97C5inSD

I have raced my car now for 1 year doing autox and alittle track time. and well dose very little street driving. What im wondering is will i throw my self off big time if say i keep this alignment for awhile and then change to a more aggressive alignment for like when i hit a larger compotition such as a national event where every little bit i can do can help. Am i gona be able to drive the car as well or better or is it gona throw me off something fierce that i should run a event or 2 with the alignment change before taking it to a larger event?

I know mabey a odd question but i'm new to the changeing alignments and such i just purchased myself a camber tool so i can possibly start working with it myself rather then taking it in to get done when i need it.


Thanks

Aardwolf

With very little street driving, why not have the better aggressive alignment! The choice then is to focus for autox or road racing. You may want the rear to rotate and slide more for autox which would be bad at high speed in road racing. You could focus in on learning to change just that though!

varkwso

I run the track alignments full time on my cars - they wander a bit on the ruts in the roads....but tire wear has not been an issue..

97C5inSD

How many miles do you put on the street though? anywhere i wana go with the car is atleast 50-120 miles one way i'd hate to have to be going through street tires to fast. Granted i don't get to take it out much on the street i would like to be able to put miles on and not compromise.


I primarly run the car on autocross. granted i do have probly 3 track days a year and one open road race which i could try and get the car in for alignment changes at a shop for a diffrence.

Granted it would probly be nice to know what the current settings are. From what i can tell i think there set right in the middle from being aggressive to street driving so who know mabey i am best leaving it alone for awhile

97C5inSD

Thanks i have thought about that i run 315/35/17 V710 fronts and 335/35/17 rears. The car is very well planted on the courses takes alot for it to push really and with alittle throttle control i can get it to rotate around some if i need it to.

Thats why i wonder if i should play with it or not since i have gotten the car fairly well down i know i probly am only still driving it to about 75% of it full potentioal i have a local guy that has competed on a national level before and has done very well and won several events so i planned to have him drive the car this summer some also to give me a base line so to speak to go off of. I have been beating him in his car Vs mine but he has a BMW M3 lightweight in BSP i have beat him twice on raw time and once on the pax scale. I have also managed to beat a guy that drives a caterham 7 very well also. I consider i'm doing well for only driving the car one season and both them competitors have urged me to go to Nationals in Topeka so that is my plan for this year but i plan to run a National tour event in Milwaukee to give me a base line on how i may do against alot better people that are from other parts of the country.

Guess time will tell. Hence why i purchesed the Camber machine so i can work on doing it myself.

varkwso

I drive 80 miles round trip to work since the cars get 30+ mpg, drove the white FRC to Daytona (~400 miles one way), drove the ZO6 to my Mom's house in AL (300miles one way) several times and everywhere else I feel the need.

I found it evens out the track wear pretty well

97C5inSD

Bumping this back up again. any one else have opinions?

rfn026

I'm pretty aggressive with my camber numbers. The rear is -3.0. The car is a little bit of a pain on the street but nothing I can't handle. I actually drive the car from home to Sebring which is about 100 miles.

I've decided changing the alignment numbers back to the street numbers is more of a pain than having the car dart a little for a few hours. Essentially it doesn't track real well at lower speeds. The Kumho DOT tires add very little to the ride quality on the way to Sebring, but I really hate swapping tires at the track.

In the end it's what sort of aggravation can you tolerate. A dedicated track car is really a pain off the track. Then again so is adding a truck and trailer to the fleet. In the end I just suck it up.

Richard Newton

Corvette C5 Performance Projects: 1997-2004

Wheel and Tire Performance Handbook

97C5inSD

Thanks for the input Richard. anyone else?

TommyBoy72

I run my fully aggressive autox alignment on the street - it happens to work pretty well on the track too (but I would add more negative rear camber if it was more focused for that). I daily drive on this, about 30 miles a day. Yes I probably kill tires a bit faster but its worth it.

ghoffman

Now that you have the camber gauge, you might want to have the ability to do the rest of your alignment. We make a tool specifically to do that that is very easy to use. Please check out the instructions and see if it is something you might find useful. It now comes with a tape that is useful for measuring tire circumference as well. All you need beyond what is provided is a laser, and a plumb bob from Home Depot, Lowes, etc). The tool is now slotted for all 5 lug cars so you can share it with friends that might drive Mustangs, BMW, etc.

http://hardbarusa.com/uploads/image/...%20rev1(1).pdf


http://hardbarusa.com/hardbar/produc...products_id=44

Z06Fix

I went with a mild alignment setup.

