Alignment (perfect?)

[biketsai]

Well I am putting on my coilovers this week and I want to know what I should set my alignment to. I am putting adjustable control arms in so I can adjust the camber as well.
I want an all around good street setup that wont wear my tires down bad.
What should the toe/camber, etc be?

[djwimbo]

Ideally you want toe pretty close to zero. A track car will run some more than a street car will. Positive toe helps prevent the car from wandering and following the grooves in the road.

Camber is your call. I'd set it up for ~1.6-1.7* negative camber in the front and ~1.0* negative in the rear. Now, if only we could easily adjust Caster on our cars.
Some will say to run more camber in the front, but I have a hunch 95% of the miles on the car will be on the street. I wouldn't go more than -2.0*camber in the front, until you're pushing the limits of the tires you have.

[andyrew]

Well your camber is going to be set based on your ride height for the front. The rear can be adjusted.

Go factory specs as close as possible, the alignment guy will know. (toe, you want closest to 0)

My specs are
FRONT
Camber -1.05L, -1.25R
Toe 1/16in (a little toe out will help turn in for faster steering response, however I autox..)

Rear
Camber L -1.00 R -1.10
Toe 1/16in (A little toe in will help with turn in and better turning ability, but will increase your scrub, especially on the rear. I would shoot for 0 on the rear, this was the best my alignment guy could get.)

Thrust angle 0.00deg.

This is a nice street setup, however I would have liked more front camber (1.5 deg).


For you, maybe 1deg camber front, .75 deg camber rear?

However my setup netted me 1.04 lateral G's with very sticky street tires, yet my tire temps said I needed .75 to 1.0deg more camber front and rear.

[andyrew]

I must note that I have very even tire wear.

[biketsai]

On a side note, I will be doing the alignment.

[djwimbo]

Go factory specs as close as possible, .....

However my setup netted me 1.04 lateral G's with very sticky street tires, yet my tire temps said I needed .75 to 1.0deg more camber front and rear.

close to stock specs means close to stock performance.
It's the little things that give people the edge.

1.04G's maintained, or peak?

[andyrew]

1.04 maintained. 1.08 peak. This was on the new Gtech around a skidpad.

Yes I know the little things count, but you dont want to be wearing out the insides of your tires for one .03 little extra G's for 20 mins out of the month...

I will be lowering my front a little and taking my car back to try and get close to 1.75 front and 1.5 year.

Then I'll be corner balancing. Im looking for 1.1 sustained.

However I try to autox 2 weekends a month. He's just looking for a street setup and if he's responsible he wont get to the limits on the street, it takes a bit of commitment and stupidity to go to the limits on open roads, thus he will never even notice the difference.

[biketsai]

No way would I ever take it to the limit on the streets. Just looking for something that can handle the weekend twisties, and keep the tires in good condition. I havent done any track events yet, but I might do one or two this fall.

[andyrew]

Ya definately dont go too agressive with it then. Your front camber is going to be dependent on how low you are. Just try and match your rear camber (obviously your rear will get a little less camber. .3 less or so)

[Nebone]

Whats wrong with your current suspension? I have the H&R Race springs w/ Bilsteins and the car sees a good amount of twisties. I was just in Vermont twisties over the weekend and impressed a bunch of people on the roads, all they said is that their cars would have fallen off the road by now. I was really impressed with my new Kuhmos too. They stayed quiet but I could smell them by the time I got out of the car. Real big for that suspension setup.

BTW: This thread will give you all the information you need about alignment.