Autocross/daily driver questions

[shogun32]

How do you tune them?

buy the eibach, and cut at least 1/3 of the length out of them.
I drive DD with 2.5 deg camber.

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[NightmareMoon]

Agree with @kz , just leave the car with your track alignment all the time.
Adjusting back and forth is not exactly easy and you'll likely end up with a horrible alignment.
Remember, toe kills tires, not camber

Right. Just leave the track alignment on the car. I daily drive with 3.2° camber and get the same street tire longevity I got with 2.3°. Changing camber is just one more labor intensive thing to do in a long list before and after a track day, and the shorter I can keep that list, the more likely I'm going to sign up to go.

Small off changes in alignment can make a great car setup drive like just average. A bad alignment is like attempting to cut something hard with a dull blade. you kind of have to work 3x as hard and you end up getting the job done slower anyway. A bad alignment is a good way to learn car control, cause you'll be struggling with it all the time.

Steeda camber plates work great if you don't need markings. (you can mark your strut towers with paint or marker anyway. markings on the camber plates aren't really a big deal.

 

[BlackPlague]

I talked to Vorshlag customer service. They said the toe tends to change by 3/32" to 1/8" when using Longacre plates to measure, but they've not specifically measured an S550, so I can only use it as a guideline. At 1/8" that comes out to about 0.30 degrees of toe. This is outside spec (0 degrees +-0.20), but isn't a little toe out good for autox anyway? At that angle I wouldn't think I'd need to worry too much about scrubbing the inside of the tire considering it's a short distance and most of it is loading the outside edge of the tire anyway. I probably wouldn't do a track day without putting toe closer to spec, but those aren't really in my near future.

I also considered something like 0.10 toe in for DD setting if I get too worried about where the toe goes on the track setting

 

[NightmareMoon]

Again, sounds good on paper, but just daily driving the track alignment is soo muuch easier, and the downsides are minimal. I still get 20k out of my street summer tires.

Personally, I didn’t like toe out much on this chassis. Turnin was light but it didn’t seem to handle any better than zero toe. Toe out may be favorable for turn-in but mid corner its not an advantage.

Its entirely up to you tho, and experimenting yourself is worth more than advice on the internet, (although ewheels and I have a decent amount of experience.)

 

[BlackPlague]

Sounds like you guys are gonna save me some money. I can't afford to just go off any hair-brained idea I come up with, that's why I started this thread .

So a new thought:
Not insanely expensive camber plates (recommendations?)
I used to work at the local Ford dealer so I know a few of the service writers. Find if they have a good alignment guy that will work with me.
Set the camber to street spec and mark the camber plates.
Set camber to something like -2.5 (spec -1.05 +- 0.75) or so and align the front end, toe at 0. Mark camber plates
Not so aggressive rear camber (spec -1.50 +-0.75, recommendations?) toe at 0.12 (spec), no cross toe.
This way if I really have a problem on the street, like tire wear or handling, I can set the camber back to stock and adjust toe accordingly. Getting reasonably priced camber plates and Longacre toe plates will still save me a couple hundred bucks compared to just Vorshlag plates, and I'm all about that life.

Is the car a handful on the street with your track alignment? Twitchy or anything? I'll be running the stock pp1 wheels and tires on the street and 305 rt660s for autox.

 

[shogun32]

Just set camber to 2.5 +/- 0.2 and learn to live with it. I get some tramlining in construction zones I guess but nothing I give a second thought to. It's a "sports" car, start treating it like one. Even my F150 has -1.5 of camber on it.

If you want your tires to last forever then drive a Corolla.

 

[Ewheels]

Sounds like you guys are gonna save me some money. I can't afford to just go off any hair-brained idea I come up with, that's why I started this thread .

So a new thought:
Not insanely expensive camber plates (recommendations?)
I used to work at the local Ford dealer so I know a few of the service writers. Find if they have a good alignment guy that will work with me.
Set the camber to street spec and mark the camber plates.
Set camber to something like -2.5 (spec -1.05 +- 0.75) or so and align the front end, toe at 0. Mark camber plates
Not so aggressive rear camber (spec -1.50 +-0.75, recommendations?) toe at 0.12 (spec), no cross toe.
This way if I really have a problem on the street, like tire wear or handling, I can set the camber back to stock and adjust toe accordingly. Getting reasonably priced camber plates and Longacre toe plates will still save me a couple hundred bucks compared to just Vorshlag plates, and I'm all about that life.

Is the car a handful on the street with your track alignment? Twitchy or anything? I'll be running the stock pp1 wheels and tires on the street and 305 rt660s for autox.

Steeda makes decently priced camber plates. I have Vorshlag plates and love them, though yes they are expensive.

For reference, my alignment is:
Front camber: -2.8
Front toe: dead-nuts zero
Rear camber: -1.8
Rear toe: 0.12 in per side

Street behavior is fine. With 285 square on street, it does find lines in the road but I'm definitely not wrestling the steering wheel. It's no floaty Toyota, but completely manageable.

 

[TeeLew]

Toe out may be favorable for turn-in but mid corner its not an advantage.

Shhhhh......

 

[kz]

Sounds like you guys are gonna save me some money. I can't afford to just go off any hair-brained idea I come up with, that's why I started this thread .

