Dan H.

Hi guys,
Taking my car to county corvette for an alignment on Friday. Really excited to see the effects.

My car is an 02 Z06. Running square 18" speedlines with nitto nt05's 295/35/18. I have drm bilsteins, stock sway bars, and stock brakes. Other than race seats and harnesses, my car is stock and just past 20k miles. I drive about 5000 street miles a year. I'll run 4 hpde's and no autocross

The shop reco'd lowering the car. Putting around -1.5 camber. Lowering will help get as much caster in as possible, and potentially a small amount of toe out. What do you guys think?

This is year 2 for me and I am quite excited

cagotzmann

Well the layout of the track would determine what alignment will work the best. There isn't a one fit that fits all tracks.

Toe out on the front helps with turn in on slower speed corners, and not the best on long sweeping corners, toe in on the rear helps with trail braking on high speed turn in.

High caster helps for high speed straights.

The balance of camber front vs rear depends on if you like over steer vs under steer.

Have a look at these and have them set to track baseline.

http://tech.corvettecentral.com/2011...ignment-specs/

Is this a track you have run before ? What problems did you have on previous runs ?

Dan H.

Tracks this year are
Watkins glen
Pocono
Pittsburg / wampum
VIR

Nowanker

My $.02: (I've tracked going on 20 years, and do alignments professionally)
-1.5 camber is probably a fine starting point. Evaluate tire wear...
Get what you can on the caster, make it even side to side, but don't worry too much about it otherwise.
Toe in at the rear is a good thing! Toe out at the F will improve turn in a modest amount, at the expense of quickly trashed tires on the street. If you street drive much at all, no way is the trade off worth it (IMO).
Enjoy!

Dan H.

Hey all,
Had my alignment done by Kurt at County Corvette this morning. I was super happy with the experience. We sat down and talked about how the car felt to drive on the track and what I wanted to get out of the alignment. We spoke about things like the carousel at summit point, and the boot at the glen and how i felt about the car in those places. He then talked about his recommendation and why. He reco'd a smudge of toe out which I didn't want based on the tire wear people on the forum warned about. He also said he could lower the car if I wanted, I said sure. He talked about the dangers of going to low, and said he recommended no more than 10mm and how he measured it from the ball joint not the fender well.

My settings are:

Front
Camber/Caster/Toe
-1.7 / 7.2 / 0

Rear
Camber/Toe
-1.0 / 3/16"

Front and rear both lowered 8mm

Car felt different and very good leaving the shop. Very happy with the results and the experience. I would recommend Kurt and County Corvette in West Chester PA to any newb that has ben wondering where to go.

Dan

Nowanker

Hard to argue with his settings. Your speed and choice of tires will determine if it needs more tweaking. Have fun and be safe!

zcobra1

Very good advice !
I lowered my C5Z ever so slight as well, gave me more
camber and I ended up about 2 on the front and 1.5/1.6 rear.
Nice amount toe in rear, otherwise car felt squirrelly,
in particular on braking hard. I also tried front toe out,
Car was too unsettled for me and tracked all the ruts,
etc., went to the slightest tiny bit toe in, perfect. For me.
And since it was 80% street driven I gave up the toe out front.

My tire wear was perfect, running R555ii.
These cars are very sensitive to slight changes, and
I had to take mine back a few times to find what I liked.

Be very sure they tighten those adjustment bolts ......
One of my rear camber (cam ?) bolt loosened up at Spring Mountain
and I barelly saved the car....

Bill Dearborn

Looks good. I ran -1.5 in front with -.8 in the rear on my C5Z. With Firestone Wide Oval street tires I was able to go wide open throttle at the Toe of the Boot after the initial turn in. Basically, a slight 4 wheel drift past the apex all the way to the track out point just outside the white line on the left. Car handled it much better than my C6Z which was always unhappy with the bumpy concrete strip and kept me from applying full throttle until the rear wheels were off the concrete.

One other thing of note. The 2002 GM Video recommends no more than a 15mm drop when lowering the car. So the 10 mm drop is right in line with their recommendation. I suspect the 15mm is based on stock shocks and the potential to get into the bump stops if somebody drops the car more than 15mm.

Bill

0Shane@CountyCorvette

Dan,

Thanks for coming by our facility last week for an alignment. It's always nice to hear customer feedback like this too. You definitely need to stop by again after your first race day and let us know how the car felt!

BTW- I was running around like a crazy person last week and didn't get a chance to introduce myself. I'll make sure to when you stop by next.

-Shane