Would like to set some toe out at the autox event, so if your looking at the car from the side, in what direction do you turn the tie rod for toe out in the front is it C/W or CC/W. Also would like to set toe in in the rear for that setting. Thanks for any help

 

The threads are "normal"; the front links lead and the rear links trail. So you "unscrew" (CW) the front to toe out and "screw in" (CCW) the rear to toe out.

You don't need much - one turn on each side is around 1 degree of toe.

The lock nuts can be loosened and tightened without lifting the car, but its a knuckle-buster!

The front may want very little toe out or even some toe in - depending on how much negative camber you're running. It seems like it wants more toe in with more negative camber, especially in tight corners. I've found turn-in to be good at -1.0 degree camber and 0.1 degree toe in.

You'll probably want a fair amount of toe out on the back - on the order of 0.4 degrees or so.

Good luck!

 

He's a good starting point http://www.corvetteforum.net/c5/toom...6alignment.htm.

To answer your question, in the front to toe-out you want to lengthen the tie rods by loosening the lock nuts on the female coupler and turning the flats (it's a hex) on the male rod. In the rear, to add toe-in loosen the nuts and turn the flats to lengthen the tie rods. To lengthen the rods you will be turning the wrench down on the right side and up on the left side of the car as you face the front or rear. CW & CCW always confuses me as it relative to your view. Remember to consider the rotation of the female coupler when you are counting the number of flats you turn the rod. Counting the flats will allow you to return easily to your street setting if you decide to add an aggressive amount of toe just for racing.

I found that after adding the Z06 bars my car needs some toe-in in the rear to counter the over rotation when pushing hard but YMMV. I'll know more in a month when our season begins again.

--Dan

 

Thanks guys appreciate your help

 

Greetings,
Alignment specs : Toe

For autocrossing this will certainly help, for the street a little much.

Toe out in the front helps with initial turn-in... we will run as much as .250" out in the front depending upon the driver, the course, and grip. On the rear you may need as much a .300" toe-in... this helps with throttle over steer.( We have run as much as .500".)

The stock control arm bushings have a lot of compliance or compression, and with that said, alignment settings are aggressive in measurement to compensate for the give in a 53 durometer reading on the control arm bushings. With this soft of a bushing, you would be surprised as to how much the toe settings change during torque loading... (turning, stopping and power down)

Food for thought,

Vansteel

 

Listen to this guy, not the guys in post # 2 and 3. The one thing you need to take away from Van Steel's post is: DO NOT RUN TOE OUT IN THE REAR!!!! Toe out in the rear is a recipe for disaster, especially at high speed events. Toe in allows the rear tires to have the correct slip angles to generate corning power and keep the rear end tucked in. Toe out requires the rear end to rotate (oversteer) to develop the required slip angle meaning you'll spend the day chasing your rear around the course. And at high speeds, it gets very difficult to catch your azz as things are happening much faster.

 

If you re-read my post #3 you'll see that it says to run toe-in in the rear, "In the rear, to add toe-in loosen the nuts and turn the flats to lengthen the tie rods." and also "I found that after adding the Z06 bars my car needs some toe-in in the rear to counter the over rotation when pushing hard but YMMV."

The included link is to an often cited page of specs -- but not my information. Another site, while dated, is http://www.vbandp.com/instructions/h...ruct/align.htm

I experienced exactly what you say can happen when a botched alignment left me with -0.08in of toe-out in the rear. It was scary when accelerating with the ***-end stepping out on its own. I currently run 0.02in on the street with standard EMTs but crank in additional toe-in with 710s for autox.

--Dan

 

Note: Do your toe-in adjustments on the passenger side only so you do NOT effect steering wheel centering.

 

Yes, I saw in your post you said toe-in but your link had toe-out listed for the rear. I thought by giving that link, you agreed with it in general, so you can understand my confusion as to what you meant. If you look at the link you just posted from VBandP, it has rear toe-in for all generations listed. That's a good link that I've used before, I just wish they would update it to include the C6.

I should have said not to follow the specs in your first post, I just thought it was important for the OP to know not to use rear toe-out for the reasons you experienced above...whip spins can be a nasty thing! It's all good.

 

This is incorrect. You must make the same amount of turns on each side to keep the steering wheel centered.

 

Check with your alignment shops, I think you will find out differently, I have aligned front ends before and have alittle experience.

 

I just got off the telephone with an engineer (also an alignment expert) at the Corvette Assembly Plant in Bowling Green, KY, and here is his basic thoughts on discussion of toe-in: If you get very technical about changing the toe-in you will get a very small degree of change of the steering wheel and you would not notice it because it would be so minute. He even mentioned the degree of change by each turn of the tie-rod end nut. My comment: generally the change, in degrees, in steering wheel centering location is so small and will not be noticed, that most technicians will ignore it. If course on a new or rebuilt tie-rods installation, the steering wheel has to be recentered. Since the drivers front wheel and the steering wheel centering is so close, assuming the car has not been wrecked, etc., it is very close to the factory settings assumining the front end bushings, balljoints, etc. are not excessively worn. Test drive the car and see where it sets. If toe-in is set correct and the steering wheel is off center, just turn the toe-in adjustments on both sides of the car in the same direction to shift the tie-rod centering. One thing nice about changing only one side and you want to change back to street setting, it is much easier. We even talked about the "old method" of using a string, a tape measure or similar device that were used long before the new alignment systems. If course, you have to have a good technician who really knows how to use the equipment, I have seen bad alignments. Have good cruising.

