Alignment spec recommendation?

[froman6]

Hi, I recently upgraded my suspension on my 2006 with Koni adj, Steeda ultra light and Maximuim Motorsports caster camber plates and now need an alignment and looking for alignment spec recommendations.

The car is driven on the track and road so I'm looking for a setting that will work well for both. A bias towards track use would be just fine.

Thanks in advance! This forum is always so helpful!

 

[sholzer]

Max caster on both sides, -2.0-2.5 camber and 0.0* toe would be a decent starting point for a track oriented setup that should be fine on the street.

 

[killr3v]

Max caster on both sides, -2.0-2.5 camber and 0.0* toe would be a decent starting point for a track oriented setup that should be fine on the street.

Max POSITIVE caster, lol

 

[sholzer]

Max POSITIVE caster, lol

lol negative caster is where it's at....

But I think you should be between +6-7 degrees or so for caster

 

[froman6]

Thanks sholzer! I'll start there.

 

[Whiskey11]

You might ask them to do a full sweep from max negative camber to minimum negative camber and see if your sweep gets you close to the same on both sides at both extremes. My car is about -1.6° in the DD setting and basically -3.0° at the autocross setting. Toe goes about a tenth of a degree out from min to max negative camber so I set my street setting at zero toe and the autocross setting then goes a tenth out for better turn in. It isnt 100% reliable but it is damn close enough.

 

[Vorshlag-Fair]

Yep, -2° camber and zero toe... that's a great compromise street/track alignment if you have camber plates that are hard to adjust (some brands have to almost come completely apart to adjust).

But.... If you have plates that allow easy track side camber adjustment, then if the range allows for it, I'd recommend running even more negative camber for track or autocross use, even with street tires. Just adjust it track side back to a more favorable street setting after your event. Our plates, for instance, take about 2 minutes to adjust the camber per side. If you have your alignment tech set your street setting to the minimum camber adjustment and a tick of toe in (-1/16" total or so) it should work out to about +1/16" to +1/8" toe out at your maxed out negative camber setting of -2.5 or -3° camber. A little toe out (up to +1/8" total toe out) up front is usually beneficial on track, as it promotes better turn-in.



Last fall we did a test with my 2013 GT. We took it to a track (ECR) and ran it with 18x10" wheels, 295 Nitto NT05s, and Vorshlag camber plates, but otherwise stock. Even the stock springs, which left it with a crazy tall 4x4 stock ride height. Maxed out the front camber to max negative (about -2°) and that helped tremendously with front grip and tire wear. At the stock ride height all you can usually get is about -2° camber, and that's if you don't add any additional positive caster.

The round strut tower opening is small on these cars so that constrains your camber and caster limits. See the picture below (which is shown with the least camber setting, dead centered). You want to get the upper strut pin almost touching the opening to max out the camber.

So if you have stock ride height, I'd recommend the "centered" caster setting (or the least positive setting, same as stock), which gives you the most room in the strut tower hole to get the most negative camber. Getting the most static negative camber is more important when it is limited this much; more important than adding caster (these cars already have a lot of caster stock, at +6°). Of course if you have lowering springs you can get closer to -2.8° or max camber, as the camber goes more negative as the ride height gets lower, as it does on most McPherson strut suspensions. Even then I'd still run max negative camber on track, even on street tires, and up to -3° if you can get it. This will promote more even tire temperatures across the front tires (and even tire wear), more grip, and lower lap times. This is assuming you are pushing the car to the limits. If you are out there just rolling around, having an easy Sunday drive at 5/10ths, then camber won't matter much. And that's cool - not everyone is out there to drive Flat Out.

After the last October event in the 2013 GT we went back to the same track in December with the only change being AST double adjustable coilovers with remote reservoirs + stiffer (coilover) spring rates. This allowed a much lower ride height, more negative camber, and less roll/dive/heave due to the stiffer springs (450F/225R). The car dropped 4 seconds in lap times with the same tires, driver and conditions. We ran the camber at -3° at this event, simply because we finally could get to that range with the lower ride height. Tire wear up front was ideal. On our 2011 GT with Moton doubles and giant Hoosiers we run closer to -3.5 to -3.8° camber and it wears the tires almost perfectly.

Note: All of the internet wives' tales of "less braking power" with too much negative camber is mostly bunk. I've tracked with up to and beyond -4° camber on many cars and still saw data logging showing -1.2 under braking. It isn't until you get into the extreme ranges like -5 or -6 degrees that you might see braking performance fall off. On a modern car with ABS this just is not a concern. More negative camber helps. Always.

Anyway... just some data points.

