Dave

Zone 1 coming up in a week and a half and I'm hoping I can get an alignment before then. Up 'til now, it's been done to whatever the factory spec is, but that's a little too "street and not enough AutoX. Any recommendations?

Edit; I checked the archives and found a couple sets of numbers, alot of variety between them, so maybe your thoughts on your setup, too.

Ag951

If you don't care about tire life, go for -3 degrees or more of camber. If you do care about tire life, keep it around -2 degrees.
Not sure about the toe and caster.

adrial

I'm at -1.6 deg camber, Zoltan is around -1.3 IIRC...
I wouldn't go beyond 2 deg on a car that you still drive on the street.

It really depends on how much street driving you do with the car.

For autox you want some toe out to really get the car to turn in, but on the highway the car will be all over the place. So once again...another compromise.

Caster...
The only downfall I know of to more caster is that it takes more effort to turn the wheel, so assuming you got your powersteering working again...I'd say max it out...should be around 2.5 to 3 degrees.

If you dont know where you're doing it...I recommend Eurotire. BUT what I learned at my last trip there is that you want to ask Chris to do the alignment, not one of the other guys. Chris is the guy at the front desk's brother. (Almost certain Chris is his name, but its definetely the guy at the front desk's brother) One of the other guys was messing around on the back of my car for way too long before Chris showed up how to do it. $135 for the alignment btw.

Sach951

Does that 135 include the ride height adjustment? I'm being quoted 130 by a local shop for everything w/o ride height adjustment. Dealership wants 230 for everything w/ ride height.

Thanks,
Sach

adrial

It's about $250-$260 IIRC for a align/lower (if car has height adjustable coilovers)/cornerbalance

or $235 for an align/cornerbalance.

I'm not sure what you mean by asking if the $135 includes ride height adjustment? You mean making the car level/lowering one end of the car?

Z-man

Dave:
As Adrial stated, I have around -1.3 deg neg camber on the front, a little more on the back. (I know, it should be less in the back!)

I can check the other alignment specs at home tonight. I believe everything else is in the stock settings.

Anything more than -1.5 camber, and you'll be eating up tires on the street.

HTH,
-Z-man.

Mmmm....Zone-1 autox...Mmmmm (Must kick Metro butt )

ninefiveone

"Anything more than -1.5 camber and you'll be eating up tires on the street"

I'll agree but also qualify that statement. Camber will be individual to each driver, car and tire because of the way that combination will wear. I have to run -2.2 degrees to get even tire wear because otherwise, I'd eat the outside of the tires long before I'd eat the insides from an aggressive camber setting. I know people who are running more, some less. You're shooting for even tire wear for your unique usage.

So if whatever camber setting you currently have isn't working for you, up it until you feel you've reach the right compromise between track performance and street life.

There are no universal settings here.

Sach951

adrial: By the ride height adjustment I mean the ability to raise / lower the back end of the car about 3/4 of an inch through adjusting an eccentric bolt by the trailing arm. I'm sure you're familiar with being level at the door sill. I'm not sure if I am... need to find a level one of these days and check it. 130 is a much nicer number than 230 when you're shelling it out...

Thanks,
Sach

Ag951

I don't think even wear should be the target.
The ideal setting for autoX would be enough negative camber, so that on the tightest corners, the outside tire is as flat as possible, yet the tires are flat enough in a straight to still brake and accelerate well.
The ideal street setting would be closer to zero.
The ideal hybrid setting would be as close to the autoX setting as you can get while keeping the inside wear from the street acceptible. If the car gets 1000 miles of street driving and one autoX in a month, then the ideal hybrid value will be 1 to 2 degrees negative. If the car goes from your house to the autoX and back, then sits until the next competition, then the ideal setting might be three negative degrees, or more.
Adrial is right about it depending on how much street driving you do.
Why don't you tell us how many miles you drive in a month and how frequently you compete? It'll help us advise you better.
(Ride along with me and you'll say, "screw the tires!" ).

Fishey

What are stock settings?

M758

Ag951...
I use tire wear as an indicator of proper camber on my 944-spec car. I run 3.5 deg negative and with my combination of springs, sway bars, etc I get a nice even wear on the track. You are right in that how much street use will determine how far negative you can realisticly go. The ideal level for the casual user is enough to even out the wear from cornering vs straight line. This means you maximize tire life. If this done for a track only car then you are probalby pretty close to the ideal for lap times as well.

Remember too much negative camber reduces braking efficiently on a track so more is not always better.

Stock was 0 or -0.5

I'd guess a good street set-up is -1. For autocross and track every so often but mostly street -1.5 is good. More than that and you begin eat the inside more than you are leaning on the outside.

Dave

Thanks for all the replies. Since Ag951 asked, this is my daily driver but I don't drive a whole lot on a daily basis. Ideally (read; when there's not blank space under the hood for most of the season, etc) I do an AX a months April through October, plus the zone event even if it's 4 or 5 hours away, and maybe a DE or two per year. OTOH, I drive 9 or 10 miles (total) a day, 5 days a week, to and from work, daycare, etc. for a total of ~4000 miles a year. My current tires (RE-730s in the summer) were round on the outside by the time they had 1000 miles on 'em and at 6000 miles were swapped side to side (inside out) to start wearing out the other side. Now they have 10K on them And my wife wants to Know why I'm starting to look at tires again. I bought a set of cookies and V700s for AX use this spring and put a good dent in them after 1 event. I also have snows on PDs for winter use.
I want to set the car up with more of an AX setup than street, I'm already distroying the outside edges so as long as the inside doesn't become the limiting factor for tire life I should be OK. From what I've seen here, I'm leaning toward -1.6 to -2.0 front and posibly the same rear, but I'm still open to suggestions. I'm also still not sure about toe and caster, so keep it comming.

Ag951

As little as you drive it, I'd say you can probably go -2 to -2.5 and not be hurting.
Or...
Given your mod list, you're definitely not in stock class. You could get camber plates, and change from a nice one degree street setting to three or more degrees at the track.

Waterguy

Front + 10' toe-in, - 20' camber, + 2 deg. 30' caster

Rear 0 toe-in, -1 degree camber

As an aside, does anyone know why the alignment specifications were changed for the 1990 and new model years? (Newer cars get 0 front camber and +10' rear toe-in. ROW cars get less rear camber than US cars, -25' to end of 1989, -45' 1990 and later.)

Dave

I'm really starting to think -2 deg all around should be a good compromise, still wondering about toe and caster.
Believe it or not, all thos mods are legal in stock class in NNJR-PCA except the cat and 1 item that isn't even listed. The car was built to the class rules but now those 2 items have tossed me into M1 class, (modified 4 cyl) so I get to compete with a non-street legal 2.6 liter 914 and modified turbo s with 2 drivers who shall remain nameless (Adrial & Teklord ).