Front:
-1.5 camber
Max caster
0 toe

Rear:
-1.0 camber
1/16th total toe in

It seems to work very well on the street and for autox. I would assume it should work well on track too. I will find out in Aug at Road Atlanta.

davidfarmer

The alignment above, -1.5f and -1.0rear is within OEM for the new Z06. Bottom line, you can easily run -1.6f and -1.0 rear on the street and track, and you will have no problems at all. The Max front camber you want anyway is around -2.2 (in most cases), as you get diminishing returns rapidly about -2.0 degrees.

Anyway, get the front between -1.5 and -2.0, get the rears to around -1.2 to -1.6, and go have some fun. As long as you don't go too far on the toe, the tire wear on the street will be fine.

btw, I like 1/32 (.1deg) toe OUT in the front, and 1/16 - 3/32 (.2-.3deg) toe IN in the rear. I'd prefer more in a dedicated track car, but this seems to be about the limit if you want to avoid excessive wear on the street.

63Corvette

Um...............me too

97C5inSD

Thanks everyone espeically you david i was hopeing someone would suggestion something up i just need to take the car in and see where it's actually sitting right now and possibly adjust from there.

Hmmm will it make alot diffrent what wheels i have on it for alignment reasons? i have a set of 17's a set of 18's and a staggered set of 18,19 for the street.

97C5inSD

Well i am bumping this back up. My car in the current form i got it in was running this.


Front

-2.0 camber
6.6 Caster
-.03 toe

Rear

-1.3 camber
-.44 toe in

I had to raise the rear 3/4 of a in to accomidate new wheels and car setup but never changed the sway bar adjustments and such. I lost alittle caster in the progress in the front and the toe changed alittle.

But i put the rear back to them setting even thought i didn't lose more then .1 degress.

I have since autoxed the car and it seemed to perform well. But i felt it coulda been lacking slightly alittle looser in the rear end but with 442 on tq it's not hard to break the rear end loose. In anycase.

Well i'm heading to a SCCA national Tour even this weekend. and well i think i will need every advantage i can. So at the event i will lower the rear of the car back down 3/4 of a inch where it was and i would like to add some Toe out. What are some of your recomendations? This is for an AutoX.

TommyBoy72

This is very close to what I run though I don't recall all your mods - mine is stock other than shocks. The only question I have is the toe settings.I get this backwards from time to time but I thought negative in toe refers to toe out. If that is the case, you might want to reconsider your rear toe settings. If its the inverse, never mind (though maybe add some toe-out in the front).

EDIT: I see you wrote toe-in despite the - symbol so you should be good as I calculate that to about 1/8" total toe-in which is what I run though I have 100hp less and a stock front bar.

97C5inSD

Thanks Tommy boy my car Runs in SM2 class

DRM coilovers
Hotchkins sway bars.

Not sure how far it's been lowered.

Yeah i plan to toe the front Out the front and rear are Toed in right now to them settings. I am Running C6 ZO6 wheels and tires for street tires so i had to raise the rear which changed things some But thats why i figured i'd lower it back down again for the big event.

I just need to figure out the Toe setting for the front

I figured using - = negative or in and + = Out

TommyBoy72

Considering that, I think you really should consider getting it corner balanced (if you aren't familiar with the process http://www.nsxprime.com/FAQ/Performa...erbalance.htm). First set the ride height with the rake you want and then take it to get balanced. After that align it. It can make a big difference, especially with the higher speeds that a Tour/Pro usually brings.

The rake is an interesting thing as I've heard people talk about what to set it to but no one ever saying what was a good starting point. I'm using approximately 3/4" and I haven't had any good data or info to suggest changing it. I'd be curious what the fast guys are running. I did change this a lot on my CSP Miata until I found what worked best.

97C5inSD

Thanks for the Link Tommy the car had been balanced before i raised the rear up 3/4 thats why i felt if i lower it back down it would be closer.

I haven't balanced a car myself but i have access to scales just not sure if i have time before this weekend. i guess can anyone give me ideas on what kinda percentage i should look at on a vette. My car weighed in about 3030lbs without driver granted i weight in over 300 so i know that dose not help at all.

One of them things just not sure i can get it all done this week but i can try. Don't know if i can get the car aligned after it is balanced but i guess i could try ugg to much i'd like to get done and just not enough time for me to get it done