 

[Department Of Boost]

Hi, I recently upgraded my suspension on my 2006 with Koni adj, Steeda ultra light and Maximuim Motorsports caster camber plates and now need an alignment and looking for alignment spec recommendations.

The car is driven on the track and road so I'm looking for a setting that will work well for both. A bias towards track use would be just fine.

Thanks in advance! This forum is always so helpful!

I concur on running -2 camber, zero toe and as much caster as possible.

Between the MM plates and Whiteline bushing kit I was able to get 10.5 caster, it feels GREAT!

 

[Sky Render]

I also agree. I run -2 camber up front and zero toe.

HOWEVER, if you are not racing on the same tires you're driving on on the street, you will get uneven wear on the inside fronts of your street tires. The solution to that is to rotate the tires front to back every time you swap tires.

 

[Whiskey11]

I also agree. I run -2 camber up front and zero toe.

HOWEVER, if you are not racing on the same tires you're driving on on the street, you will get uneven wear on the inside fronts of your street tires. The solution to that is to rotate the tires front to back every time you swap tires.

Drive harder... I ran my Star Specs on the street for 10Kish miles at -1.7° of camber and no toe and had zero problems with inside tire wear. When I had them flipped on the rims at the end of last season they still had the nubbies on the inside edge of the tire and the inside shoulders were in pristine condition.

I suppose if you are running low offset wheels to push the wheels further out I could see scrub radius compounding the effects of camber but if you maintain stockish offsets I cant see camber as contributing to tire wear. Camber bolts seem to have a similar issue.

If anything lack of camber killed my tires faster than the elevated camber settings... Im still DDing those tires at -1.5° camber and zero toe and the wear is pretty even across the tire now.

 

[JesseW.]

i'm running 3 degrees and 1/16 toe out. wonders like hell on the street and will be going back to 0 toe on my next alignment. i'm still killing my outsides first with my gorilla driving techniques.

 

[2008 V6]

I concur on running -2 camber, zero toe and as much caster as possible.

Between the MM plates and Whiteline bushing kit I was able to get 10.5 caster, it feels GREAT!

10.5 + caster is where it is at.

 

[Vorshlag-Fair]

I concur on running -2 camber, zero toe and as much caster as possible.

Between the MM plates and Whiteline bushing kit I was able to get 10.5 caster, it feels GREAT!

10.5 + caster is where it is at.

You guys.... you're joking, right? Honestly, it is hard to read humor or sarcasm in posts sometimes. But really, those +10.5° caster numbers are pretty extreme. The amount of weight jacking you'll see at those wild caster settings is off the charts.

As with anything, "too much can be a bad thing". There is a point of diminishing returns on caster, as there is with any setting. We've done a lot of testing on a lot of cars and a good rule of thumb is 6 to 7 deg of positive caster is about all you want. A leading IndyCar designer clued me in a few years back that this number works on a lot of different cars and suspension types, too. Any lower and you don't have a good dynamic camber gain. And more and you get too much and also massive weight jacking across the front axle the more you turn the wheel.

I used to go as high as +7 or even +8 deg caster but beyond that weird things happened, and even that was compromised. About 2 years ago we built a car that was for a magazine shootout (Grassroots Motorsports $200X Challenge), which has a $2K budget and encourages weird swaps, handmade custom parts, and lots of second hand things). We started with a $500 BMW E30 and swapped in an LSx V8 from a truck, then built the car around some $200 circle track 15x10" wheels, which used a GM 5-bolt pattern. Anyway, to get rid of BMW 4-lug hubs and crappy front struts we went with the front suspension from an E36 BMW. "It all bolts in" they said on the internets. Wrong. It made for a staggering +15° of caster when we put the "recommended" parts together. We spent weeks chasing down alternate BMW lower control arms, spindles, making massive strut tower mods, custom camber plates and lots of mock-ups.... all with used/cheap/free parts to stay within budget. With a lot of custom work (which we perfected the next year for the $2011 Challenge) we got the caster down to +6°, and the car was much easier to drive. And we won the entire event almost solely based on our dominant autocross times.

Left: Perfecting the set-up at a private test day a week before the $2011 event. Right: Our car was fastest in the autocross at the $2011 Challenge

In the end we cut up the strut towers and made a custom camber plate to LOSE as much positive caster as we could. It handled like a piece of dung at +!2 deg when we did an early test, but after we got it down to +6 deg caster and the car handled like a dream, and was even a road course terror. Can you imagine getting passed in your TTA Corvette by a $2000 sh!tcan like this? This car bruised some egos, heh.

