TommyBoy72

I did a lot of searching and never quite found a good baseline alignment. My initial thoughts are to align it something like this:

Front:
-1.5 camber
7 or more caster (max maybe?)
slight toe-out, about 1/16" total toe-out?

Rear:
-1 camber
1/16" to 1/8" total rear toe-in

One big question is the ride height, where do you all set it?

The car will be stock on street tires for the first several events until I'll move onto V710s. Not sure what shocks I will run as it will just be a regional car (very open to suggestions such as 04 shocks?) or front sway bar. Thanks in advance for any help.

TedDBere

You'll need more negative camber. Maximum but equal, whatever you can get to start with.

Ride height will be dropped as far as you're comfortable in the rear (two threads showing is OK) and then put the rake where you want it initially. Then adjust over time to make the car handle the way you want it to. It will take driving time for the car to settle on the front bushings to give you the true rake BTW. Changing ride height via the rake wil change the alignment and potentially the corner weights of the car.

Some like positive rake, some like no rake, some like negative rake for autox. I'd suggest starting with no rake and making adjustments after you're comfortable that you know the handling of the car. I hear that Pheniox starts their autox cars out with no rake.

Note: If you are going to drive this car on the road both a neutral rake and a negative rake can be unstable at high speeds. FWIW

Solofast

Ted is right, running the 710's you will need all the camber you can get.

I generally set the front toe to zero for the street and mark the tie rods so I can wind in about a half to 3/4's of a turn of toe out per side at the event and then take it out for the street.

If you are going with stock shocks don't lower the back end too much, they will bottom under hard cornering/acceleration and make corner exit screwy...

wtknght1

That's too low guys...you're bottoming out your shocks most likely.

AU N EGL

I agree with Chris. Shocks need room to move. No lower then 1" from stock ride height, more like 1/2" lower then stock ride height.

TommyBoy72

I was figuring it couldn't be lowered much, I was thinking 1/2" all around as a baseline to get more static negative camber in the front.

Any other opinions or info?

Too Tall Bob

The stock Z06's don't handle well when lowered much past 1/2" to 3/4", and make sure you keep some rake towards the front or it will push like crazy. You will want to keep as much forward bite on the car as possible. I've only found one track that likes the car lowered alot, and that is Miller because it's as flat as a pool-table!

I tried Bilstein Sports in place of the stockers on my '02, and went back to the stock ones for now. The Bilstein's were just a touch too harsh for the tracks I run on. I'll be going to Pfadt's here soon so I can dial in the car better....

Get all the neg. camber you can (mine is about -2.2 front and -1.2 in the rear), then get max. caster, then I set my front at 1/16 total toe out in front, and 1/8 toe in in the rear, and with the V710's, I get great tire wear across the tread. HTH.....

TedDBere

Guys, you're giving him some great advise for the track, but his question was for autox. FWIW.

TommyBoy72

Exactly. My track days in a car ended when I sold the Miata. I track a bike now instead. The Z is #1 an autocross car and #2 a weekend car. Don't much care about the track setup at this point.

Whats the average max negative camber you can get a stock height in the front? I was under the impression it was -1.5.

Too Tall Bob

I thought some of it might be useful for that as well.
You can get -2.2 on the front without any mods...that's what I was able to get.

Hey!...maybe we can swing him over to the "Dark side".

gkmccready

My '06 Z51 came with neutral rake... 5" ride height at all four jacking points...

TommyBoy72

Where I come from, the darkside means boost.

I've been there, done that with the track (thousands of laps). I love it but I just wanted to switch to a motorcycle for something different and keep autocrossing with the Z. I'll probably end up back on the track eventually with a car, but its not in the immediate future.

tigerdrvr

Ted's pretty much summed it up.

Where we settled, running the Z06 in SS on stock shocks:

-2.0 front, zero toe (some like some toe out, I ended up going back to zero), front ride height about 3/4 of the full downward adjustment (YMMV, corner weighting is going to come into play, this is a rough estimate).

-1.5 rear, start with at least 1/4 toe in, you'll probably end up running more. Ride height is right at max lowering, this should give you a very slight rake (approx. 1/4").

You can get more camber, but we felt that it wasn't neccessary and that there might be a give up on braking. I think the best advice is to get the baseline set and then do any adjustments at events with just the rear ride height and toe. Slight ride height changes in the rear, along with toe, can make big differences in the car's balance. Just get that front end to stick as well as possible!

Mike Wood

TommyBoy72

Thanks Mike, exactly what I was looking for. Being that low, when you hit the bumpstops is it pretty harsh or progressive? What shocks are you using, something with a fair amount of bump damping?

tigerdrvr

The front doesn't end up being that low, I don't have the measurements, but after experimenting with full drop in the front, we ended up going back up about 1/2-5/8" or so, which was (IIRC) right around 3/4 of maximum adjustment. Also, this was with stock, '02 shocks. Hitting the bumpstops wasn't an issue.

TommyBoy72

Since I greatly suspect I will be changing to race tires within 6 months, I'm going to align at stock height using this:

Front:
Max negative camber up to -2
max caster
zero toe

Rear:
-0.5 negative camber less than front
1/8" total toe-in

I see you said 1/4" toe in. That's a lot, more than I've ever run on any car. Do you really run that much?

dbratten

Where on the car are you taking your rake measurements?

I will be running 710s for autox but also drive the car daily on the EMTs. I currently have -0.8 F and -0.4 R camber per side. Is this too much of a compromise for good track performance?

This is on a C6.

TIA,
--Dan

gkmccready

I measured from the jacking slots on the frame.

I'm running -1.1 F and -0.9 R and that's a compromise for the track... I'm on the Supercars for both right now. I will shortly have the Hardbar camber kit and then I'll probably put on a more aggressive alignment for the track and swap it out for the street. (C6)

tigerdrvr

Yep, at LEAST 1/4" toe in. You'll need at least that to hook up off turns and keep the car under you, in autocross.

Keep in mind, the alignment I gave you is what we found worked well on my car, for the way I drive. But, I don't know any of the guys who were running Z06's last year at a National level who were far off those numbers...at least according to what was shared

TommyBoy72

Understood. I'm going to chicken out and go with 1/8" total toe-in and hope that is enough especially since I am 1 mile above sea level. I'll post back with some opinions after I autox it this saturday on the new alignment.