 

I don't need to check with anybody, I know what adjustment affects what. I've been aligning front and rear ends for many years (20+) for street and racing and have a LOT of experience. My competitors trust me enough to let me crawl under their car at the track to correct a visually obvious misalignment...they always did better with a few beating me.

 

I'm a Mechanical Engineer and an alignment expert, while I am sure he knows what he's talking about, I'm not sure you understood what he was saying. It would take a very small change in toe on one wheel to not notice it at the steering wheel. But a very small change in toe will have no effect on the cornering characteristics of the car, so why bother to even consider this case. Steering gear ratios range from ~13:1 to ~20:1 and there are variable ratio steering gears out there too (like the C6 for instance). But let's just take an average ratio of 16:1, that means for every degree the wheel is turned, the steering wheel has to be turned 16 degrees...in other words, toe changes are amplified. So even if we only change the toe 1/4 degree (total, but using only one wheel get it), the steering wheel will change 4 degrees and that will be noticed by anyone.

The technicians may ignore it, but their customer won't. A small toe change adjusted at one wheel will be noticed by the customer as a "crooked" steering wheel and the technician can chalk up one more unsatisfied customer.

The 1st and last sentence are correct, but I have no idea what you're trying to say in the middle sentence.

Depending on the toe adjustment mechanism, this can be correct...or incorrect. For a single ended toe adjustment (typical of cars with rack and pinion steering gears like the C4, C5, and C6 Corvettes), this is correct. For a double ended adjustment (typical of cars with recirculating ball, screw and sector steering gears like the C1, C2, and C3 Corvettes), this is incorrect. Since we're talking C6 Corvettes, we'll say you're correct for this particular application...but you can't make that statement in general. However, look at what you said...if you turn them both the same way the same amount, one wheel is going towards toe in while the other wheel is going towards toe out effectively shifting the steering wheel while holding the toe adjustment the same. But we want to change the toe setting. Let's start with a car at 1/16" toe in per wheel for a total of 1/8" toe in and we want to end up at a total of 1/8" toe out (1/16" per wheel) for a total change of 1/4". If you make the total toe adjustment at one wheel, you go from 1/16" toe in to 3/16" toe out for a total change of 1/4". When you roll the car forward, the self centering action caused by the inclination of the steering axis (caster) will cause the other wheel to go from 1/16" toe in to 1/16" toe out while the wheel you adjusted goes from 3/16" toe out to 1/16" toe out. The only way for this to happen is for the steering wheel to move as the wheels are mechanically linked to it...and you will now have a "crooked" steering wheel. Just adjust both sides and save a lot of aggravation.

While it is certainly easier to change just one side, there are several bad points. To begin with, the C6 does have a variable ratio steering gear and when the rack is "shifted", we change the response of the car when turning left vs turning right...it's hard to quantify in use, but it does affect the "feedback" mechanism in our brain. And with steering wheel position sensors in the steering column, a "crooked" steering wheel will throw off the "active" handling system and may cause it to shut down completely while throwing a code. Also, if the centering really gets out of whack, the car won't turn as sharp in one direction as the other.

I'm assuming the "new" alignment systems you're talking about are the "computerized" alignments. That is the biggest joke to the automotive consumer (excluding the 3000 mile oil changes in our modern era cars). These new alignment machines are the same as before...they make the same mechanical measurements. But instead of the technician reading directly off the machine, we now have electrical devices that "read" the measurement. Then that "analog" data gets converted into "digital" data where it's sent to the computer's input device, processed, then sent to an output device that sends it to the printer where you now get your "computerized" wheel alignment. Every place that signal was processed added error. And you're assuming the calibration of the electrical sensor to the mechanical readings is correct. I can do an alignment in my driveway that'll beat the hell out of a "computerized" alignment for accuracy. This is probably what the engineer at the plant was saying when talking about the "old method".

 

How are these cars getting so out of line? How do you correct a non-visually obvious misalignment? How do you do cross country alignments. Are you basing it strickly on tire wear? You could probably really help all of us, it would be greatly appreciated. It might be of interest to you that I was doing alignments long before the Corvette was even envisioned or realized, I was born in the late 30's, I think I have been around quite abit longer than you, you were born in '49 according to your profile. So I have alot more than 20+, big deal, so what! Does that make me better than you, NO, just like you, another Corvette driver and lover. Have happy cruising.