fun2k

im going to get an alignment done on my 2010gt3.what would be the best compromise between better performance and tyre life for the street? i want a more agressive setting so the car would feel more agile but i dont want a very aggressive setting because car is mostly driven on hwy and some twisty roads.

Is there a way to tell what my current(factory) alignment is without a shop?

MarekN

If you have another car next to it to compare and you know that cars´ alignment, then you can just about make a rough guess whether or not your car is more or less aggresive, both in toe and camber. You can see that with your eyes. However, you will still have to get it measured properly and on something that works in order to finetune it and see if the car is aligned symetrically, which is even a bigger problem than just the values themselves.

Sayyar

hmmmm....... I wouldn't recommend doing so....

bob_dallas

With all due respect, there is no way anyone can eyeball an alignment. Sure you can see if someone has significant difference in camber but that's about the extent of it. We're talking about adjustments of degrees and minutes which take a lot of measurements.

I don't have my exact alignment specs handy at my desk but a quick search of the board will give you some good ones. This is posted quite frequently.

Larry Cable

it's pretty early days with the '10s to have a lot of experience with alignment specs for either road or track
I think ...

RonCT

Simple solution. Porsche realizes many new cars have out-of-specification alignments at delivery. Both of my new 997 cars were way off and the dealer / Porsche covered a complimentary "check" and re-alignment (something like within 3 months and 2000 miles was the rule-of-thumb). When both went onto the Hunter, both had lots of "red" indicators, meaning out of spec. So, my dealer re-aligned and I asked for as much negative camber up front as they could get. I don't try to assume I know more about exactly how much toe, etc. to use. I tell them give me the best alignment to reduce understeer and they do their job. Each time the result has been fantastic.

NJ-GT

Yes, smart strings.

Best alignment for street? the same one recommended by Porsche in the workshop manual for your car. Get it re-aligned to the stock specs.

10 GT3

First, limit the amount of toe. The more toe, the more the car will want to wander. The downside it a car with less toe won't turn in as quick. Camber depends on how hard you drive on the street. If you don't drive it very hard, you may be set off with the stock settings. To get it more idea for the track with -2.5 to -3.0 camber in front, you will need to be a harder driver on the street if you want your tires to wear even. There is one other factor to figure, what tires you are running. A street tire run on the track doesn't need as much camber as a race tire. For my first alignment, I'm going -2.8 front and -1.8 rear and conservative on the toe. I would rather have high-speed stability and give up a little of the turn-in.

ritzblitz

Toe also increases tire wear.

Larry Cable

agreed. the owners manual has both the recommended street and track settings!

fun2k

Thanks for all the recommendations. I think in the current state the car understeers a lot,i mean at slow speed tight corners it just wants to go straight you can even feel the front sliding from steering feel. In my 135i I felt less understeer so to get rid of that i think i will go for -2 or -2.5 in the front. what does negative camber in the rear do?

Correct me if im wrong but i think the car is setup for safe understeer from factory infact i think its dialed for massive understeer. I can get the car to oversteer just before corner exit but i want a sharper turn in on corner entry and a more tied down front end. On the stiffer suspension setting the car seems to be a lot tighter but the front end becomes very bouncy.

Harold

The negative camber up front wont drastically help your understeer on the street. Only would make sense if you are leaning really hard on the sidewalls with big power through corners- and that would be more on the track. Think that toe out will help turn in more for the street than neg camber.

Negative camber in the rear helps increase the contact patch of the tire being leaned on as the car exerts more pressure on that tire through a corner (the "outside tire")... basically keeps more grip in the rear. I am running close to neg 3 front and rear BUT dont use the car much on the road... if you did, all you would end up doing is wearing out the inner part of your tires very quickly...

jshudson

For a street friendly setting, I run neg 2.5 camber in the front with zero toe and neg 1.8 camber in the rear with slight toe-in. There is so littleweight up front tire wear won't change much even with more neg camber.
You also may want to experiment with tire pressures in the front. I have found that can improve the understeer in some instances.

fun2k

Thanks for clearing that up m8. i drive the car hard maybe 70% of the time,any car infact. i remmember i nearly destroyed my gtr tyres at only 4000km from new,the inner tyres were showing a lot of worn rubber.probably had more neg caber dialed in from factory. btw do get that front end bouncing on hard cornering?like on stock setting with stiff pasm mode on?

Thanks,thats the answer i was looking for,im going for something similar.

Harold

Mate, just note that I find the toe out helps with INITIAL turn in to a corner ie: causes for quicker turn in at the beginning, but it does not alleviate understeer. This will need lots of other things to work- eg: soften the roll bars up front, stiffen the rear roll bars, deflate front tires relative to rear, soften front spring rate etc etc... but for basic street driving I would guess the standard Porker set up would be good. I am really bad at this suspension stuff and am still learning.... good luck mate