Testing the car at a NASA TT event, getting stuck in TTU class due to the low weight and high power this crapcan made - on the cheap!

We later cleaned up the car a bit, put some nicer struts/wheels/motor in the car and sold this $2011 car as a track beast for $18,000, which was a record for any GRM Challenge winner. The car made it on the cover of GRM and was featured in several articles, too.

Anyway... massive tangent, but my point was: too much caster is a bad thing. The internet, as always, is full of questionable data... so don't take my word for it - just as I doubted the IndyCar chassis designer, I tested this myself, and measured the weight jacking effect. It was eye opening and he was right. You can measure how much ride height change happens side to side with caster... go turn the steering wheel full lock and check your inside and outside front ride heights. They can be as much as 3" of ride height jacking, side to side during a lock to lock steering sweep, with that much caster. This is bad. This makes the front induce lean in the suspension geometry.

Anyway... if yall were joking about those numbers, and this is old hat, just ignore my post. We make camber/caster plates and have tested more alignment specs on track, in autocrossing, and more - probably more than you would ever want to see in 25 lifetimes. My advice is: If you can get your S197 to +6° caster, that's enough - leave it there and then work on getting to the ideal negative camber for track use, which is usually more than you think you need. This "lower" caster setting recommendation gives you the most negative camber travel (due to the round strut tower hole), which is what is really important in the S197 chassis.

Our Vorshlag plates always get set at the LEAST caster setting, as shown above

We make our camber plates with added caster adjustments because, well, because people demand it. Doesn't mean you should use more than the "centered" or "least caster" position on our plates. That's all we EVER use in our cars. And, well... we have a very good handling Mustang. We set two more track records yesterday, for a total of 6 records in this car below so far this year.

Again, you can use whatever caster settings you want, but if you are going to go far outside of recommended ranges, as given by suspension designers and/or people racing and winning in the same car you have, please... test test test.

edit: wow, on reading that post I sound like I think I am a know-it-all. I'm really not, just sharing what I know and what we've found to work best. YRMV

Cheers,

 

[DocB]

Terry,

The FR500S came with a recommended starting point of 7.5 caster and 2.5 camber.
In regards to your last post, and from your experience, could you please comment on these settings for an all out dedicated track car like the FR.
Weight jacking vs turn-in vs .....
I only ask because you seem to favor a little less caster.

Thanks.

 

[2008 V6]

You guys.... you're joking, right? Honestly, it is hard to read humor or sarcasm in posts sometimes. But really, those +10.5° caster numbers are pretty extreme. The amount of weight jacking you'll see at those wild caster settings is off the charts.
---------

Terry - you are 100% correct - The smile face didn't load & I didn't check my post.


------
I wasn’t trying to be rude in my response but people do things with out checking to see what really happens. I personally am in a never-ending learning curve.

Weight jacking will happen but it does depend on just what you are trying to accomplish.

Caster does not only help straight line stability but will lay the tire down (Negative camber). For our type of driving - 7 degrees seems to be in the ball park but I don’t have enough testing in my vehicle to gve a definite. I’ve only tried 6 to 7.2 No more adjustment with out parts changing or major modifications. To get it down to 6.0, I swapped in a loaner cross member. 7 degrees works quite a bit better than 6. 0 - I was limited on camber.
I would also like to play with more caster – camber Definitely now I should be able -

I have one friend running 11 degrees caster in their S197 but they spend all of their time sideways at 70 – 100 + MPH. They do some funky sht to keep their car going straight when at 80+ degrees sideway spinning tires. How about toe in instead of negative camber in on a rear straight axle. (Quick change rear end) All Not pertinent to what we are trying to do though.

My current track set up is Caster 7.2 & 7.3 - 0 toe & 2.4 degrees camber. I would prefer a slight toe out but the driver doesn’t like the slight wandering under hard braking & the car has flexy bushings stile & a 40 sidewall tire. We have also had ABS problems -No one could figure out – Several people, way smarter than I will ever be, looked at it over the last year – no clue as to the problem. I think we solved it this weekend. We were limited to 2.4 negative Camber only. Won’t know until we track it sometime mid July – if I can make the time.
9.5” rim running a 10.2” tread width 40 series AD08 tire – very easy to read & drive but because of the tall sidewall, turn is was a tad slower.

Running a business, the track time you invest in & basic life, I stile can’t comprehend how you find the time to post the info you do. I’ve had this screen on for over 4.5 + hours & am just now able to find the time to reply. I wish I could make more time to read & learn from others hard earned knowledge.

 

[Vorshlag-Fair]

Terry - you are 100% correct - The smile face didn't load & I didn't check my post.

