savage

just have my 2015 track alignment done, went great, easy and got all the numbers i wanted without forcing it. not sure why the 2014 owners manual said not to but the 2015 manual tells usT to remove one of the two washers(shims) behind each of the four bolts holding the a-arms on top. 16 removed, 16 still in place. PS, i stopped at -1.9 neg camber on the rear because past that point the rear tire towed out(oversteer), last year on my 2014 with all shims in it did that at -1.0. let me see if i can post my numbers, my kids are not here to do it, lol

savage

i will be running hoosiers, and yes as soon (if it ever does) get's warm out, i will change my avatar. i no longer have the white base car, i have a red z51 vert.

savage

descartesfool

Here are my track alignment settings from last year for the front on top and the rear on bottom without having removed any washers under rear top A-arms. Max camber in the rear was -1 degree in order to keep toe in spec. Nice to see what you can get by removing washers.

NTMD8R

Any chance for pictures of this ?

axr6

Great track values. Do you drive your car on the street much? Would be too much neg camber for street driving.

I just got a new car and will take it to have it aligned to likely -1.3 front and -1.0 rear. I think that will work for the street and I have no intention to track this car.

Right now, with the factory settings, according to my measurements, the Driver Front is -0.44, the Pass Front is -0.7 and both rears are -0.7 degrees. Not too bad for average road driving but, I happen to live in the hills with winding canyon roads everywhere and could use a bit more angles.

Did your shop measure the max negative camber values they could get without removing washers? I guess, last year's values show those max values.

Thanks for the post.

savage

i hope ( Theta ) highjacks this thread and does a how too, then put's it in his sticky, i think hundreds of c7 owners will want to do this sooner or later. removing washers made the alignment so easy!

savage

not only do i drive on the street, but untill a hitch comes out for c7 i will be driving about 100 miles each way to autocross events on a7 hoosiers!! i drove on a6's last year but the alignment was not this one. i still had the washers in. what i learned driving with the owners manual track alignment was with all that( tow in) front and rear i killed the inside edge on all my tires. when i went with zero tow the tires were fine, so it was not the( neg camber) that hurt my tires it was the neg camber with tow!! yes i know the corvette autocross's better with( tow in) front and back but with zero tow im not scuffing off speed OR WEARING THE INSIDE OF MY TIRES. also why i have a tiny bit of( tow in) in the rear is im trying not to have any( tow out )back there, things change in between alignment's. thanks for reading

axr6

I track raced a number of cars, a few street models and more dedicated race cars. Generally, for track racing we preferred a slight toe-out for the fronts for better turn-in. Tended to run zero toe for the rears, unless we encountered too much understeer. My '15 Stingray came with 1/8" total front toe-in and zero toe on the rears. After lowering the car on factory bolts I ended up with 1/16 toe-in up front and zero back. Those are good street values. I just need more camber.

savage

my days of( tow out) in front, driving smooth, in slow out fast , apexing a corner, stick shifts, burning up brakes, rotors, tires in one day are long gone along with my HPDE's. i do ponoco infield a few times a year with the nepascca but 90% of my events now are parking lots(hershey park this weekend) my driving style is now POINT AND SHOOT, with as little a 3 runs per event and no event the same ever. it works for me, i even got a vert to help stick to this plan, i have peaked at rollbars for the my vert but at 6 foot 200lbs i cant move up my seat at all( i need every inch the c7 has to give) ==also i hate to open this can of worms, but when you lowered your car did you bottom out all the bolts or turn each bolt the same amount with some of the bolts not bottomed out now?

NTMD8R

Savage,
when using the stock bolts to lower the car.....

FIRST..... measure the distance at each wheel that the top of the fender lip is from the floor.
This will tell you if they are all equal or not.
This will also tell you if you can turn each bolt the same number of turns to retain
that same consistent corner heights.

If they are not the same, you can turn each one accordingly to get them to be the same measurement.

So going all the way to the bottom is not necessarily the first thing to think of.

In my case, all 4 corners were the same, so I turned the bolts to the bottom, (counting the turns), and then made sure each bolt was turned the same number.
Fortunately all mine were equal.

YMMV

And.... my experience (over 30 years of Corvette Autocross) is that I want some toe OUT in front,
to enhance turn-in.

My C7 is set up with 1.7 neg camber and 1/16" toe out on front.
and 1.2 neg camber and zero toe in back.

I run Toyo R888 tires, and drive to/from 12-15 events per year (about 25 miles one way),
with 2 of us driving, and getting 6-10 runs each per event.

For the occasional HPDE I don't bother to make any changes to the alignment settings.

axr6

I simply bottomed out all bolts to get 0.5" lower at all 4 corners. I really don't care about corner weights since I have no intention to race the car.

I fully support the idea of autocross for street cars (as opposed to track driving) for many reasons. I crashed two expensive streets cars on tracks. Moving to dedicated racing cars the costs for running SCCA GT class events were easily $3000+ per weekend if no damage to car. 15 events/year + damage costs do add up...

savage

This car was only two years old, i know all about hpde's LOL

axr6

So, I had my new C7 with 700 miles aligned a couple of days ago. I was in for a surprise!

When I got the brand new car the first thing was to check wheel alignments. A quick check confirmed modest negative camber values, good toe values but, I wanted more negative cambers for my local winding roads.

So, off the the alignment shop.

To my great shock, the "As Found" reads showed that the front values exactly matched my measurements BUT, the rear cambers were actually 0.7 & 0.8 degrees positive, instead of the same negative values that I measured. The only thing I can figure is that when I took the top and bottom measurements I reversed the numbers in my calculator to fit with what I expected and not with what were the actual settings.

Learning from the OP on this tread I suggested that he start with the rear and see how much camber he could get without removing washers. The max values he got was -0.6 Driver rear and -0.9 Pass rear. He also mentioned that any more camber would have thrown the toe adjustment out. Even now I got -0.02 degree total toe out which I do not really want on a street-only car.

So, I am going to pull the washers on the rear and go for -1.3 cambers on both rears with a slight toe-in. The fronts seem to be set well at -1.1 degrees and 0.05 degree toe-in. Might bump those up to my originally specified -1.3 to -1.5 degrees. It is the rears that feels slightly loose with this setup.

What I learned? Always check factory alignments and calculate with what the actual reads are vs. what you think they should have been :-).

savage

im glad i could help, this forum has helped me more times than i can count!!

savage

First event with track alignment on factory run flats. My last event ever without Hoosiers. lol


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38CI...ature=youtu.be

NTMD8R

Seemed to turn in pretty good, so
I think your alignment is about correct, based on this video.

savage

it was so cold 26f when i got there, 32 f my run time( the reason i had run flats on) also hit 1 inch of snow on my way there! first time ever i did not drive the two hours each way on hoosiers. alignment was great, won ss, even with run flats (only car there with those) and a 2007 gt3 in the class.

axr6

Good driving. Congrats! Looks like you pulled some nice cornering forces!

Again, following your example, I removed the 8 washers from the rear upper A-arm which allowed me to get my camber values. I settled for -1.3 all around for my regular canyon environment and the car feels like it is on rails with good confidence in high speed cornering.

Thanks for your informative posts.

savage

I hoped someone did a how to post, I did it with a $100 dollars and pointing at the top of the four a-arms.