Alignment setup

Crone

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I did an alignment on my car today and I was wondering how some of you guys had your car setup? The specs was for 15 degrees toe, with 30 degrees total. The car still pulls though, my camber was off, but I don't have c/c plates, and I was maxed out on the struts already. (my front springs had to be cut) Also do you guys run postive or negative caster? I want the car to be fun in the corners but not destroy my tires....they are expensive haha. I will be redoing it once I get my new stuff on, I was just wondering how to set it up once I get it on. Thanks, Bobby
 

MustangChris

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i did whatever is on MM instructions for street cars when you buy their CCplates.
 
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Crone

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Hm, Well I guess I'll have to wait until they get here to see them haha. Did they give you a recomended setup to run? Or just how to adjust them?
 

MustangChris

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go to their website and look up the instructions on the part you bought... my alignment specs were on Pg. 3.
 

OnyxCobra

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30 degrees of toe? That seems like a lot to me, the guy set mine to almost zero when he did mine. As far as your pulling goes toe won't affect that. As long as your caster and camber is close it shouldn't cause too much trouble, improper toe is going to wear your tires out a lot faster than camber.
 
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Crone

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The camber is out, but with the cut springs I can only adjust it so far, The specs were 15 degrees positive on both sides, with 30 degrees total for toe, I though it was high too. My tires are shot, I'm waitin on the new rims if the kid ever comes through before I buy tires for these rims. I read that caster won't affect tire wear or pull, but it will affect how the steering wheel responds, Like correcting itself back to straight ahead, I was wondering how some of the guys who autocross set there caster, because I am hoping to run some nice mountain roads once I get my new suspension parts on... Thanks for the help guys
 

OnyxCobra

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I disagree, when toe is out of spec the steering will just "center" itself and will continue straight from there, the steering wheel might not be straight but the car won't pull. The only way i could see toe causing pull is if it was WAY out of wack, to the point where the tires were having to fight each other hard.
 

OnyxCobra

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I have 2 separate personal experiences with toe being out of alignment and neither car pulled, hmm go figure. I must drive magical vehicles :dontknow:


On the other hand when the cars camber and caster were off they did pull accordingly...
 

ReplicaR

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All of the above will have an effect on the way the car is driving. Toe will affect the stability of the vehicle as much as caster, maybe even more. If you have toe offset, then you have wheels pointing different way. Why wouldn't the car pull a certain direction? You have to remember that toe settings can either give the car lots of high speed stability (toe in) or make it more responsive to steering (toe out). From my personal experience I'm running 1/16th of an inch in. It gives me pretty much zero dynamic toe, which is great for tire wear, ad high speed stability. When I bought my car, the dynamic toe was off quiet a bit due to a bad tie rod end. The car would wear the inside tire pretty badly, and it would also pull that direction heavily.
 

Javi

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Crone said:
I did an alignment on my car today and I was wondering how some of you guys had your car setup? The specs was for 15 degrees toe, with 30 degrees total. The car still pulls though, my camber was off, but I don't have c/c plates, and I was maxed out on the struts already. (my front springs had to be cut) Also do you guys run postive or negative caster? I want the car to be fun in the corners but not destroy my tires....they are expensive haha. I will be redoing it once I get my new stuff on, I was just wondering how to set it up once I get it on. Thanks, Bobby

how low is your car?
why not use CC bolts, rather than the cc plates
i succesfully used mine for 2 years zero problems..
you are going to hear mixed reviews on them thou.
 

OnyxCobra

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The reason toe out wouldn't cause the car to pull is because with the toe out on one wheel the car is going to turn, so say your left tire is toe out and your right tire is straight, the steering will naturally tip slightly to the right in this case enough so the car is tracking straight, and both tires will settle on the "average" toe out with the car driving straight. The car will not be pulling, it will be wearing both tires evenly. I have never seen a car with improper toe only wear one tire, they always both wear evenly...
 

ReplicaR

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My car wore out inside tire pretty badly, on just one side when I had a bad tie rod end. After the tie rod end was replaced and I have had the car realigned, the problem went away. Toe settings could be really finicky in this way, but with a offset toe the car will be more dodgy and will not just track straight.
 

OnyxCobra

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I can see that, with the toe being out of wack the car is obviously going to want to wander around the road more, and will be more likely to follow groves and what not because its less stable.
 
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Crone

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I actually bought camber bolts, but I never installed them for some reason, But I am trying to not be cheap with my car now and I want to build it right using good parts so I figured I would just save up and get the plates. Hopefully when I get my new tires and all the new suspension parts the car will stop pulling, I'm starting to think it's just because everything is so worn out....
 

two95s

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I'm interested in what people have their camber set at. So far I've tried -1 and 0 degrees and the tires have scalloped on the inside. On a side note, even with plates I can't get hardly any range of caster adjustment. If I remember right I think my caster is around +4.

I've never heard of 15* of toe. Hell, you turn the wheel 20 or 25* to set caster.
 

Paul

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No idea what 15 degrees of toe is supposed to mean.



Anyway, on my streetcars:

1.2-1.4 degrees negative camber
4-6 degrees positive caster
1/8" toed in
 

GDTrumbo

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I think they mean .5* toe-in.............

Seems like MM recommends:

-.5* camber (street) -1.5 - 2.5* for track
+4.5* caster (street) 6.5* for track
.5* toe-in (street) .5* toe-out for track

GT
 

2slo95fiveoh

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Paul has a good alignment setup...
After I installed my tubular K-member, my alignment showed
Camber: -2.6 -2.4
Caster: +4.2 +4.0
And i can't remember toe, becuase i set it as soon as i could..
In regards to "pulling" Toe doesn't cause a pull/drift, It will however make your steering wheel off center, and chew up tires, often
refered to as "cupping".
Camber and Caster will cause a pull, and in my experience any difference of .5* side to side in either Camber or Caster will cause a drift
to the side that has the higher Camber, or lower caster.
Caster is a good thing to have, as the more positive caster, the best steering returnability, however it can make it
unstable at higher speeds. Caster will not cause a tire wear also, and in some high performance vehicles (such as corvettes),
they use as much as 12* positive caster for the increased steering feel.
 

ReplicaR

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2slo95fiveoh said:
Caster is a good thing to have, as the more positive caster, the best steering returnability, however it can make it unstable at higher speeds.

I think you have that backwards. The more caster you have, the more stable the car is at higher speed, or any speed for that matter.
 

2slo95fiveoh

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ReplicaR said:
2slo95fiveoh said:
Caster is a good thing to have, as the more positive caster, the best steering returnability, however it can make it unstable at higher speeds.

I think you have that backwards. The more caster you have, the more stable the car is at higher speed, or any speed for that matter.

Sorry, I was doing too many things at once..
The more caster you have, the BETTER high speed stability, however the more positive caster, the more increased steering effort.
I think that's right.
 

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