Whew.... ok, you were joking, so sorry for the rant.

My current track set up is Caster 7.2 & 7.3 - 0 toe & 2.4 degrees camber. I would prefer a slight toe out but the driver doesn’t like the slight wandering under hard braking & the car has flexy bushings stile & a 40 sidewall tire. We have also had ABS problems -No one could figure out – Several people, way smarter than I will ever be, looked at it over the last year – no clue as to the problem. I think we solved it this weekend. We were limited to 2.4 negative Camber only. Won’t know until we track it sometime mid July – if I can make the time.
9.5” rim running a 10.2” tread width 40 series AD08 tire – very easy to read & drive but because of the tall sidewall, turn is was a tad slower.

Hmm, yea, ABS problems can drive you nuts. What make/model/year car was this... a late model S197? We ran into some "ice mode" ABS issues on our car, which we traced back to the traction control/EPAS steering/ABS issues on our '11 GT encountered after we installed some poly bushings up front, until we installed this...

The factory front LCA bushings are MASSIVE rubber and hydraulic fluid filled marshmallows about the size of a 12 oz beer can. They flop around and allow all sorts of unwanted movement and geometry changes. Getting those replaced with a poly bushing made tremendous improvement in toe control under braking and camber loss during cornering. Have somebody back up your S197 in a parking lot then stab the brakes, while you watch the wheel from nearby... the wheel movement you will see relative to the chassis, even at ~5 mph speeds, is astounding! Now throw in race tires race brake pads, and braking forces exceeding 1.2g on a race track. Fugly.

But the bushing upgrade caused the stock EPAS steering rack to go ape sh!t crazy... so we had to go with the Ford Racing rack ($900) to fix that. Sometimes one fix causes other issues. But the LCA bushings are a MUST DO mod for anyone tracking or autocrossing that wants to be competitive.

Running a business, the track time you invest in & basic life, I stile can’t comprehend how you find the time to post the info you do. I’ve had this screen on for over 4.5 + hours & am just now able to find the time to reply. I wish I could make more time to read & learn from others hard earned knowledge.

Yea, and you're only seeing what I post on this forum. There's another dozen or so forums I monitor and post on weekly, and another 6-8 project build threads I keep up with on 4-6 forums each. JasonM reads and posts on more forums than I do, for Vorshlag. Plus we do lots of other things to develop new parts, manufacture our parts, market and sell our goodies... we stay busy.

I also attend/compete/instruct/help customers at 30+ race weekends a year, which eats up a lot of time (I'm still recovering from the 20 hours of towing and 2 days of racing in 95°F heat, from an "eventful" NASA event last weekend). It helps to start the day early and end it late. And I have a wife that loves racing as much as I do, and a dedicated staff of employees that are as passionate and hard working as I am - who take up the slack when I'm writing on the forums, away at races, etc.

Terry,

The FR500S came with a recommended starting point of 7.5 caster and 2.5 camber.
In regards to your last post, and from your experience, could you please comment on these settings for an all out dedicated track car like the FR.
Weight jacking vs turn-in vs .....
I only ask because you seem to favor a little less caster.

Thanks.

Well... actually, that was a great handling package, for sure. Again, I used to recommend up to +8 degrees on BMWs (which often come with +7 from the factory), and it wasn't terrible... I just think anything more than 7 is starting to slip past the "point of diminishing returns". Again, I was "re-educated" by someone more knowledgeable than me (who wrote this awesome book that all racers should read!) who clued me into the ideal +6-7° range that works well in most cases. Sure enough, that's what our testing has showed us as well. 7.5 is close enough that I wouldn't worry about it.... but if that caster setting is keeping your car from running more negative camber, I'd trade the extra caster for more camber.

And yes, a drift car uses a crazy amounts of caster, but they are doing some crazy things... that, respectfully, have very little to do with racing. They have lots of car control, for sure, but those cars don't exhibit what many would call "proper handling", heh.


Cheers,

 

[csamsh]

Does this exist?

 

[Sky Render]

Does this exist?

No, it's only a figment of your imagination.

http://www.jpcracing.com/boss-302r-electric-steering-rack-2011-2013-mustang-gt/



While I agree that the front control arm bushings leave a lot to be desired, installing that steering rack would add about $1,500-2000 (including labor) to the cost of a front bushing upgrade.

 

[csamsh]

No, it's only a figment of your imagination.

http://www.jpcracing.com/boss-302r-electric-steering-rack-2011-2013-mustang-gt/



While I agree that the front control arm bushings leave a lot to be desired, installing that steering rack would add about $1,500-2000 (including labor) to the cost of a front bushing upgrade.

