Ideal performance-ish alignment for the street

[ManBearPig]

I've searched the forums for info but so much of it seems conflicting.

I am looking to get my car aligned. I have 1" drop springs and no other suspension mods. I will be ordering a set of camber bolts so I can get some adjustment in the front.

I have a phenomenal shop that will work with me and we're going to take as long to do the alignment as needed. I know the rear adjustment is not easy so lots of places don't like to mess with it but fortunately I have a great shop I'll be visiting.

What I'm trying to decide is what I should shoot for. Some say more negative camber in the rear than the front. Some say more negative camber in the front than the rear. Most seem to agree that one end should be around 1 degree and the other end should be closer to 1.25, maybe even 1.5. The car will see a mix of commuting and spirited backroad driving. My priority is even tire wear but I am willing to compromise a little for performance.

For this kind of use which end should have more negative camber, and by how much?

Thanks

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[earlingy]

All other things equal, the end with more negative camber will have more grip. If you want more oversteer, more negative front camber, less negative rear camber. Vice versa for more understeer.
In the name of tire wear, I usually stay within factory specs on an alignment for a street car, but usually on the more sport-oriented end of the factory spec. OE camber spec for a GT PP is front: -1 deg +/- 0.75 ; rear: -1.5 deg +/- 0.75. So tire wear would be just barely within factory spec at -1.75 front, -2.25 rear. Keep in mind that the less "spirited backroad driving" you actually do, the more the insides of your tires will wear prematurely.

 

[Rebellion]

I got -1.5 on front, -1.2 on rear, 0 and 0.1 toe in respectively.

The idea is that the car naturally has a decent understeer on neutral throttle...by having slightly less negative on the rear, it compensates for that. It does eliminate all of it thou, but it helps.

 

[ManBearPig]

Exactly what I was looking for. Thanks guys.

 

[Roadway 5.0]

This is a super subjective topic...an eye-of-the-beholder Leviathan.

In your situation I would recommend starting off with what your spring manufacturer recommends, and then dial-in more aggressive settings and see how things feel. It's amazing with a relatively inexpensive alignment can do to the feeling of a car...both good and bad.

I personally prefer and even front-to-back setup, ala -2 at all corners with .1 toe-in on all four as well...though my setup I don't think is "traditional".

-Mike

 

[Grintch]

I've searched the forums for info but so much of it seems conflicting.

I am looking to get my car aligned. I have 1" drop springs and no other suspension mods. I will be ordering a set of camber bolts so I can get some adjustment in the front.

I have a phenomenal shop that will work with me and we're going to take as long to do the alignment as needed. I know the rear adjustment is not easy so lots of places don't like to mess with it but fortunately I have a great shop I'll be visiting.

What I'm trying to decide is what I should shoot for. Some say more negative camber in the rear than the front. Some say more negative camber in the front than the rear. Most seem to agree that one end should be around 1 degree and the other end should be closer to 1.25, maybe even 1.5. The car will see a mix of commuting and spirited backroad driving. My priority is even tire wear but I am willing to compromise a little for performance.

For this kind of use which end should have more negative camber, and by how much?

Thanks

How much performance ish do you want?

I think the track pack alignment was - 1.6 F / - 1.8 R.
I burned up a RF tire on a track day with those settings. Currently running - 2.2 F / - 1.9 R, both the max I can get even on both sides with my current hardware.

-1.5 not enough even for spirited street use in my book.

 

[ManBearPig]

I had an alignment done after I had the springs put on but was not as involved with the process at the time. My printout from that alignment shows the car was set to -1.5 front right, -1.6 front left and -1.9 on both sides in the rear. Zero toe front .2 total toe rear.

That was about 5k miles ago and the car was strictly a weekend driver at the time so I wasn't concerned with tire wear. I'm about to start driving the car a lot more (commuting) and thought it would be wise to dial back some negative camber to help with tire wear. Sounds like I'm not *that* far off now, though. I could probably take a half degree of negative camber out if the front and rear but not sure how much better the tires would wear and how much worse it would handle.

 

[Rebellion]

I had an alignment done after I had the springs put on but was not as involved with the process at the time. My printout from that alignment shows the car was set to -1.5 front right, -1.6 front left and -1.9 on both sides in the rear. Zero toe front .2 total toe rear.

That was about 5k miles ago and the car was strictly a weekend driver at the time so I wasn't concerned with tire wear. I'm about to start driving the car a lot more (commuting) and thought it would be wise to dial back some negative camber to help with tire wear. Sounds like I'm not *that* far off now, though. I could probably take a half degree of negative camber out if the front and rear but not sure how much better the tires would wear and how much worse it would handle.

Dial back the rears and keep the 0.1 toe each side seems to be a good plan...front is less sensitive to wear (on a daily application) and needs camber plates to adjust.

 

[robwlf]

or camber bolts if your only going to daily it more ..bolts will get you a good amount of camber either neg or plus and there a lot cheaper then camber plates

 

[ManBearPig]

or camber bolts if your only going to daily it more ..bolts will get you a good amount of camber either neg or plus and there a lot cheaper then camber plates

Camber bolts are what I plan on. We did slot one of the strut mounts last time, will camber bolts still work, I'd think so, right?

 

[aleccolin]

What tire are you on?

 

[Norm Peterson]

Camber bolts are what I plan on. We did slot one of the strut mounts last time, will camber bolts still work, I'd think so, right?

I wouldn't trust any of the aftermarket crash bolts that specify a much lower torque setting than OE to be able to clamp the strut-to-knuckle joint together tight enough to eliminate the possibility of your setting slipping. Hitting a bad bump in a corner on the street is at least as likely to cause the setting to slip as max cornering or max braking on the track or at autocross on fully warmed-up tires.

The -1.5° camber neighborhood is fully daily-drivable as long as you're consistently driving the corners somewhat harder than "average normal traffic". Setting that much at all four corners should lighten the amount of understeer a bit. You'll probably want to run a minimal amount of toe in.


Norm

 

[wildcatgoal]

Stock camber settings, -1/16 total toe in in the front; same in the rear. Done.

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