02QSZ06

I had my car aligned a couple weeks ago for autocrossing. I have Ecsta XS's that I drive to the events, autocross, and drive home on. The alignment settings are Front caster 6.8, Front camber 1.6, front toe -1/16", Rear camber 1.0, rear toe -1/8". I marked the stock settings before getting it aligned so I can change it for street use. My question is, does anyone know how bad the inside of my street tires are going to wear with these settings? I'd like to make it as easy as possible to go back to a setting for the street that won't kill the tires, without changing both camber and toe.

Thanks,

Andy

Zenak

That isn't too aggressive, you will be fine.

Read here in the Suspension and Alignment Section:
http://forums.corvetteforum.com/auto...post1571223827

ErnieN85

Andy. Those are the same tires I'm using. I have not set up for track yet and my tires are wearing off the outside with the stock setup.
What you have is what I'll be shooting for when I get my car setup.
You should be good for street however it's probably not agressive enough for autocross.

02QSZ06

Thanks for the replies. I used those specs based on the Pfadt Corvette alignment recommedations for "Performance Street - Track Use with Race Tires". I ran the car this weekend and it stuck pretty well. I don't have a temp. gun, so I'm not sure how good the contact patch is. So, with that set-up I can run my street tires without any adjustments?

Thanks again,

Andy

gkmccready

I'm about -1.75deg front, with a smidge of toe-in, and -1.25deg rear, with 1/16" toe-in. Tires appear to be wearing okay on the street, I ran a similar alignment with my last set of tires street and track and the wear was good there, too.

Zenak

for autocross unless you are trying to be DA MAN that will be fine. if you go HPDE you need to go a bit steeper or you will lose the entire outer tire lips

sothpaw2

What's steeper-More camber?

davidfarmer

I'm not a fan of your front toe, either for wear or handling.....

Z06trackman

What really wears the insides of tires is the combination of chamber AND toe. I have not tried your combo on the street because I believe it will produce a lot of wear on the inside edge. Perhaps others can say it works OK. Since I have found it is the rear toe-in that tames the tendancy for power-on oversteer, I run 1/16" total toe in the rear and only -0.3 to -0.5 degree camber for the aggressive street driving without inside wear (and only -0.7 to -1.0 chamber on the front).

If I am just driving home from events, then I keep the big chamber as is and just change to zero toe to prevent inside wear. I do this without even jacking up the car. One flat on the nut (1/6 turn) per side is 1/16" total toe.

I also always keep the front toe at zero.

ErnieN85

Question now, what if anything would make a combination of wear on the outside front and cupping on the inside?
factory alignment now. I'm going to align it next week and then we'll see what it is set at. my plan is zero toe front and a bit more camber front & rear as both front & rears are wearing on the outside edges wit some track time and 20,000 total miles

TMyers

I am running -1.5 camber on the front and about -.8 on the rear, as close to zero toe as I can get it. I am getting good wear front and rear. Of course I need to get it back in and have it checked again.

ErnieN85

One thing I have found at the typical alignment shop you need to jack it up after then using a wrench to hold the ecentric bolt make sure the nut is toequed to spec. they mostly use the "plenty tight method"
Phoenix is one that does it right!

Greywolfe

I am running -1.8 camber front and -1.0 camber rear. Zero toe all the way around.

Mixed street and track driving. Street tires. Getting even wear.

On high speed hard braking the rear is not at planted so next time I will try a little toe in, in the rear to see if that helps.

Otherwise good comprimise settings for me.

02QSZ06

Do you suggest I try something else? I'd like it to do well autocrossing, but also be able to drive it home before making street adjustments. I'm getting confused at all the different recommendations. I thought I was going to be good by using Pfadt's recommendations, but now I'm thinking I was wrong.

davidfarmer

OEM toe is fine, 1/32 or 0.1º toe OUT in the front, 1/16" or 0.2º toe IN in the rear. More of both (double front, triple rear) is better for the track, but it will cause excessive street wear.

When you are turning, the inside front tire is leading the outside tire relative to the center of the arc. Because of this, you need the inside tire to turn sharper than the outside tire, or they actually fight each other. This ratio is called Ackerman, but since we can't adjust that, we run toe OUT to help the inside tire help the outside tire a bit, or at least not fight against it.

02QSZ06

I'll adjust the toe this weekend. Do you think my camber is good?

davidfarmer

Unless you do a LOT of street driving, I think your camber is great

02QSZ06

I probably drive that car about 5,000 miles a year. All my street driving is on different tires than I autocross on.

Zenak

- camber = / \
+ camber = \ /

Front you don't want a whole lot of tow.

Rear 1/16 to 1/8 is just fine. Even once you start to hit an 1/8 you can feel the difference, 1/16 usually plently.

Get plenty of front caster if you can and still corner weight it well.

Aggressive is anything over -1.8 in the front and -1.0 in the rear.

You can not exceed -1.9 in the front without removing the factory washers behind the upper control arms. If you do that you can maybe squeeze -2.0 to 2.5 if you really try but its tight.

Its very hard to get more than -1.1 in the rear on a factory set up.

Street driving with - camber tears up the inside lip.
Track driving tears up the outs edge.

Camber is your way of trying to get the tire to lay flat in the corners so you dont destroy the outer edge all the while having plenty of tire left everywhere else.

If you combo track/street the car -1.8 is nice for 1x/month HPDE guys so your tires sometimes wear inner/outer and thus it spreads the abuse.

Hope that helps.