendation is to start with ride height washers on the kingpins.

The most extreme example of a (sprint) track that has a lot of turns in the same direction is rock island. Sometimes you’ll see some offsets in seats, axle hubs and a little stagger… but generally the frame itself would be kept square up front.

The difference it makes tends to not be worth the effort. Even somewhere like rock island which is practically an oval.

On ovals the main changes (compared to a road course) are rear wheel stagger, caster lead on the front end perhaps some seat offset towards the left. The front end of the chassis frame is square. Remember that by tweaking the chassis to relocate the “C”, you run the risk of messing up your caster and camber angles.

Tl;Dr There’s easier ways to get to where you want to be, and they are much easier to undo.

Hi,
Updated my real name.