reading a bit about dissatisfaction with factory alignment settings as relates to both handling and tire wear. I have a 01 vert with factory goodyears. any comments would be appreciated.

 

Stick with the factory specs. There is only a gazillion hours of development time on the C5 suspension. I think they've got it right for 99.9 percent of the C5 drivers. The other .1 percent race their cars on road courses and tweek their allignment settings to improve its track manners, but while improving track manners, it does cause more tire ware during normal street driving.

 

:iagree:

 

One Wink,
Depends on what you're doing with your car. My service manager has told our club that the C5 is basically set up like a car that runs on the track. The way I understand that is there is a little more or less toe in/out, can't remember which. This equates to wearing your tires out a little quicker. The SM has offered to "correct" the alignment for those of us that don't put them on the track. Gives us more time on the tires. But then again, as I mentioned up front, it's all a matter of taste/preference. Once you change the settings you will give up some of the handling, but if you don't use it, then you won't miss it. My .02.

later,

 

My 2000 Service Manual tells me the preferred front toe is 0.04 degrees (that is just barely toed out), and in the rear -0.01 degrees (that is just barely toed in). This amount of toe in and toe out will not cause unusual front or rear tire ware. But, of course, all the other settings should also be within the factory desired ranges. So to avoid excessive tire ware make sure all the parameters: Toe, sum toe, Camber, cross camber, Caster, cross caster are set to factory specs and you should get acceptable tire ware and good handling on the street. :D

 

Based on a suspension analysis program available on the web (Suspension Analyser) that comes with the C5 suspension as a built in file. I spent some time analysing the C5 suspension (and others). I came to the following C5 conclusions:

The factory suspension settings are designed for long tire life with reasonable cornering grip with mild understeering characteristics and excellent braking and accelerating traction. The settings chosen, also, retains front to rear balance as the car leaves a braking zone and pirouettes into a corner. (Many high name sports cars fail this one).

C5 likes to be lowered: the first inch is free with absolutely no degrading effects, more than 1.5 inches and rear acceleration traction may degrade if accompanied by large amounts of negitive camber or big engine power adders.

C5 likes up to 2 degrees of negitive camber at the track at both ends for maximum grip from each tire. At this camber setting, there is a delicate balance between understeer and oversteer. A car with 2 degrees of negitive camber on each end can corner about 4% faster than a car with stock settings based soley on traction at the wheels.

drag racers should use at least 0.5 degrees negitive camber at the rear with no particular traction degredation until more than 2 degrees is dialed in.

Caveat: I don't know if the suspession analysis program uses a faithful replica of the C5 suspension for its analysis.

So if you want long tire life: stick with factory settings. When you go to a road race track, you can add significant amounts of camber with little chance of degrading a C5's handling.

I don't have a way (right now) of relating toe to traction, so I will not provide a recommendation for toe (e.g. use factory or experiment on your own).

 

[QUOTE]One Wink,
My service manager has told our club that the C5 is basically set up like a car that runs on the track. The way I understand that is there is a little more or less toe in/out, can't remember which. This equates to wearing your tires out a little quicker. The SM has offered to "correct" the alignment for those of us that don't put them on the track. Gives us more time on the tires. Once you change the settings you will give up some of the handling, but if you don't use it, then you won't miss it. My .02. [QUOTE]

Thrap,
No offense but I think your SM is way off base here and has given you bad information. What you are probably talking about here is camber, maybe not.
What happens is that each car does not leave the factory with the same alignment settings. Some folks here have posted that they think their car was not even within specs from the factory. I think mine was also out of specs from the factory. There is a wide range of each settings that is within specs. So who knows what settings each car has that your SM is talking about. If he wants to align each free then have at it.
I really believe GM is concerned with tire wear and does not want to see customers come in with bald tires at 9000 miles. The tires also come with a warranty. Not sure if it covers premature wear.
95% of corvettes never see the track! (I made that number up) :)
Dave