Alignment settings

For those suspension setup gurus, what do you make of these settings:

 

Camber

left -1.12

right -1.01

 

Caster

left +6.23

right +6.38

S.A.I.

left +14.04

right +14.38

 

Toe +1.5

 

Rear camber

left -1.37

right -1.56

Rear toe +1.0

I'm not that experienced, but this alignment has too much cross camber in the front and cross toe in both the front and rear for my tastes. When I get aligned in a few weeks, I'm shooting for:

F camber -1.5

F Toe 0

R camber -1.25 (adj. control arms)

R Toe 0

 

just my $.02 - this is for street use.

Too much toe. Set it to zero, my car tracks the best set to Zero.

all that toe is going to wear your tires pretty quickly. Everything else looks reasonable for an aggressively driven street car (camber higher than factory levels but still within acceptable tire wear range).

I thought toe in would help even out the tyre wear?

 

I had to run high front camber to clear my wheels into the guards without rolling them. I was recommended to run toe in to compensate for the tyre wear with camber...?

Uh, almost...only if you were running much more neg. camber and you aren't.

 

Blackhole has it pegged. Go with his reccomendations.

 

-1.5 F will not have any adverse tire wear if driven normal to semi aggressively (very hard to quantify - coming from experience). This rate driven sedately may increase you wear on the inside but you'll only notice it when the tires are 60%+ worn. -1.3 is the max for even wear under all conditions.

 

-1* up front with 1.3 in the rear should still give you more understeer than you may like. bump up the front, leave the rear, get the rear fender rolled/cut and report back. I think you'll be happily surprised.

 

Just my .02

 

How much front camber can I get without changing the camber adjust bolt?

I thought toe in would help even out the tyre wear?

 

I had to run high front camber to clear my wheels into the guards without rolling them. I was recommended to run toe in to compensate for the tyre wear with camber...?

 

The toe-in will destroy your tires a lot faster than just camber alone... it would also increase low speed understeer.

For those suspension setup gurus, what do you make of these settings:

 

Camber

left -1.12

right -1.01

 

Caster

left +6.23

right +6.38

S.A.I.

left +14.04

right +14.38

 

Toe +1.5

 

Rear camber

left -1.37

right -1.56

Rear toe +1.0

 

Toe is messed up and uneven camber in rear is little bit unfortunate (non adjustable).

 

You have lot's of positive caster, which is good thing. Is this stock suspensions setup?

Is it hard to zero out toe-in without equipment? i.e. DIY style.

 

unclemat: no it's not stock suspension.

 

KW Variant-2 coilovers

Cusco front strut brace

Cusco rear strut brace

Cusco Type II front lower chassis brace

AVO rear sway bar

AVO rear sway bar mounts

AVO front and rear sway bar endlinks

AVO caster adjustment bushing

Whiteline front rollcenter adjustment kit

I'm not really a tuner. I'm an enthusiast without a garage or much of the experience needed to do this work. I took my car to NTB with the above settings and got these results as my after:

Front Left.......Right

Camber -1.0.......-1.0

Caster 6.2.......5.6

Toe 0.01.......0.01

 

Rear Left.......Right

Camber -0.6.......-0.9

Toe -0.01.......0.01

 

Thrust Angle: -0.01

 

The drive definately feels better but there seems to be some strange veering when in mild ruts or there is a strong crown in the road. Is this normal or should I let the tires "normalize" to the new settings before tinkering with the settings?

I've checked and re-checked the settings I was given, and three wheel places (one of which I trust) told me that the toe will counter the camber tyre wear.

The alinement place I use is one of the best in Cincinnati. When I get an alinement, They tell me what each setting was at start, confirm stock numbers and finally tell me where they set it. You have given information, but its not clear to me how that is relative to stock setting!!

 

I would not be changing stock setting to fit bigger tires!

Admittedly the place I went to was pretty poor, I didn't get a before/after printout. Will be going elsewhere for another alignment, however they confirmed that if the final settings written down for me are correct, they should be fine.

 

Did a preliminary inspection of tyre wear and it's not doing too badly. It's even.

I'm not really a tuner. I'm an enthusiast without a garage or much of the experience needed to do this work. I took my car to NTB with the above settings and got these results as my after:

Front Left.......Right

...

Rear Left.......Right

...

Toe -0.01.......0.01

 

I'd get the rear toe evened out. Negative is out - usually - and could allow some sportier-than-intended right turns.

I'd get the rear toe evened out. Negative is out - usually - and could allow some sportier-than-intended right turns.

 

0.01 is an absolutely minuscule difference. Even sitting still on the alignment rack you'll see the numbers jump around by that amount. From a toe perspective that alignment is about as good as it gets.

I'd get the rear toe evened out. Negative is out - usually - and could allow some sportier-than-intended right turns.

 

the tires will naturally want to toe out during forward motion, its best to set the tires as close to zero or the stock toe settings since they design and align the car to account for this, its best to align a car with a toe bar, the bar sits between the front tires and gives them a toe out while you are adjusting it.

 

Thrust line you want as close to zero as possible, anything within +/- .10deg is acceptable. the rear toe is referenced from the thrust line and the fronts are referenced from the rear toe.

 

Now as for caster, im sure most of you who are loking into this want to tune the suspension for maximum performance and handling. Caster is the amount of forward/rear angle in the front suspension which is measured from the top (strut mount/bearing) and the bottom (ball joint pivot). Positive caster is the amount of top mount rear angle (top closer to the rear as referenced from the ball joint) and negative is the opposite, now for good handling at slow and high speeds you want the most caster you can get out of it. high caster tightens up the steering and makes it more responsive durring slow and high speeds (can someone say go-kart?).

 

Now another thing to consider in caster is the crown fo the road, now every road has a crown the ammount of crown is dependent on the amount of use of that road (main st, side road service road etc..), the crown is the center of the road and it is designed to allow water to run off to the ditches as to not let water pool up on the surface, so the crown will want to make the car drift/move towards the curb due to the amount of crown/downward slope, to offset this you want to make sure the caster is slightly higher on the right side of the car.

 

Now i know with my BE the caster is non adjustable as i am sure it is like that with most cars, now some companys make kits to do it, im sure TRW or MOOG will make a kit for it in some form, now another way to adjust the caster is to shift the lower front subframe, now you want to be carfull doing this and this should ONLY BE DONE ON AN ALIGNMENT RACK AND BY A PROFESSIONAL!! the sub frame will allow for a decent amount of adjustment, also you can elongate the holes on the upper strut towers amd move the top of the strut to the rear of the vehicle.

 

well i hope this elps you guys out and i will search for some alignment links for your viewing pleasure.

 

if anyone has questions you can ask me as i do alignments and suspension work every day at my work in a colision center.

... I think I'm lost all I know is that I get scrubbing on the inside guard lining, and also on the outer fenders, when I turn hard with my +42 wheels due to my camber/caster/toe

i am assuming that is not a stock offset?

Stock offset is +55. I don't think i can go back to +55 any more... although if I straighten out my toe and camber, it might just clear...

 

alternatively, I raise the car.. and then everything will be fine haha