Formula Ford Handling Characteristics
- Causes And Effects -

Click Here To Download Printable FF Data Sheets With The EuroFormula Ford Header

The below information can be used as a quick reference guide to handling problems with your Formula Ford.
(Also suitable for use with any motor vehicle)


- A - Instability -  

EFFECT ON VEHICLE

Straight-line instability – general:

                Possible Causes -

·          Rear wheel toe-out, either static due to incorrect setting or dynamic due to bump steer

·          Vast lack of rear downforce or overwhelming amount of front downforce

·          Broken chassis or suspension member or mounting point

·          Wild amount of front toe-in or toe-out

Straight-line instability under hard acceleration:

·          Limited slip differential worn out or malfunctioning

·          Insufficient rear toe-in

Straight-line instability – car darts over bumps:

·          Too much front toe-in or toe-out

·          Uneven front castor setting

·          Uneven front shock forces or bump rubbers

·          Front anti-roll bar miles too stiff

Instability under the brakes – front end darts or wanders:

·          Too much front brakes

Instability under the brakes – car wants to spin:

·          Too much rear brake bias or too much positive camber on the rear tires

- B - Response-

Car feels generally heavy and unresponsive:

·          Too much aerodynamic downforce

Car feels sloppy, is slow to take a set in corners, rolls a lot:

·          Too little shock absorber damping

·          Insufficient roll resistance or ride rate

Car responds too quickly – has little feel – slides at slightest provocation:

·          Too little downforce

·          Too stiff in either ride or roll resistance

·          Too much shock

·          Too much tire pressure  

- C - Understeer-

Corner entry understeer – won’t point in and gets progressively worse:

Common: can be caused by -

·          Insufficient track width

·         Front roll stiffness too high

·         Front roll center too low

·          Insufficient front shock absorber bump resistance

·          Insufficient front downforce

·          Excessive dynamic positive camber on the outside front tire

·          Braking too hard and late

·          Too little front roll resistance

Note: Falling over on outside front due to track width ratio or diagonal load transfer.  Can often be reduced by increasing front roll resistance even though doing so will increase lateral load transfer.

Corner entry understeer – car initially points in and then washes out:

·          Too much front toe-in

·          Insufficient front downforce

·          Insufficient front roll camber compensation

·          Non-linear load transfer due to roll axis inclination

·          Insufficient front wheel travel in droop

·          Too little front shock bump resistance

Corner entry understeer – car points in then darts:

·          Insufficient front wheel travel in either bump or rebound

·          Too much front bump rubber

·          Nose being sucked down due to ground effect

Corner exit understeer – slow corners:

Big Trouble – Often a function of excessive corner entry and mid-phase understeer followed by throttle application with understeer steering lock which causes driving thrust on inside rear wheel to accentuate the understeer.

First step must be to reduce the corner entry understeer.  If the condition persists, increase the rear anti-squat and reduce the front rebound forces.  Educate driver and improve throttle response.

- D - Oversteer-

Corner entry oversteer:

Uncommon.  Usually due to something broken. Other possible causes -

·          Broken or dead outside rear shock or front anti-roll bar

·          Severely limited rear suspension travel caused by interference

·          Ridiculous rear spring or anti-roll bar

A slight feeling of tippy-toe type hunting on corner entry can be due to excessive rear toe-in or to excessive rear rebound forces.