So a new thought:
Not insanely expensive camber plates (recommendations?)
I used to work at the local Ford dealer so I know a few of the service writers. Find if they have a good alignment guy that will work with me.
Set the camber to street spec and mark the camber plates.
Set camber to something like -2.5 (spec -1.05 +- 0.75) or so and align the front end, toe at 0. Mark camber plates
Not so aggressive rear camber (spec -1.50 +-0.75, recommendations?) toe at 0.12 (spec), no cross toe.
This way if I really have a problem on the street, like tire wear or handling, I can set the camber back to stock and adjust toe accordingly. Getting reasonably priced camber plates and Longacre toe plates will still save me a couple hundred bucks compared to just Vorshlag plates, and I'm all about that life.

Is the car a handful on the street with your track alignment? Twitchy or anything? I'll be running the stock pp1 wheels and tires on the street and 305 rt660s for autox.

I have Steeda plates - they work, they are -3.3 without cutting towers, not sure why would I pay anything more to be honest, it's not like you can show them off at cars&coffe (look at my $500 camber plates guys, I swear, they're there ! lol). Mine's are marked but just to verify visually if anything has changed / slipped.
Good alignment guy is someone that will align to spec you want / try to make it even between sides and not whine about aftermarket parts (since they all pull their software that shows shop manual alignment methods) - alignment itself is very much not rocket science and can be done at home if you have time and patience.

Toe plates at home have limited use to be honest - they show total toe, you have to use strings to see toe per side - Longacre plates are two metal plates and two tape measures - you manufacture them yourself.

 

[Steve68Cougar]

Is the car a handful on the street with your track alignment? Twitchy or anything? I'll be running the stock pp1 wheels and tires on the street and 305 rt660s for autox.

I'm at 0 toe and -2.7 camber with my setup and I never change it. I've driven it from Kansas to Idaho on 275 street tires and regularly drive it 2 hours to autocrosses with my 305 RT660s. It drives fine. It's no more twitchy that my '09 Focus. The biggest negative I've had so far is that the speedometer is significantly off with the shorter tires. Not big enough of a problem to correct it, though.

Edit-bit of an update. Had an actual back-to-back road trip with BFGs vs. RT660s to refresh my memory on how the tires react. The steering feels a bit heavier with the RT660s and if there is a big variation in surface the RT660s will grab/twitch a bit more than the BFGs. The RT660s are - as expected - significantly louder. I felt like I had to pay a bit more attention with the 660s, but it really didn't require any more correction than the BFGs. I was also reminded today that cold RT660s don't grip as well as when they've got a bit of heat in them. My first lap today ended up in a pucker inducing spin. Thanks to that, I laid off a bit the rest of the day and left a significant amount of time on the table.

 

[BlackPlague]

I went with the Steeda plates. I'll probably rock something in the -2.7 range and 0 toe.

Now I'm just waiting on a couple odds and ends so I can assemble the struts and just swap them in without scabbing anything from the stock struts.

Thanks guys, you saved me like 300 bucks.

I'm pumped to get this stuff in and see how she feels.

 

[BlackPlague]

Edit-bit of an update. Had an actual back-to-back road trip with BFGs vs. RT660s to refresh my memory on how the tires react. The steering feels a bit heavier with the RT660s and if there is a big variation in surface the RT660s will grab/twitch a bit more than the BFGs. The RT660s are - as expected - significantly louder. I felt like I had to pay a bit more attention with the 660s, but it really didn't require any more correction than the BFGs. I was also reminded today that cold RT660s don't grip as well as when they've got a bit of heat in them. My first lap today ended up in a pucker inducing spin. Thanks to that, I laid off a bit the rest of the day and left a significant amount of time on the table.

I'm really excited to see how it runs on the 660s. I remember the massive difference going from 235 (cheapo) all seasons to 245 Kumho V720s on the WRX I used to run. All last season I ran the stock PP1 PS4S and by the end of the season I could tell they were holding me back. (Still got 2nd of 3 regulars in FS , though the guy in 1st annihilated me unless it was raining) And the stock camber was eating them up on the outside. I am curious how long the 660s take to heat up at that width, I'm kinda assuming my first lap will be a bust, just warming them up. my first lap is never the quickest anyway.

I had planned to get 660s and stay in FS but back in October somebody stole the wheels off it in the dealership parking lot. So not to let a good crisis go to waste, the insurance money is funding these upgrades. I also found PP1 wheels and tires for super cheap for my DD duties and they were brand new.

 

[19VelocityBlueGt]

I wonder how good the FR3A suspension system would be. I have the S197 version on my '08 Bullitt and have been very happy with it. They show that it has been standard equipment on the Shelby Super Snake and Hertz cars. It seems to get pretty good reviews.

I'm tempted with the Shelby/Penske setup, but it costs more than the first 3 Mustangs I had combined.

The ford track dampers (FR3A) are extremely good with steeda dual rate springs. I haven’t found a old school strut/coil spring setup that beats the DR with FR3A dampers without going to full coilovers. I switched to bmr handling springs (lower rates) just to see what the hype was they were too loose. So I guess I’ll throw the dual rates back in!!

 

[shogun32]

o I guess I’ll throw the dual rates back in!!

wait, I thought you were over the moon on H&R

 

[19VelocityBlueGt]

wait, I thought you were over the moon on H&R

Lol have a few sets of springs. I have switched springs out several times. Lol the h/r are great springs but too low for my liking.

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