Alignment!

[scottzg]

Did anyone notice that theres not a single alignment thread on this whole message board? Not a single one. Well, here's a first.

I'm gonna be back on the road in a week, and i need to do some sorting after my spin. Seeing as that my alignment is messed up I'm gonna try to bring it close to spec with some 2x4's and string before i take it into a shop... you know, experiment a little.


I'm gonna try giving a touch more toe-out in the front and bottom out my front camber bolts- maximum negative camber. I always wear out the outside much faster than the in, (you can see the rubber getting smeared outward, its pretty cool) and im gonna assume that sidewall is eating into my footprint.

I might also give myself some toe out in the rear, just to have a little fun for a few days... wish it was raining...


Does anyone have any other things to try? Anyone have a proven setup to play with? Wanna collect reviews on different setups...?

[greg donovan]

i have a massive amout of toe out on the rear of my FWD sedan. it is a balst on the rallyx course but a bit scary on icy roads.

i talked about it a bit here before.

[-K-]

I'm going to set mine up kinda like this. thishttp://www.spdusa.com/newpage3.htm
But I'm just going to max out the front camber without grinding the tophat mounting holes.
I also like idea of rear tire pressure more than rear toe out.

[BAC5.2]

1.5 degrees negative front camber
1 degree negative rear camber
0 toe front
0 toe rear

Makes for a pretty neutral handling setup for me.

[Legacy777]

-1 degree of camber front & rear

0 toe front & rear.

As phil said...it makes things pretty neutral, and stable at higher speeds.

[BAC5.2]

I will eventually go with 1/16th degree toe out in the rear.

Help with on-throttle rotation and increase exit speed. I'm all about high speed exits.

[scottzg]

Currently running no toe anywhere, 2 degrees negative camber in front, 1 degree in back. This was done with a 10$ home alignment tool. I really like this set up, it's not darty or nervous but will transition to oversteer pretty easily with a conscious application of weight transfer.

If i were being competitive, i would want a little more rotation, but for cruising around this is great.

I have 2.5rs struts and springs and a 18mm swaybar and turbo wheels.

[Kelly]

1.5 degrees negative front camber
1 degree negative rear camber
0 toe front
0 toe rear

Makes for a pretty neutral handling setup for me.

Ditto.

I like to run toe out on the rabbit, seems to help a bit with the understeer, but the soobie doesnt need it. In fact its just a totally different beast alltogether.

[rallysam]

I thought I would post my settings and experience.

I went with -1 degree camber up front only. Everything else 0.

Rallycross:
Feels great. Easy to grab oversteer whenever needed by the usual weight transfer and throttle inputs (even mid-turn or exit). When I wanted stability, it was easy to reel the car back in to a clean line. First impression is: not too much, not too little. Very easy to control. Pretty neutral. If rallycross was all I did with this car, then I would love these settings. [Tested with Kuhmo rally tires. AGX shocks set to soft settings, balanced front and rear... not too different than stock. No other handling mods.]

Autocross:
Pretty amazing how much oversteers there is on dry pavement. It makes the tight/slow turns much easier. On a high speed autocross sweeper (at least - high speed for autocross ), you definitely have to pay attention to keep the rear-end behaved. I've gotta feed it moderate throttle and/or counter steer or else I get sideways / out of control real quick. I guess this is pretty normal and expected for a neutral car, it might even be ideal, but I am just saying that I was not used to such a dynamic car because all my Subaru's have always plowed like piggies. For example, when I didn't react quickly enough to reel it in - I got completely sideways and a whole rack of cones hit the door of the car (broadside hit!). I was quick enough to avoid a complete spinout though, so I recovered and kept racing down the course. Once I got used to babying it in those high speed sweepers, it was very controllable. For comparison, this alignment created much more oversteer than when I put an aftermarket rear sway bar on my RS. [Tested with crap all season tires and AGX shocks set medium soft - pretty balanced settings. No other mods.]

Street -
You won't really notice unless you really bite into a turn hard and take advantage of the camber. When you DO get to that regime, it really tears around the corner, but I don't run that close to the ragged edge on the street very often.

