FROM SUN TO RAIN

ADJUST YOUR

KART'S SET-UP

The main objective of all adjustments made for a wet track is to gain as much grip as possible – the rest comes later, or as a consequence. Yet, exactly what you need to do to "get in gear" for the rain depends on whether your kart is gearbox or not. If you drive a shifter, what you want is more wheel drive in order to use all the horsepower you can, so you’ll work mainly on the rear end; if you drive a non-shifter, you’ll be looking to get more overall grip, so set-up changes will be evenly divided between front and rear. Of course, some drivers prefer to keep their set-up unaltered from dry to wet, if they feel it is well-balanced.

The camber is the angle of incidence of the tire tread relative to the pavement. On a dry track, you normally set camber on the negative end, going for extreme settings if there is excessive grip. In fact, the tighter the camber, the less tread on the pavement and so the “freer” the chassis.
When the track gets wet, the opposite applies: set the camber close to 0 or even at real positive settings. By “real" we mean adjusted to account for driver weight, which entails a 1 or 2 degree variation on the baseline setting of kart alone. So, to get a real 0 camber angle, start from an “under by 4 or 5 mm” setting.
Caster can be defined as the wheel alignment angle that conditions the tilt and height of your front tires through corners. In wet conditions, it needs to be positive to determines an increase in front tire load and so enhanced corner entry. Normally, the difference between dry and wet is of 1 or 2 degrees. Yet, this guideline should be adjusted to the specific track you’re on. On many tracks, there is a 10 second variation in average lap time from dry to wet conditions: in this case, you’ll need a smaller caster increase.