Dan H.

Hey all,
Not sure how the budget is going to play out this summer. I have a full set of extra rear C5Z wheels. I think I'll be able to get some Nitto NT-05's for them, likely 295/30-18 all the way around. What I doubt is that I'll be able to get a track/street alignment. Car is a stock '02 Z06.

Is there an advantage to the square setup without the alignment or should I wait to do both at the same time? I currently have Nt-05's on stock wheel sizes, rears are close to the wear bar from last years HPDE's

Runs this summer, not sure if it matters....
Chin @ Watkins Glen
PCA @ Watkins Glen
PCA @ Wampum/Beaver Run
SCCA @ Summit point-Main

Your advice is appreciated!
Dan

Solofast

Compared to everything else, an alignment is cheap.

Without it you can burn thru a set of tires in a weekend. The reason is that without the alignment you will burn off the outside edges of the tires and the car won't stick anyway, so you'll be sliding a lot and that is what eats tires.

A proper alignment, lowering the car an inch and corner weighting it is cheap and actually saves you money in the long run. The car will work properly from the get go, it will be faster and easier to drive, and have more grip with a good alignment and that will make the car easier to drive quickly from the start.

You'll waste a lot more in tire rubber than you will pay to get the car properly aligned so don't even think twice about it. Get it done and don't look back.

You are being penny wise and pound foolish.

As to the square setup, you'll need to either get more front bar or less rear bar to get it balanced, so put an adjustable sway bar (or a set of them) into your budget or you'll end up looking at where you are going out one of the side windows...

There's a right way and a wrong way to do this. If you do it wrong you'll end up with a funny handling car and then end up trying to drive around it. Then you'll end up developing bad driving habits so that you don't end up in the tire wall.

You would be better off doing one or two fewer events and having the car right as opposed to getting out there more in a funny handling car that has a street alignment.

ipuig

SOLOFAST is correct. Without a proper track alignment the car will be somewhat nervous and unpredictable at the limit. I auto-crossed and participated in HPDEs for the first two years I owned mine without a proper set up and developed some bad driving habits as a result of it. Get the car aligned.
Square set-ups on Z06s are overrated in my opinion unless your in the top one percentile of drivers competing at the national level. These cars handle very well with the original staggered wheel set-up when lowered no more than one inch from the factory setting with a proper track alignment. A Z06 set up in this fashion will have more handling prowess than 90% of the drivers that will ever drive one, myself included.

Dan H.

Got it, I'm looking at this in the wrong order.

I was thinking about the tires because they are a wear item and this would help me be able to rotate them around.

Tires are around $1000, Street/Track alignment is approx $600 from a very reputable and popular forum vendor here. So I think I'll go for the alignment and run the staggered wheels this year. I believe I'll have to replace the rears before or after my first event.

Thank you for the advice.

flyby763

Good lawd that's an expensive alignment!

RDnomorecobra

I agree get it aligned or you'll waste more money. In my experience, which is likely less than others posting, is that going square actually balanced the car better for the track. Stock form it understeers a bit if you're pushing at all, like most cars straight from the factory. Adding front grip, for me, made it a bit more neutral. Plus for us amateurs it allows more tire rotation and flipping to get the most life out of a set of tires. A little added bonus. I eventually moved to T1 bars and slicks and Phoenix does my track setup. Love it like this.

Hat_Trick_Hokie

Let me know if you need to get rid of that extra set of wheels

Sounds like I did this backwards: square setup with a street alignment for the past few years on my C5 Z51. Agree with RD, I thought my car felt so much better with the square setup. Hope I didn't gain any bad habits!

I do agree on the uneven tire wear, I had to rotate the scrub tires constantly (on the car, and on the rim). And if I wasn't religious about it I would cord the outsides, especially with slicks. I'm going up to one of the PA shops early this season for an alignment to get that fixed.

hklvette

You ain't kiddin'! Corner-weighting and alignment shouldn't set you back more than about $150, no?

Xian

It's highly dependent on where you live... lot of race shops nearby (NASCAR country) then you may find someone to scale/align you for $150. Otherwise, best of luck. Locally I see prices in the $250-300 range just for the corner weighting PLUS another ~$100 for an alignment. I agree that $600 seems high (just like $150 seems low).

ZedO6

The best alignment in town shouldn't cost more than $150. For someone on a budget, forget the corner balance for now. The alignment is essential IMHO

Joshboody

I've been thinking about corner balance recently, but my concern is settling the ride height... font maybe not bad, but after unloading the rear spring will take some driving to settle the rubber. Each adjustment will take time, thus think I need to tackle this myself rather than using a shop.

froggy47

I agree, $600 is nuts, you are paying to be able to say "I got my car aligned by xxxxx, so it must be better than your alignment by Joe Blow Alignment Shop".

Spend you money more wisely.



