Finished my car today, and couldn't resist going for a short drive, just for testing purposes you understand. On the whole the car felt good, except for the handling, very very scary, could hardly keep the thing in a straight line. The only feeling iv'e had similar was once on a bike when i had overtightened the headstock bearings. Now as far as setting up is concerned i.e castor,tracking, toe in e.t.c err basically i havent, only by eye, so it will all prolly be a mile out. How much do all these things affect handling? has anyone experienced similar problems?
The 60mile drive to Beverley SVA station next week is going to be rather amusing!

Al

sounds like tracking,you need to take her to a tyre place(not kwikfit) and get it adjusted

Try taking it to a bodyshop with a full computerised system - the body trade is a bit quiet this time of year so you could work a deal
(£60 is a fair price).

They will check and adjust EVERYTHING from the thrustline of the rear axle, camber, castor, KPI, track, setback, toe out on turns (TOOT!)

You will only have to do this once and it will be done right. The car should drive nice afterwards and above all you will have the confidence that everything is set correctly. If you want to play with the settings afterwards, you will have a reference point to work from. The lads working for the shop will probably be really helpful, it would be a nice change from setting up focus rear ends (nightmare)

I agree with Mark; if you've got the money, get it done professionally.
If you don't have the money, but got a bit of time, you can do it very acurately yourself. There's a fair bit of detail on my site about this, all you need are a plumb line, a tape measure, a chalk line and a level surface to work off.
There's also an article on balancing your car on my site too. Balancing is for people who can't afford those flash electronic scales (or two bathroom scales and two blocks of wood the same height as the scales). Balancing won't tell you the weight of each wheel, but it will very acurately even the wheel weights on a given axle, which is of more importance.
If you plan to be the sole occupant for the majority of the times you take the car out, then I would balance it for that scenario.
Incidently, have you followed the book religiously with regard to front upper and lower wishbone placement? AFAIR, there was a problem with the wishbone placings not giving enough castor, which would also explain your wandering experiences.
Was it Mark Allanson who did the calcs and offered the correct positions for the upper wishbones?

I took the wheels off and with the chassis packed level on blocks in the shed I got 2 pieces of angle about a metre long and drilled them to fit on 2 of the wheel studs on each front hub. I set the camber using a spirit level with an adjustable section and with the steering straight ahead and the angled bars facing forward set the toe in by measuring between them. It will get you somewhere near for a starting point. You can get it checked and then take some measurements as a reference to work back to.

yours, Pete.

Thanx 4 all the useful info chaps, due to time constraints iv'e opted to have the job done professionally on a computer laser alignment machine, she's booked in for Thursday, i'll let you know how i get on.
As for the chassis design Rorty, i cheated and bought a chassis from Stuart Taylor i'm not sure if they modified their jig to compensate for book error, but i do know their cars are fairly competative on the track, so i assume they must have addressed the problem?

Cheers again

Al.