I got some re71s put on and at the same time had the same shop align the car. I don't have my notes but its something around the below

-1.2 Camber Front
.12-.15" Toe out for turn in

-.8-1 Camber Rear
very small toe in

The day I got it it just didn't seem right. Not as precise as the last time I had it aligned but i took out a lot of camber and lowered the toe out in the front since last time. After about a month or two i've noticed the car is slowly deteriorating in the feeling of the steering. Like its dropped out of allignment. It seems tramline now also. I got under the car and the tie rods don't have any play. The wheel bearings also arent makiny any noise and the overall condition of the suspension raised no concerns. 90k mile car 99% aggresively street driven. I now have to hold the steering wheel or the car pulls to the right and when going in a straight line the wheel is a few degrees off center. I'm wondering 2 things. 1)Was the alignment not done correctly or 2) The car has naturally fallen out of alignment due to driving. I forgot to ask for a printout of the specs of the alignment. Lastly after i dropped the car back down I noticed the car sat considerably higher. I'm now wondering if after unloading the wheels to do the tire swap, that that completed threw off the alignment as the car was much higher than usual.

I'm thinking about taking it back and mentioning the alignment never seemed right and have them hook it up to just see what the alignment is at. If its spot on ill start to look elseware.

 

Quite often the techs do not tighten the eccentrics tight enough. Happened to me years ago and I went through two autocrosses before I discovered the problem. Realigned it myself and everything was fine after that.

 

Toe out causes all kinds of tracking/tramlining problems, 1/16 toe in is a better option. What were your caster numbers? I would go for at least 5° positive with .5° to 1.0° more on the right side to prevent pulling due to road crown.

Steve

 

I agree with Steve, toe out was a bad decision, especially if you’re doing almost all street driving. On both my track and street alignment setups, I always run -1/16” toe (toe in). I prefer to manipulate steering characteristics by running a more aggressive camber and caster setting. Our cars don’t play well with weird toe numbers. Not to mention it’ll eat your tires a lot quicker.

All that being said, your issue could also be from slipping control arm bolts, as already mentioned.

My opinion and suggestion, get a fresh alignment with -1/16” toe (whatever camber/caster floats your boat) and make sure the techs properly torque the control arm bolts. Good luck!

 

Thank you for the replies. I'm going to take it back to the shop and mention the eccentrics not being tight enough and have them set the car back on and show me what the numbers are at. I will also go ahead and try toe in vs toe out. I had pretty aggressive toe out last alignment and I loved how precise the turn in was. It turned on a dime and "pulled" into turns.

I'm not sure about the castor. I'm not sure the shop is even familiar enough with how to adjust that. Since the car is street driven its not worth it to take it to a speed shop and pay twice as much to make sure its set up perfect.

 

Just got back from the alignment shop. Basically the right front had a bunch of toe out. Almost a whole degree. The car's castor is way off and they didn't even center the steering wheel. I'm taking it to a different shop and getting a refund. This isn't anywhere close to where it needs to be. What effect does the castor have? I can't believe he handed me the sheet and said it was "fixed".

Before
FL -.5 Camber FR -.7 camber
FL 6.2 caster FR 7.8 caster
FL .14 Toe FR .84 Toe

RL -.8 caster RR -.6 caster
RL .07 toe RR .04 toe

After
FL -.5 Camber FR -.7 camber
FL 6.2 caster FR 7.8 caster
FL .06 Toe FR .04 Toe

Rear is same

 

What is this rear caster? There is no such thing.

 

To be clear, I suppose it could exist but it's not going to be measurable. As in literally you cannot measure it in the rear.

 

On a C5 there is no rear caster (C6 has it). For camber, I run a lot of negative (-2.25F and -1.2 rear) and drive to events, however I have 0 toe in the front. My tires run even wear as a result. Of the 3-4 thousand miles I drive a year, most of it is driving to and from events, most are 60+ miles away one way. Occasionally, I go to events that require toe out in the front and I have the front eccentrics marked to make the necessary changes. RE71R's are more prone to the results of tramlining than regular tires especially if the road sees a lot of truck traffic.

 

I would agree, you have too much cross caster. I would also try to get the toe more even in the rear. Better yet, make sure the thrust angle is 0.

In the numbers listed, I'm pretty sure the OP listed the rear camber numbers and just mis-labelled them.

Being a double a-arm rear suspension car, a C5 certainly would have a rear caster number if you wanted to know it. BUT, you can't adjust it independently of the camber and rear caster is immaterial since the rear tires don't turn so there is no reason to measure it. I'm also about 99% positive the C6 has the exact same alignment adjustment points in the rear as the C5, unless it changed on later models.

 

I have a 13 427 and it looks identical to my 98 z51 C5. I'm not so sure it's not all the same part numbers other than the mag ride on my C6.

 

Full disclosure. I've had both of them completely torn down and disassembled.

 

I've had both a 98 and 08 apart. They are not the same. Cradle, lower arms, spring are all different. But, both still have the same single eccentric bolt at the front lower a-arm bushing.