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Is this alignment setting good enough for best tire life?

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Old 02-21-2018, 02:53 PM
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Zo62018A8
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Default Is this alignment setting good enough for best tire life?

Is this a good alignment setting for a 2018 zo6 to get the best tire life? I won’t be tracking or drag racing the car on the strip and it’s my daily driver that I like to sometimes push hard in a straight line. The before is on top and this what they set it to.
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Old 02-21-2018, 04:46 PM
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Avanti
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What are the factory specs?
Old 02-21-2018, 05:00 PM
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hisvett
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No; what your showing is very close to factory specs and will cause the inside of your front tires to wear. Drop the Camber to -.5 or less to get even wear across the front tires. The difference in street handling will be next to null
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Old 02-21-2018, 05:28 PM
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Originally Posted by hisvett
No; what your showing is very close to factory specs and will cause the inside of your front tires to wear. Drop the Camber to -.5 or less to get even wear across the front tires. The difference in street handling will be next to null
i took it in since I could get a free alignment before 500 miles. If I leave it like this what kind of street driving mileage should I expect? The rears do spin sometimes during hard acceleration so I’m assuming they will be the first to go.
Old 02-21-2018, 05:50 PM
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You would be surprised how fast the fronts will wear with too much toe and negative camber, so they may wear faster than the rears. The toe and camber need to be very close to zero.

Last edited by TEXHAWK0; 02-21-2018 at 05:56 PM.
Old 02-21-2018, 06:47 PM
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Originally Posted by desibaba
Is this a good alignment setting for a 2018 zo6 to get the best tire life? I won’t be tracking or drag racing the car on the strip and it’s my daily driver that I like to sometimes push hard in a straight line. The before is on top and this what they set it to.
The rear camber spec is -0.5 to -1.7. Your -1.3 is excessive for good wear. I have my rear set at -0.8 to -0.9 but you could go all the way down to -0.5 on both. In the front, the min left is 0 and right -0.3. Max is -1.2 left, -1.5 right. That is to compensate for a driver weight and some road camber.

I had my front set similar to my rear at -0.7 and -0.8 as a compromise for better tire wear and performance.

My toe, front and rear is set mid spec, which is essentially 0.

Last edited by JerryU; 02-21-2018 at 06:55 PM.
Old 02-21-2018, 07:08 PM
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You are all set up to scalp the inside edges of all four tires.
You will probably get a little less than half of the proper service life. Also more driver input will be required when on uneven roads.

Last edited by PatternDayTrader; 02-21-2018 at 07:12 PM.
Old 02-22-2018, 01:44 AM
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I suppose I will disagree with everybody that has answered so far. You have the FE6 suspension so you should be at a degree negative all around. Slight toe in in front also. You have that. Close to zero toe in rear. Check. They have not written down what the rear caster is. On the C7 (and very few other cars) the rear caster is adjustable and needs to be checked. Their alignment machine will not check it but they have the tools to do so. That spec is 0.0 +/- 0.8. That spec is most bogus. You need it set on the positive side of that spec. So it should be in the +0.6 to +0.8 range. That is critical. So take it back until they get you the rear caster setting.

Also tell them to work a bit harder on the left front. They can do a better job there. And I might have them redo the camber on the right rear also. Dial it back to -1.0 camber. Do a search in the C7Z06 section on "alignment." You will find a lot of threads but one to save is the post of the C7 Z street alignment specs. I recall it is -1.2 deg camber all around but I run -1.0 or a slight bit under for better tire life. However toe is the biggest killer of tires and your left front was scrubbing off rubber pretty quickly before you had it looked at.

Last edited by pkincy; 02-22-2018 at 01:50 AM.
Old 02-22-2018, 02:09 AM
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Here are the specs from the Helms manual.

Old 02-22-2018, 02:15 AM
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OK, I see what they have done. They have used a 3 year old alignment spec sheet. Here it is from the 2015 Helms. As you can see the old spec called for less Camber front left.

Old 02-22-2018, 06:38 AM
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^^^

They key is the tolerance on both specs including the Z06/Grand Sport allow a very wide acceptable range +/- 0.6 or an acceptable range of 1.2 degrees. If you just have the dealer check, even my as delivered rear (after I waited ~400 miles to settle the suspension) was at -1.6 degrees, within the GM spec! Fine for Tracking but not good for tire wear. In fact, I only had one toe slightly out and in the red area on the alignment machine screen. Tech could have just fixed it and said all is fine! I gave the service supervisor a sheet with my desired camber settings. I was pleased to see he gave it to the Tech who even asked me a question.

Took the Tech 30 to 45 minutes to make the adjustments I asked for. Had to do some by 1) adjust cambers then toe then readjust some cambers. I was watching from outside the service bay and the Tech invited me in to watch the Hunter alignment machine screen. I let him know there would be a Tip, which I gave him at the end! All on GM's dime!

Have to tell the dealer what you want.

Last edited by JerryU; 02-22-2018 at 06:45 AM.
Old 02-22-2018, 11:51 AM
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Originally Posted by desibaba


i took it in since I could get a free alignment before 500 miles. If I leave it like this what kind of street driving mileage should I expect? The rears do spin sometimes during hard acceleration so I’m assuming they will be the first to go.
You didn't state what tire you are running; cups or the standard PSS. I have a Z51, ran a few track sessions and got 24K out of the OEM PSS. I have friends that did now track time and got 30 to 35K out of the OEM's. Cup tires will be less than half with conservative right foot action.

