No...

 

Go to Roger Kraus Racing in Castro Valley. They do work for lots of racers (truly picky customers) and they happen to specialize in Corvettes.

 

Are these the factory alignment specs?

 

I hope not, the factory alignment makes your car pull to the right, and ruins the inside edge of your front tires

 

Yes those are the factory settings. So, the camber that was recommended will give you the longest mileage on the tires. The stock camber settings are prone to causing uneven wear on the inside 1/3 of the tires. The stock settings will give better performance in auto cross or pylon crushing but will not be the best setting for long highway runs. My camber is -0.10 and I do city driving and highway. Were I to want to do competitive motocross, I would go with the -0.45 camber or higher. The Z is -1.00 front and -1.25 rear on the camber and that is really aggressive for road racing.

 

anywhere good to go in the Los Angeles area???

 

I just went through this flap with both of my front tires worn out on the inside edges after 14K. My camber was -.9 and .7 respectively (left/right) with the left being slightly more to allow for highway center crowning. So at least on my car, putting the camber close to -1.0 was a mess.

After changing out the tires yesterday I had the alignment set as follows:


Left Front: Camber -.4, Caster 8.0, Toe .05
Right Front: Camber -.4, Caster 7.8, Toe .04

Hopefully it will help with the inside tire wear. I track my car from time to time so will see if there is any appreciable difference with the Camber reduced..

 

I assume most places should have these specs right? Or should I bring this in myself?

Thanks!

 

If you just give them this info you may get an alignment that still causes premature wear. The tolerances are too great. You need to tell then exactly what you want. Why do some people not understand this?

 

Void your warranty on what? the tires? They are a wear item anyway. A decrease in negative camber will only increase the wear life of the front tires.

 

I decreased my camber in 1/8 degree increments until I got acceptable inside tire wear, and I had to get down to -1/8 deg or less. Original factory setting was -1.2 degrees and I was seeing inside tire wear in less than 1,000 miles.

 

Huh?

-0.1 = -0.10 = -0.100 = -0.1000000000000000000000...
The number of zeros after the last significant figure following the decimal point doesn't change the value.

 

After wearing out front tires twice on my 06 Z51, I took it in for alignment and all four corners were a mess. Some of the specs were way off. I finally ended up setting the specs similar to yours

Camber LF -.4 RF -.5 (range -1.0 to .1) RF was worst wear at -.9
Caster LF 7.6 RF 7.6 (range 7.3 to 8.5)
Toe LF .04 RF .05 (range -.05 to .15) Were -.07 and -.05

The rears were worse with the RR camber at -1.1 and toe at -.23 and -.21 (range -.10 to .10) Changed these to .05

As you can see, some of these specs were way out of line. The worst was the rear total toe at -.43 and was changed to .11

At the cost of these tires I couldn't keep letting them wear out so soon---especially the fronts on the inside.

Hope this helps.

 

OK, Camber is the issue that is giving the uneven wear. Think about it. If you had a solid rear axle, like my 98 Camaro, what is the Camber? 0 would be my guess. Does that cause issues on cornering? Probably not as good as a tire with a camber of -1.0 as the -1.0 would give a better "foot print" with the tire in a hard turn. 0 camber keeps the tire flat and gives even wear across the entire tire surface for highway touring. So, the -.45 on the C6 has a +/- of .60(per the chart). What the heck does that mean? That means you can have a reading of +.25 to -1.05 and still be within limits as acceptable for proper camber settings on the C6. Well, big whoop! Just eyeball it in and drive right?

The longest mileage from your tires, in terms of camber, would be the flattest you can get the tires on the road. A camber of 0.0 would be flat. Because of the 4 wheel independent suspension, I don't think 0.0 is good for the car, thus my recommendation of -0.1 +/-0 No plus or minus allowed. Get it to -0.1 and that's it. DO that to all 4 wheels and your uneven tire wear is GREATLY reduced.

"I want to race!", you say? Ok, crank up the camber to -1.0 OR HIGHER for road racing. The camber will help in the turns. If you are racing, tires will get worn out very quickly. That is some of the costs of racing. Tires, brakes, brake fluid and such are used up quickly.

Toe will cause uneven wear to the inside or outside of the tire if the toe is too big. A toe of 0 would have the tires running perfectly straight and not scrubbing off rubber as you drive straight down the highway. 0 toe can be "darty" and not give a solid feel to handling so a little positive toe is dialed in to firm up the feel. so set the front toe to .1 and the rear to to 0 for the best setting. DO NOT allow the +/- crap here either!! The chart says +/-.2 Don't allow ANY +/-


Ok, off the soap box now. I hope I didn't muddle any of that up.

Elmer

 

You really need to do a four-wheel alingment. If you want a little more even tire wear take some of the negative camber out of the front.
some here say no more than .25 of neg. camber. If the car is lowered you should also get a four wheel adjustment. this should cost you about $100.00 or so at a good tire shop. Sometimes certian tire shops have problems with getting Corvettes up on their alignment machines, be sure and ask them if they regularly do Corvettes. There should be quite a few posts on this subject, just use the search function to read all about it.

 

Just had alignment done on a C6 I bought a few weeks ago. The previous owner had lowered it about an inch and I noticed when backing up, the front tires would slip when the wheel was over (not hard over but over). Took it to a well known tire place and they found toe-in (F& R) was off so they adjusted it.

Now when I am going slow and make a 90 degree turn (like turning into a parking stall), the front tires really scuff and slip. I'm taking it back to them tomorrow with the figures from this thread and see what they do

 

That really has more to do with the designed suspension geometry than the alignment. My alignment is spot on and does that too. Seems to be a consequence of wide tires. .. Don't worry about it.

 

It sure does, and I found out at 13K. Took it to a shop that does race cars (and TireRack people) to fix things.
Here's a thread with some good info:

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c6-c...er-sez-no.html

 

Thing is.. my C5Z06 doesn't do that. Sure I know it has 17" front tires not 18" like the C6 but still.....