Karting Front Track Width: When & How Much Should You Adjust?

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G'day guys and welcome back to the Center Cart Class podcast.
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Today we're going to be discussing front track width.
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Now, when it comes to front track width, there's probably a lot of engineering behind it or you know statistics on why things may work or why they shouldn't work.
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But this podcast is purely around what I feel and when I would adjust from a driver's seat.
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So I'm not I don't have an engineering background basically.
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So when people say if you do this, it adds this and that, and I'm like, honestly, I'm just telling you what I feel on the cart.
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So that's basically the way I'm going to try and explain it today for you guys at home.
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Now, a driver could be experiencing understeer or they could be experiencing oversteer.
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Hopefully the cart's balanced, it's they're pretty comfortable.
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But when it comes to a driver experiencing understeer, that is basically when the driver is trying to turn into a corner and it's taking a little bit longer for that responsiveness to bite into the track.
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So they might have to increase the steering inputs.
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So rather than turning it to say one o'clock on a clock, we're turning it to you know two o'clock.
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And now what's happening there is that's just scrubbing off more speed.
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And also as you're winding in more steering lock, you're having to slow the cart down more because you're simply waiting for that front end to bite into the track.
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Now, if we're looking to adjust the front track width, you want to be increasing the front track width.
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So that means adding spaces to the inside of the wheel, closest to the stub axle.
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And what that's going to do is it takes away some of the initial bite, but as you're increasing that steering input towards that two o'clock, the front end, because the wheels are obviously that's when they're turning, it will bite into the track a little bit better.
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And it might just decrease the amount of steering input that you have to put in to get around the corner fast.
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So that's probably the first way when it comes to, and we see this from an example point of view of in the wet weather, that's when drivers experience the most understeer.
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The front just doesn't have the grip, slippery conditions, wet tires, or even slick tires, and we tend to max out the front track width.
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So it's a similar scenario when it comes to the dry.
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Now it just depends if it's ex if it's if it's quite a severe understeer, I would probably look to add 10 mil, but we normally just go to the small spacer first.
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So we just increase it by 5mm spacer.
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That's just going to try and tune the front end up.
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Obviously, if it's better but not quite right yet, you can increase to an extra 5mm.
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Now for some carts that's going to be going from let's say a cut republic number uses one small spa, uh sorry, a 10 mil spacer, they might go to 15 or 20.
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There's some other brands of carts that run like 35mm on the front end, that's just because their stub axle uh length and how that's how that's machined.
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So just try if you get experiencing understeer, increasing one small spacer first to see if that tunes up the front end.
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Now, there's different adjustments that you can make if you're experiencing understeer.
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But because we're explaining about front track width, this was yeah, what I'd recommend first.
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Now, if you're experiencing a bit of twitchiness, so basically you're you know you might be driving a flat out corner or a high speed turn, you're turning into the corner and the back end is just starting to lose control, then what I would do is on those types of corners, because fast sweepers, very, very minimal steering put is required.
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And so I find that if the front end is too narrow, that the first time that you start to turn, that you breathe on the wheel, that's basically the twitchiness, is that it's too direct in the front, it's too quick to steer the tires.
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So, in that instance, I actually tend to increase again, I add a space towards the inside, and as long as I'm being nice and smooth on those faster corners, I actually feel like it settles the cart down on the high speed corners.
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So that could be that on a senior cart, you're running, you know, max track width in the back, so 1400.
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If you're not running many spaces in the front, then that's why it's very twitchy.
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So the front wheels are trying to turn, the back end just can't quite keep up.
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So although you're not going to square off the cart with the front being the same width as the back, you are trying to square it up a little bit more.
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So you're increasing the front uh wheel spaces, and that's just trying to tone uh you know sort of tame the front end down when it comes to high speed and with minimal steering inputs.
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Now, if you have a driver that's very steering aggressive, like they just they turn, you know, two or three times, a lot of steering inputs, just not that gentle when it comes to turning a corner.
