Alignment numbers

How many degress of camber would you consider "ok" for mostly highway driving?

Or what/how have you set up your alignment?

I set up my alignment to match factory specs. The specs were designed for street cars; my car is a street car.

I consider "ok" to be in spec

Ingalls front camber and RTM "style" rear camber bolts/fender washers (5). Lowered 2 inches (at least, give or take a centimeter) on Megan's.

I suppose spec is in the FSM?

The rear of AWD DSM's call for too much negative camber from factory. For toe, you obviosuly want to keep both the front and rear at 0.

On my car. I have a touch negative camber in the front, I think -0.10 on each side, and the rears are 0 camber (maybe a touch on the positive side) or closer to +0.04 degrees per side.

My car is setup for street and drag racing, when I go wot the car squats and tire contact patch is flat.

For a stockish to modified DSM for street use (and personal preference), keep the rear camber at -0.50 on each side and a touch negative in the front.

Of course you can just go 0/0 toe/camber for both the front and rears. Personally I would go 0 camber on the back of a stock DSM. IMO it looks more aggressive (looks like you mean business) and you get more oversteer (which you want in a DSM).

For highway driving, you probably want 0/0 (toe/camber) in the front and 0/-0.5 (toe/camber) in the rear. JMHO for your car

The spec will be available to whoever is doing your alignment

If you go to any random shop and tell them to put it in spec, they won't even match both sides up. As long as the steering wheel is straight and front and rears for both driver and passenger side fall within the green range on their computer, they'll send you on your way with pretty much a "no thought put into the aligment" job.

You get what you pay for Yes it'll still drive straight which is fine by most DSM'ers.

Set the toe, collect the dough and let the guygo.

I was hoping that, working for a dealership, Mike would have a guy to go to. When I get my alignment done, I'm on the shop floor with the guy and he makes sure everything is exactly how I want it before I leave.

I can even go drive it a bit and bring it back if I want something adjusted; he never charges me to readjust.

LOL thats exactly what I'm talking about. IN SPEC !

My gosh...put some camber into these cars and make them turn! You want the car to be fun to cruise in and take those on and off ramps with confidence....

I know, I know I'm using my Mini as an example but I daily my Mini with -3 in the front and 2.5 in the rear. And tire wear is almost even when mixed with my track days to help with the even wear. Sure i give up tire life but the car is a different animal with these settings.

I suggest At LEAST -1 to 1.5 in the front and a little less with the back to help rotation. DSM's understeer like pig so this will help while being very conservative on tire wear for highway driving.

Toe zero in the front and a touch of toe in the rear to give some stability.

And you should at least look at getting a rear sway bar to help the car rotate without making it harsh to daily.

We have an alignment bay at my store. I'm looking more for what Reza described. And the fact that he took probably 10 minutes out of his day to write that up for me takes him out of my "asshole book"

Thanks!

So, yes, aside from toe at 0..I also would like to factor in hard launches and a full contact patch. So that advice right there is likely what I'll go with.

PS. Steve, seeing as you're our community mechanic, should you be sharing your "shop talk" with us...? your customers?

And I'm with Reza I'd never tell them to set it to " factory spec" and make sure you leave the place with a print out of the the settings. That is wait Stephen's comment is all about....

I once made a shop put my car back on the rack just to get the alignment readings again as they didn't print them off like i requested when i walked in.

I now go to a shop where they essentially let me do my own alignments. So much more comfortable with that.

Toe destroys tire life. I know, I've burned through 2 sets in 2 seasons because I've been swapping so many different suspension components that I never actually did an alignment (except by eye).

I have the car tracking pretty straight as it is, but wan't this done so I can play with my camber a little.

Toe in the rear will give you highway stability and at the top of the quarter mile. Don't just associate it with tire wear. Plenty of cars come toe in settings from the factory.

Toe is very small adjustments so definitely changing parts will have a huge effect on settings and not easily corrected by eyeing it.

I had mine done this spring and we're about the same drop. I can't remember what I had it set at but I'll try to find my alignment sheet after work.

Your toe must have been off significantly, I drove my car for 2 years/+-25k miles before I got the alignment done after the awd swap and only went through one set of tires.

Excess toe destroys tires, As well as excess camber. An eyeballed alignment will also wear tires out much quicker.

I don't actually do alignments that way... I miss cars that we could actually make adjustments to. Other then the odd NXS and S2000 most alignments are boring.

+1 Toe will destroy tires way faster then camber. I had my rear toe spec maxed out and it was still -.4 I believe and those tires were pooched after a couple seasons.

Guess it depends what you want to do with the car, my current is set to -1.6 front, ~-1.3 in the rear, toe zero'd all the way around.

I've ran this way for years. I do get more wear on the inners but I think that also has to do with the tires I run & the type of suspension these cars have. With suspension travel, you get changes in toe, combine that with max performance summer tires (believe 140 tread wear rating) & they wear the inners a bit faster. With that being said, inners are getting pretty low on my current set & the rest of the tires are at or basically at the wear bars. I managed about 40K on this set, so based on the tire compound, think thats pretty damn good.

If you want to have fun with corners, I'd recommend more camber (at least in the front vs stock), what I run is generally a good starting point.

Sorry for the double post, but maybe I should've posted in here, since the other thread was for Mike P's EVO.

Can a mod please move whatever comments from there to here?

The only that sticks out to me is the rear passenger camber.

Are you using shims at the upper control arm?

Absolutely no idea, and yeah, just the difference between it and the rear left had me concerned.

I've emailed the alignment shop, and as the car is in there for exhaust work, they're going to recheck everything, as the car still wants to go left after all of that.

That could be from a brake steer or tire pressure though.

I run 2.5 front 1.0 rear camber. As for toe, +0.5 front -0.1 rear. You set your suspension for how you drive and what conditions. On a street car you normally set them up "safe" So with a little toe in for the rear and 0'd up front with 1.0 of camber front and 0.5 in the rear.

I lap my car so that's how I set it up and how I want it to feel. And no running a little bit of toe ain't gonna kill your tires super quick if you actually do a proper alignment. If you're someone who likes doing highway pulls and drag racing, running a little bit of toe in will help with straight line stability like mentioned before.

And finally don't set your car up for how you think you're going to drive it, set it for how you actually drive it.

Level Auto were the guys that took 3 times to get my alignment right on my Mini.

*Face palm* dang...

Well, car is back there, and they said they'd check everything over again since I got my winters on there.

I got a piece of wood in my other set of wheels/tires.

I'm running a bit more negative camber for the past couple summers. -1.9-2 in the front & ~-1.5 in the rear, toe still zero all around. Have two summers tire use on these specs, run Yoko AD08's, somewhere around 9K on them, no signs of un even wear.

I do run slightly more tire pressure now, use to keep around maybe 30-32psi, now run 34 (235/40/18).

Next alignment I'll probably run -2.2-2.3 in the front...

I just got the alignment done on my Elantra which is on coilovers with a few other handling mods and it did a world of a difference. I daily drive the car, but I also like to take it lapping.

-2 degrees of camber and 1/16th toe out front, -2.5 camber out back. The car handles completely different and it's a lot more precise and crisp. Turns better too especially with the bigger rear sway bar... I can get the back end to rotate as needed just by playing with the throttle/brake

It's times like now that I am very glad I have the use of a brand new alignment rack at work..... I align my cars twice a year. No uneven tire wear here It's amazing the difference a decent alignment makes.