Mike

I struggled with (who the hell should I get to do a compenent C5 alignment?) for weeks. I asked dealers in the area who they recommended and they provided me with a few companies/ repair facilities. My car was aligned with the standard factory specs at that time. If you stray too far from factory specs it will handle good but you loose big time in the tire department!
Vette Brakes has a good write up on corvette alignments in their suspension catalogue and recommends specs for normal driving, autocross and racing.
I'm sure if you have a C5 tuner in the area or a major body repair shop that you use, they could recommend one. I had Town Fair Tire do my C4 a few times BUT,,, I talked to the Tech before hand to see if he was familuar with Corvette suspension and alignments.
The C5 suspension isnt that earth shattering that a compenent tech cant align it properly.
I recommend that you ask around and talk to people who come into with contact with Corvettes on a regular basis i.e. tuners, auto speciality shops, dealers who do not do their own alignments (yes there are some out there) ect and see if they recommend anybody.

Bill

 

Give Mark Stein a call at Motor Sport Image. He can tell you what they have in your price range. I don't have QA1 Corvette shocks in the front. I have QA1's that have the same load rating, but are 1" shorter. The car rides fantastic because it is not smashing the bump stops or bottoming the shocks. I've seen people state here that lowering the vette makes it ride stiffer. That is the front shocks bottoming. I put the 1" shorter shocks up front and the car rides like it did before lowering, only better, due to the QA1's. FWIW, they were almost $200 cheaper than the standard length QA1's. What a racket! :banghead:

 

I had the dealer do all of my alignments while I played with street and race settings. The tech knew what I was looking for and even invited me to stand by the machine to watch. After a few trips to make changes he finally told me I should do it myself and save some money so he showed me what to do and what tools to buy. I still take it back every now and then just to double check what I have done.
Bill

 

04 zo6 shocks work very well with lowered suspensions. Like most people suggested, get some non-run flats. Even though that's not that cause of the problem, it does help. Since our cars use leaf springs, the cross talk happens when one wheel under load hits a bump, causes the other end of the spring to bump a bit, thus causing this "crabwalk" you speak about. Most passenger cars won't do this as they are %90 coil overs, however many trucks still use leaf springs as they can handle heavier loads. So if have ever gone around a turn in a truck with a leafspring suspension, you'll feel the same thing.

While you are trying to fix this problem, you might as well build you self a z06 or better suspension. Buy the zo6 springs, 04 z06 shocks or better(hall, mattet, ect.), z06 sway bars or better (hotchqies...) and you'll feel like you bought a porche. total cost= +-$1200

if you just want a quick non expensive fix, buy those 04 z06 shocks, get an alignment from the dealer ($70) and you'll be set. total cost=+- $500

 

More than likley, as another has already said, you have too much toe-out in the rear wheels. Been there - done that!!!

 

I just solved this inadvertently for my car.

I had the Z06 sway bar kit installed, and it went down some, but still there. That was fine as that wasn't why I installed it. :)

Then I changed tires. No I didn't ditch runflats, I switch to Michelin Pilot Sport All Season ZeroPressure -- Michelin runflats.

It completely left. I could go down roads that required a rather firm grip and quick reflexes to stay in the lane and barely and rarely notice any attempt to move on me. :auto: :yesnod: :cheers:

Some of it will always be there on wide tires, but by going to the tires I did it went away. After that I put in an aluignment for street and autocross,. The guy who gave me the specs said I'd hate the section of road I mentioned. Well, i drove it after the alignment and ... no change in the sudden "crabwalking" of the car.. :yesnod:

Yes, it IS worth it to change tires w/the tread you have left. if you feel bad, so some burnouts first and wear those backs down. :jester

We just had some thunderstorms here last night. Wet performance seemed as good if not better than the dry performance with the stock tires; and blew away wet performance on the stock tires.

I picked them up from tirerack.com, of course. It was $1,130-ish shipped to me.

And.

Worth.

Every.

Penny.