But, I am kinda scared of what happens on a high-speed highway curve when a deer steps out in front of me. I'd expect oversteer to be exadurated greatly at those speeds. I am guessing these settings will be treacherously unstable.

Conclusion
Great for rallycross,
Good, or maybe a little too much, for autocross. Haven't decided.
Scary on the highway (I'm guessing)

Recommendation:
I like it, but for a daily driver I might go to a more moderate, stable balance next time by trying -0.5 camber in the rear instead of 0 (and keeping the -1 up front)

Edit - more details added here and there

[scottzg]

Hah, i have been running the same thing as sam these last few weeks. I got lower profile tires and added 1 degree to all 4 corners to protect them, i also dont think they need as much since they dont sidewall like the old ones did. It drives pretty much how my old settings did on my old tires.

I agree with sams opinions, but i have no trouble driving it fast or dealing with the tail stepping out. I'm probably just more used to it. I wish i knew how to make it no more likely to rotate, but to rotate more when it does.

[jamal]

How is tire wear with 1 or 2 degrees of camber? It doesn't seem to me like much, but some retard in a tire shop asked me why I would want to wear out my tires more quickly. As of now, once my bolt comes in, I plan on just going with something like -.5 frong and 0 rear.

Also, there's only one "L" in alignment.

[Legacy777]

If you corner hard or drive agressively, negative camber will help wear tires evenly. It also improves handling.

Don't run 0 degree of camber in the rear. You need to run a little bit of negative camber. Run at least -.5 deg all the way around.

[scottzg]

I have to rotate my tires fairly regularly. absolute 0 rear isn't too good, as josh said, run a little.

[jamal]

Yeah, okay, that seems to make more sense to me as well. Of course, I've just been kind of throwing out numbers, but I initally had planned on going with -1 front and -.5 rear. I'll probably find a place and buy a lifetime alignment, though, so I can play around with it a bit. And also nearly max it out just before I get new tires and go autox.

[entirelyturbo]

Bumping old threads FTW!

So I felt I had to get an alignment after I put the WRX springs on, and the new Avid H4s on, especially since I went on a 200-mile trip this weekend. Turns out I had 0.3 positive toe on the rear left wheel, so it's a good thing I did!

The assmonkeys at Tire Kingdom (our rack here at work is fubar'ed) refused to set my front camber to
-0.5 like I asked them to, even though -0.5 is within the allowable range of settings

So, in regards to camber, here are my final alignment settings:

±0.0 left front
-0.2 right front
-1.0 left rear
-1.2 right rear



I'm all setup to plow like a Buick around an oval course

I got a chance to really push the car this morning, and while it does grip a whole lot better with the new tires, I did still feel an urge in it to understeer; it didn't want to turn in.

So, my question is: How do I adjust the rear camber? I've been under the impression for the longest time that rear camber cannot be adjusted on these cars.

For the fact that I do have a little fun every once in a while, but not that often, I figured I'd set my camber to -0.8 in the front and -0.3 in the rear. Enough to matter, but not enough to put any more extra wear on the tires. I know toe wears tires out more than camber does (I'd have my toe set at 0 all the way around), but camber still has an effect.

Thoughts? Comments?

[jamal]

you can loosen everything up and bang it around a bit, or buy camber bolts. Or adjustable lateral links.

The problem with camber bolts is that they could slip. I'm afraid of that so I have mine maxed out even though it means the alignment isn't quite what I want.

In anycase, that amount in the rear is fine. I would just increase the amount of front camber to, say, a little more than what you have in the rear. If you go around corners with any frequency it's doubtful that even -2 degrees would cause significantly uneven tire wear.

[rallysam]

Yeah, I think the rear camber is not adjustable but it's easy enough to replace the bolts with ellipitcal crash bolts and make them adjustable.

As for -0.8 and -0.3, I wouldn't run that big of a difference between the front and rear camber... I would make them close-ish. I'd say you could run up to a 0.5 difference between the front and back settings, but less if you already have other suspension upgrades. Also less if you daily drive your car a lot and want it to be safe. I'm just talking about the difference front-to-back here, you can dial them both up as high as you like just keep the balance reasonable. I like jamal's suggestion about -1 ish all around maybe a tad more on the front.

