horizenjob wrote:
Mo, in the Solstice picture above I think the trail has been increased, not decreased. It isn't drawn to show what you want to see though. The line thru the axle pin should be vertical. not inclined like the caster line. Then you would see the offset adds to the trail. Or maybe I'm seeing your diagram wrong...
I am skeptical of using large amounts of caster. In your diagram you show 9 degrees, which I would consider to be a high value. The problem is you need to turn the steering wheel a lot to generate camber this way. Once you do this you are already out of a performance area, unless you are turning very tight circles.
For an easy example look at Andrew Moore's avatar below. You can see his car is cornering, but the front wheels are nearly straight ahead. It is in a balanced drift. If he turned the wheels more, they would cause more drag. The vector of force they produce is not pointed to the center of the turning circle but behind it which slows you down.
A further subtlety here is that when the front wheels are at much of an angle the back tires produce less cornering force too. You can only generate so much slip angle before the tire starts to slide instead of slip. If the front wheels are at their limit, the back wheels cannot also be at their slip angle limit, unless it's a very tight turn. If you race in a parking lot, castor for camber probably works - but the faster you are going the less help it will be, so not so good for road racing....
That was an exaggeration to show it better. My car only has 5deg of caster and this car will probably have the same statically.