PS I have used NT05, I would reconsider that also. It's a good street tire that will last a while, beyond that, not much. Oh they're cheap.

Dan H.

Here is the quote I received from a forum sponsor that is near me. Its more than an alignment to be fair to them. 3-6 hours at $135 per hour is a range of $400-$800


"We do street track alignments... Usually take 3 to 6 hours, depending on condition of attaching hardware and the suspension in general. Includes ride height, corner weights and camber/toe and Caster..

We can use the stock camber bolts. We do replace the ebdlinks on the sway bars with adjustable links..

Our shop rate is 135 per hopur plus tax."

Xian

Having played with home alignments and scales, *I* won't fork out that sort of cash for the job. At $135/hr, it doesn't take many trips to the shop before you could have bought your own equipment... the flipside being that I wouldn't bother with doing it myself f I could have the car (reliably) scaled/aligned for $150.

froggy47

Unless you are pretty advanced (from the questions, I am guessing not - no offense) IMO you don't NEED corner balance/ride height/neutral sway bar stuff. This shop want's to sell you the a full top of the line service. Don't let them talk you into it, for your level of experience you don't need it. Just get a 1 hour basic street/track alignment and spend the rest on better tires. Better tires will let you enjoy yourself more than all that other stuff.

Just my 2 cents.



You could also get a street/track alignment from a regular shop for about $75 IF you give them the specs you want. Make SURE they TORQUE THE ALIGNMENT BOLTS TO FACTORY SPEC, look it up and bring with you. Pfadt chart has suggestions. The car doesn't know if a guy billing $135/hr or making $20 hr set your toe.

When I first got into this I got a $400 alignment from Gulstrand (nothing against him) but it was stupid to pay all that extra for the "NAME" now I do my own, car can't tell at all, car doesn't ask me when I turn the ignition, "Who's been working on me?"

Xian

:like:

Bill Dearborn

I agree with the others you don't need to pay that much for an alignment. For what you would pay you could afford the best tools and be able to do it yourself thus being able to switch from street to track and back.

A square setup will allow you to rotate the tires to get max life out of them. Just don't pay that much for the alignment. Take it to a local shop (maybe even the dealer) that you does good alignments and watch them do yours. Price should be between $100 to $120 for a 4 wheel alignment (no different than other cars that require 4 wheel alignment). Take the specs you want to have it set to. We can advise on what you should run based on your experience level and how much you drive the car on the street.

I have been doing HPDEs since 1992 and have been instructing since 2005. I have never had a car corner weighted or never had adjustable endlinks on my stabilizer bars. It really isn't necessary. With your car you need to pay attention to the control arm and stabilizer bar bushings to be sure they are in good condition. The stabilizer bar bushings on my 03Z started coming apart somewhere around the time the car reached 5 years of age.

Bill

Dan H.

Thank you for the help and advice guys. I am new which is obvious to you guys. I love this hobby and am eager to get back on the track when the weather breaks.

Message received on the alignment. I will seek out other options. I am certainly happy to spend less.

My car was driven about 4k miles last year and ran three track events. I would anticipate about the same this year. I still drive my car occasionally to work once ever two weeks or to a local cruise night. I have a nice C3 that will probably assume a little more of the cruise night duty the more I get into this. I drive my car to the track and have only street tires.

Sorry to the fella that asked about the wheels. They took a while to buy. I'll be using them as I get better. Want to be able to rotate tires to get more life out of them

Thanks again for the help.

Solofast

If the car is not used every day on the street and you are doing three to 5 HPDE's a year you should be using a very aggressive alignment. I run 2 degrees of negative camber in the front and 1.5 in the back and I still get 15,000 street miles easily on a set tires. You'll eat tires on the track if you don't have enough negative camber.

As for toe, set the back to 1/8 of an inch of toe in. In the front set it for 1/8 of an inch of toe in and then, mark the tie rod ends with a paint stripe and when you put on your track tires readjust the toe on full turn towards toe out on each tie rod. After the track day turn them back one full turn to return to the street setting. It is toe out that really eats tires so as long as you keep it toe'd in a bit on the street you will be fine.

Also after you get it aligned, mark the eccentric adjusters on each corner with a stripe of paint or nail polish across the adjuster and onto the chassis. This way when the adjusters slip you will A.) know that they have slipped and that is why the car is handling funny, and B.) you can reset the alignment by matching up the paint stripe and don't have to go back to the alignment shop to get it put right again.

And yes, $600 for an alignment and corner weighting is just silly. Any good alignment shop can align the car to your specs and corner weighting is optional so long as nobody has screwed up the corner weights by lowering the car without doing it properly (turning the screws on each end in full turn increments and equally from side to side keeps the proper corner weights, turning the screws until they bottom out messes up the corner weights). And lots of good shops can corner weight the car in an hour or so and not charge you an arm and a leg.