Even with the hundred to mount and balance :cuss

if you want I can post the specs I aligned to, or the link to the post here on the board I posted them in.

 

Ok I wen tto find it. :)
Here is what I have on mine:
========================
Front Camber: -1.2 degrees per side
Front Caster: + 6 degrees per side
Front toe: 0 to 1/16" total toe out...........you do not want toe in, it makes your car push

Rear Camber: -0.9 degrees
Rear toe: 1/8" total toe in...............toeing in the rear makes your rear follow
the front. Toe out in the rear is bad. Creates
very unpredictable oversteer

This is about as wild as you can go without killing your street tires and is really fun
to drive on the street.
============================


Man it straightens the corners out!

 

When taking the Vette out for a run, our rules are to take the corners at less than 150% of posted speed (a little safety in our play). So a 50 mph posted turn.... we would keep it under 75.

My 99 (45,000 miles) z51 orginal shocks with run craps (33 psi) pulls fine through these turns. However I will attest to the bouce slidding as I hit bumps around a curve. It can some times be a heart stopper. :eek:

 

Goodyear Eagle F1 GS-D3! (Along with a good alignment)
Huge difference :yesnod:

Robert

 

thanks for all the tips guys!! Im going to first get some z06 sway bars, an alingnment and some better tires and see what happens. Then some different shocks, maybe bilstein sports or 04 zo6 shocks.

Dave

 

well i took your advice, and we will see how well the changes i've made will help. First I put non runflats up front and the car rode so much smoother and quieter, but now im putting on BFG drag radials friday. I also put on bilstein sport shocks and z06 sway bars. I need to go down this same stretch of road that produced the problem before and see how it does now.

Dave

 

Shame you did not just change out the runflats first and try it out. I am sure that alone would have solved the problem. The shocks and the swaybars will improve the overall handling though.

The only thing good about Goodyear runflats is that you can drive 200 miles with no air. I notice the Cadillac XLR comes with Pilot Sports runflats which handle and ride much like a non-runflat.

 

Well I have felt the same thing that you are talking about and I have gone through my run flats, switched to potenza s02's went through them now have s03's and neither tire got rid of what you are talking about. It did reduce the side step a small amount but not totally. I would not consider dumping the runflats if you think this will completely fix the situation completly or you will be unhappy.

The car does feel unstable but the car has never kicked totally out on me. Seems like it kicks out a smige and then grabs and your fine over those bumps in the middle of some turns. The car has more grip in it after the side step so dont think that, that is the limit of handling performace of these cars b/c you are mistaken.

Vette now has 95,000 miles on her (2000 A4) so shocks will be my next step and are unsure of what I will go with, coilovers if I can afford it, but just wanted to chime in to tell you not to ditch the run flats if you think it will cure the side steping.

 

I have a '99 coupe with 21,000 miles and the FE1 suspension. When stock I also had this problem. The sideskip over bumps in curves bothered me some, but what I really didn't like was the tendency for it to fishtail when changing lanes very quickly at 60 or 70 MPH. That would get my adrenaline pumping! I had some Hotchkiss bars with metal end-links installed and had it lowered 3/4 inch all around (I could not go lower because it would scrape going into our driveway). This solved my problem!! The car will still skip sideways a bit when I hit a bump in a curve, but at a much higher speed, and it is very controllable. What was amazing to me was that now I can change lanes at speed and there is NO fishtailing -- even if I break the tail loose it immediately snaps into place with excellent body control! And I still have the original wheels and runflats, shocks and springs (Though I have already bought some new GY Supercars for the chrome Z06 wheels I'm about to buy!). I'm absolutely sure that dumping the runflats, getting some better shocks and an alignment would also make a huge difference, but I can't imagine how that could make as big a difference as dumping the stock FE1 bars and end-links. What we call "sway bars" are, of-course, more correctly called "anti-roll bars", but these Hotchkiss bars not only keep my car from rolling, they did also take the rear-end "sway" right out of that big butt!! :D :thumbs:


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