Whats the typical caster & toe in setting for 120Y ( B310 ). How about the total toe?

Its not for race preps but for daily driving ( with high speed cornering sometimes )

Thank u...

Hi g1, here is 'typical' settings, from the 1980 factory service book for B310 (north american model):

Caster [edit]
* all except below: 1 deg 40' - 3 deg 10'
* wagon with 13" wheel : 1m 55' - 3m 25'

Toe-in
* 13" wheel models: 1-3 mm
* 12" wheel models: 0-2 mm

Apologies in advance for the hi-jack......

Can anyone tell me how to measure the castor angle?
Is this just the deviation of the strut tube angle from vertical in a forward facing direction.

And how does adjusting this angle affect the handling?
I guessing the castor angle is similar to rake on a motorcycles fron forks.
In that the greater the forward sweep of the strut tube, the slower the vehicle responds to changes in direction (and the more stable at high speed).
Is that it?

Next question - What happens when you get into negative caster.... Does this make the car handle in a different manner?

Maybe I should just be asking what a good caster setting is for a 1200 ute that you want to handle sharply but still retain some high speed stability?

Any help would be appreciated.... This has been bugging me for years.

Cheers,

Coops

Castor is mainly to keep the car going straight ahead ... like the wheels on a shopping cart. if you made it reverse castor, it would be like driving in reverse.

so if you take a corner then let go of the wheel having more caster will bring the wheels back to the forward direction?

how can i adjust the catsor on my 120y? if i get my caster rods machined how much machining do you recomend for a street car and do i need to put a thread on the newly machined part of the rod?

When I rebuilt the front end of my daily driver the other week I used new nolathane castor bushes, when my mate wheel aligned it we cut the bush that is on the inner side of the car in half and put the extra half on the outside to get a bit more castor. We set the car straight ahead (0 toe) and I think 3mm positive castor.

It feels great under brakes now and the car doesnt wander along the highway. I dont know but initial turn in feels better, this could also be because it doesnt have 8mm toe in like it did.

+3mm castor? or +3deg?
I run +3deg castor, makes the steering nice and heavy
I have machined castor rods with a nut on each side, works well but risk of breaking and twists the bushes in the LCAs.
Another thing I've noticed is it changes the angle of the swaybar link pins, does this effect how the swaybar functions??

Coops, you want about as much castor as you can get. I cut the front edge of my gaurds on my old coupe to get more castor. (This was before the flares were fitted). I think I was up around 6deg castor on that car. I ran about 4.5deg on the GTR only because of the limitations imposed by the front driveshaft angles.

another effect of positive castor is it adds dynamic camber when turning, which is good. Probably increases turning effort required though.

Sorry yeah 3

Interesting that for the B310, 3 degrees is within specification -- so it shouldn't hurt bushings or swaybar links. But on the other hand, 1-2/3 degree is also within spec, but for a street car you'd want the 3 degrees.

For B110, the specs are:
Caster: 1 deg 10' - 2 deg 10'

But still, several people have recommended 3 degrees for a street B110.