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This is when you can look to decrease.
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So, again, taking away a space from the inside and placing on the outside of the tire now, so reducing the front track width.
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This is to try and calm their hands down.
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Again, it's it's generally because if a driver is turning the wheel multiple times, then they're basically what's why that's happening is they're turning to the corner too much, and if they hold that steering lock, they're gonna run over the inside curve or potential of the grass.
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I'll do it.
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So, what they're doing is they're turning in too much, uh-oh, then they're turning out, then they're turning in again, turning out, turning in again, and they're basically just balancing out their front end.
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In these instances, you can reduce the front track width.
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So each input they make, it's basically just trying to calm it down, it's just trying to minimize the amount that the wheel's going to turn each time that the input's in place.
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So if you've got a busy driver, you can see their hands are just moving around a lot.
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Just try and decrease the front track width.
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Again, small space for a time, that should be enough to help balance the cart out.
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Now, with all these changes, it is very driver-dependent.
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So when I was driving quite a few years ago now, but I'd be in the same chassis as the teammate in the arrow carts.
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And for him, he liked to say run around, I think it was around 20 mil space in the front.
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I think his rear track was around 1385.
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And for me to achieve the feel that I wanted from the cart, I was actually running almost a wet step in the front, and it was like about I don't know, probably 30 or 35 more spaces in the front, but the back end also had to be wider.
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So it was like it wasn't just increase the front track width by 15mm per side and have a 30mm overall track width more than my teammate.
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It was okay, we can go to max track width in the in the back.
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And what this helped do was if I was very smooth with my inputs with a wider front and rear track, this would actually help flow more speed through the corners and actually release better.
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Again, a wider track with less grip, more release out of the corners for the higher grip conditions.
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But for his driving style, he would like to attack the corners with a bit more speed.
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So with his driving style, he needed a bit more overall grip so that if he did attack the corners with too much speed, with a slightly narrower front and a slightly narrower rear track, it had more lateral grip.
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And so that was the way that he achieved his best lap times was because his driving style suited that.
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And then I would I was having to adjust my driving style with a little bit calmer entry speed and just trying to sort of emulate more exit speed.
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That's what I sort of found in that in that particular circumstances was to get an overall better lap time and a feel and to last the higher grip conditions for a final, let's say, over 20 laps, wider front, wider rear, and that was a more stable platform in the braking zone and all that.
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So don't just look at the cart next to you and go, he's running 20 or he's running 25.
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Try little things in testing, and sometimes you can just try things without even telling your driver.
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Sometimes if you preempt a setup adjustment to your son or daughter, they might be real negative, going, Oh, I don't like that, I don't know what it's gonna do.
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And they're not driving actually, they're just actually thinking about the setup change.
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You know, they're only very small adjustments.
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So sometimes these things, my daddy should just do it to me.
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Just move the front wheels in or out, just drive it again, not even say anything.
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And I'd come and go, Hey, that actually felt pretty good that session or no, that was terrible.
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And I was all over the shot.
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So sometimes with these smaller adjustments, if you know that your driver is going to stress out a little bit over what changing the setup, then just don't tell them.
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Just get it done.
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Look at their lap times, look at their consistency, look at how they actually look on the track.
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Are they in control or are they out of control?
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And then get a bit of a feel on what your driver is actually liking.
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So yeah, that's pretty much it when it comes to front track width about when to adjust, when not to adjust, how much to adjust, and to suit your particular driving style.
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I hope that's helped.
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If you guys want to know more about cart setup, then we have a cart setup program.
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It's dedicated to just when and what to adjust and how much to adjust.
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And also last week we released our new Apex analysis.
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So for starters, it's got our tie pressure tool, which has been um really well received.
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Got some great feedback as well that we're going to try and enhance our product, which is very thankful to the customers and to the support we've had so far.
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But like I said, if you guys got any dramas, then visit us at carclass.com or shoot us a DM or an email at infoccarclass.com.
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Cheers.