I've been running something like the specs below on several cars for close to 200K miles; all my front tires wear nice and flat.....providing you also watch your tire pressures too.

Old 02-23-2018, 02:14 PM
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Originally Posted by hisvett
You didn't state what tire you are running; cups or the standard PSS. I have a Z51, ran a few track sessions and got 24K out of the OEM PSS. I have friends that did now track time and got 30 to 35K out of the OEM's. Cup tires will be less than half with conservative right foot action.

I've been running something like the specs below on several cars for close to 200K miles; all my front tires wear nice and flat.....providing you also watch your tire pressures too.

I have the factory z06 tires. Its a 2018 2lz z06 WITHOUT the z07 package
Old 02-24-2018, 08:23 PM
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Originally Posted by desibaba
I have the factory z06 tires. Its a 2018 2lz z06 WITHOUT the z07 package
Understood; the numbers above will still work fine with the wider rubber too. I ran the same setup on my C6 GS and was getting 45K+ out of the front tires (Bridgestone's).
Old 02-24-2018, 08:33 PM
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Simply understand that the small tired cars have much different specs than the FE6 and FE7 cars. Their street specs call for much less camber than the GS/Z06.

Negative camber of a degree is the spec because your suspension and the tires themselves are designed for it. Also toe is a bigger deal on tire wear unless you get into crazy cambers. Yes, I have worn out the inside of tires running negative 2 to 3 degrees but the negative 1 coupled with the MPSS ZPs or SC ZPs will be fine. However if you think you are smarter than the combined GM/Michelin engineering staff, do what you like.

I think the important thing is to get the camber in the center of the spec range. I had mine checked Friday and they were surprisingly close to the middle of the specification. Had a little too much RF caster but front Camber was darned good and toe was pretty good. Rear camber was spot on as was toe. Rear Caster needed tweeking, but all in all I was quite pleased with the as delivered alignment. Not everyone has been that lucky although apparently the 18s and 19s are coming out with better alignments.
Old 02-24-2018, 10:21 PM
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I may be setting myself for a ration here, but I run as close to zero as possible on all measurements. My handling is just fine.

I drive as spiritedly on the streets as possible. I live in a peninsular area, and all the roads are twisty.

I have gotten over 45,000 miles on both fronts and rears, but not at the same time. 35,000 on fronts, 45,000 on rears (surprised that the rears lasted longer), I am still on the second set at 87,000 miles. Well above the wear bars on both sets.
Old 02-24-2018, 11:45 PM
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Originally Posted by pkincy
OK, I see what they have done. They have used a 3 year old alignment spec sheet. Here it is from the 2015 Helms. As you can see the old spec called for less Camber front left.

But, this one shows it's for 2015 Corvette as well

Originally Posted by pkincy

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Old 02-25-2018, 12:04 AM
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Old 02-25-2018, 07:54 AM
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Originally Posted by owc6
I may be setting myself for a ration here, but I run as close to zero as possible on all measurements. My handling is just fine.

I drive as spiritedly on the streets as possible. I live in a peninsular area, and all the roads are twisty.

I have gotten over 45,000 miles on both fronts and rears, but not at the same time. 35,000 on fronts, 45,000 on rears (surprised that the rears lasted longer), I am still on the second set at 87,000 miles. Well above the wear bars on both sets.
Zero camber is where you should be for a street car. I'm not surprised to hear your tires are wearing properly.
Old 02-25-2018, 08:49 AM
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Originally Posted by pkincy
Simply understand that the small tired cars have much different specs than the FE6 and FE7 cars. Their street specs call for much less camber than the GS/Z06.

Negative camber of a degree is the spec because your suspension and the tires themselves are designed for it
. Also toe is a bigger deal on tire wear unless you get into crazy cambers. Yes, I have worn out the inside of tires running negative 2 to 3 degrees but the negative 1 coupled with the MPSS ZPs or SC ZPs will be fine. However if you think you are smarter than the combined GM/Michelin engineering staff, do what you like.
The aggressive suspension optioned cars come with specs more appropriate for the track, because that is the expected use. This issue has nothing to do with outsmarting gm engineering.

Camber and toe are generic measurements that have nothing to do with the car itself. Instead its about the expected use of the car. It doesn't matter if you drive a four door Impala, a Corvette or a Freightliner tractor pulling a hundred thousand pound gravel train. The best tire wear comes from the tires being straight up and down (zero camber) and straight forward (zero toe).

In order to understand this issue, one must ask, what is the reason behind negative camber on a track car in the first place ? The answer simply stated is this; negative static camber helps counteract the tendency for the outside tire to roll onto its shoulder, and to counteract the inside tire from gaining too much positive camber due to body roll. This results in both the inside and outside tires maintaining a more even contact patch on the road and more traction during hard cornering.

Knowing this, if you don't drive in a way that stresses the tires and suspension, then negative camber sucks. It wrecks tires, it causes the car to follow cracks and imperfections in the road too much, and the car will have excessive sensitivity to the natural crown in the road. None of these things make the driving experience better, it makes it worse and more expensive. One could also argue that a beginner track driver might even benefit from a zero camber setup because of the increased confidence that comes from less steering wheel input, as the need for making constant corrections (for the issues listed above) is diminished on straight parts of the track.
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