I find our cars much more neutral to start with than an Impreza, and most alignments I've tried have created more oversteer than I would like. Now I'm turning down my front camber to be almost equal to rear and turning down my rear shocks to make the car more stable.

[entirelyturbo]

That's the thing jamal, I occasionally take corners fast, but 80% of the time, I don't. So that's why I want to find a balance between grip and tire wear.

As for rear camber bolts... how would they work? The top hole in the strut on the rear isn't ellipsoidal like the top hole in the strut on the front, so I wouldn't think an eccentric bolt would make any difference. Or am I wrong?

You do have a good point though Sam. I should probably run the camber closer together f/r, since not only do I have WRX springs, but I have a Turbo rear swaybar, which makes a more tail-happy car. Point taken.

Thanks for the help guys!

[THAWA]

Aftermarket rear camber bolts are smaller in diameter, with an eccentric lobe on a small part of the bolt. Instead of the bolt being an M14 like it is now, it's more like an M10 or something smaller. Not what I'd trust to hold my struts together personally, but it works for other people. What you should do, is not worry about it. You don't use the car where the difference would be worth the time, money, or effort. And lets face it, you're still within the recommended specs. Plus it's easier, safer, cheaper to just add more negative camber up front. Just wait until your machine at work is back up, and have them max out the front camber, hopefully they'll bring it closer than .2º crosscamber.

Also, don't worry too much about camber wearing out the tires. I'm running -2.5º up front with 0 toe and my tires haven't worn nearly as much as they did with -1.8º and something like 7/32" toe out. Don't ask why the toe was like that, but it was down the cords within a few hundred miles on the insides. Toe kills tires.

If you're really set on adjusting the rear camber, the safest way to do this to me seems to be to enlarge the upper hole, and elongate the upper hole on the strut bracket. In essence, make it like the front knuckle. Then use stock front camber bolts to adjust. That way you have a stock sized bolt that isn't prone to slipping.

[The Scooby]

ya i was thinking for the street about -8 front and -5 rear with camber bolts.

and to get rear camber bolts to work just get out your handy die grinder and open up the top holes on one side of the strut a tad so the slip in.

also I'm gonna go with 0 toes at all 4 corners. i just cant wait to get some lowering springs, probably Tien S-tech's, then some whiteline swaybars.

[entirelyturbo]

So you think I should just try to go -1.0 all the way around Hardy? That sounds good enough.

How much of a range can the factory camber bolts have by the way? Are you doing the -2.5 on factories Hardy?

[THAWA]

Yes, -2.5º with just the stock bolts, but my suspension is not normal. They have a range of about 1.5º or so.

Personally I think that for what you do with the car your alignment is fine, and it would only be worthwhile to have it adjusted if you can have it done for free, or if you notice any pulling. If you drove around like an asshat, or were competing with it, then you should probably worry more about it. If you still want to though, try an get as much negative camber up front as possible with as little cross-camber as possible.

BTW, do you have the other specs? SAI/Kingpin, Caster, Included angle, Thrust andle?

[BAC5.2]

Toe wears tires, not camber. Camber wears tires, but not nearly as much as toe does. I've got a balded set of RE92's that will tell you that.

Keep that in mind.

[entirelyturbo]

or were competing with it

Well, I hope to make that a possibility soon. I do want to start autoXing (once a year with the Mazda events just isn't enough ). But I guess I should worry about alignment settings when those events actually come up and not now when I'm just daily-driving it.

Not like they'd let me autoX while I'm missing a wheelstud anyway

BTW, do you have the other specs? SAI/Kingpin, Caster, Included angle, Thrust andle?

Sure do.

Front caster:
Left 4.1º
Right 3.7º

Rear thrust angle:
-0.1º

SAI:
Left 23.4º
Right 13.3º

Included Angle:
Left 23.4º
Right 13.5º

[Manarius]

So, if my car's pulling to the right, how do I fix that at home so I can avoid the $65 dollar alignment fee?