They obviously exist...finding them is another story entirely, or at least it apparently was a year or so ago.

 

[Department Of Boost]

You guys.... you're joking, right? Honestly, it is hard to read humor or sarcasm in posts sometimes. But really, those +10.5° caster numbers are pretty extreme. The amount of weight jacking you'll see at those wild caster settings is off the charts.

As with anything, "too much can be a bad thing". There is a point of diminishing returns on caster, as there is with any setting. We've done a lot of testing on a lot of cars and a good rule of thumb is 6 to 7 deg of positive caster is about all you want. A leading IndyCar designer clued me in a few years back that this number works on a lot of different cars and suspension types, too. Any lower and you don't have a good dynamic camber gain. And more and you get too much and also massive weight jacking across the front axle the more you turn the wheel.


I used to go as high as +7 or even +8 deg caster but beyond that weird things happened, and even that was compromised. About 2 years ago we built a car that was for a magazine shootout (Grassroots Motorsports $200X Challenge), which has a $2K budget and encourages weird swaps, handmade custom parts, and lots of second hand things). We started with a $500 BMW E30 and swapped in an LSx V8 from a truck, then built the car around some $200 circle track 15x10" wheels, which used a GM 5-bolt pattern. Anyway, to get rid of BMW 4-lug hubs and crappy front struts we went with the front suspension from an E36 BMW. "It all bolts in" they said on the internets. Wrong. It made for a staggering +15° of caster when we put the "recommended" parts together. We spent weeks chasing down alternate BMW lower control arms, spindles, making massive strut tower mods, custom camber plates and lots of mock-ups.... all with used/cheap/free parts to stay within budget. With a lot of custom work (which we perfected the next year for the $2011 Challenge) we got the caster down to +6°, and the car was much easier to drive. And we won the entire event almost solely based on our dominant autocross times.


Left: Perfecting the set-up at a private test day a week before the $2011 event. Right: Our car was fastest in the autocross at the $2011 Challenge

In the end we cut up the strut towers and made a custom camber plate to LOSE as much positive caster as we could. It handled like a piece of dung at +!2 deg when we did an early test, but after we got it down to +6 deg caster and the car handled like a dream, and was even a road course terror. Can you imagine getting passed in your TTA Corvette by a $2000 sh!tcan like this? This car bruised some egos, heh.


Testing the car at a NASA TT event, getting stuck in TTU class due to the low weight and high power this crapcan made - on the cheap!

We later cleaned up the car a bit, put some nicer struts/wheels/motor in the car and sold this $2011 car as a track beast for $18,000, which was a record for any GRM Challenge winner. The car made it on the cover of GRM and was featured in several articles, too.



Anyway... massive tangent, but my point was: too much caster is a bad thing. The internet, as always, is full of questionable data... so don't take my word for it - just as I doubted the IndyCar chassis designer, I tested this myself, and measured the weight jacking effect. It was eye opening and he was right. You can measure how much ride height change happens side to side with caster... go turn the steering wheel full lock and check your inside and outside front ride heights. They can be as much as 3" of ride height jacking, side to side during a lock to lock steering sweep, with that much caster. This is bad. This makes the front induce lean in the suspension geometry.

Anyway... if yall were joking about those numbers, and this is old hat, just ignore my post. We make camber/caster plates and have tested more alignment specs on track, in autocrossing, and more - probably more than you would ever want to see in 25 lifetimes. My advice is: If you can get your S197 to +6° caster, that's enough - leave it there and then work on getting to the ideal negative camber for track use, which is usually more than you think you need. This "lower" caster setting recommendation gives you the most negative camber travel (due to the round strut tower hole), which is what is really important in the S197 chassis.


Our Vorshlag plates always get set at the LEAST caster setting, as shown above

We make our camber plates with added caster adjustments because, well, because people demand it. Doesn't mean you should use more than the "centered" or "least caster" position on our plates. That's all we EVER use in our cars. And, well... we have a very good handling Mustang. We set two more track records yesterday, for a total of 6 records in this car below so far this year.



Again, you can use whatever caster settings you want, but if you are going to go far outside of recommended ranges, as given by suspension designers and/or people racing and winning in the same car you have, please... test test test.

edit: wow, on reading that post I sound like I think I am a know-it-all. I'm really not, just sharing what I know and what we've found to work best. YRMV

Cheers,

Wow, I made a perfect storm by accident, LOL! I don't know what I was thinking (or not thinking), I'm only running somewhere in the 7deg range of caster. I can't remember exactly what it is. I just maxed out what I had for adjustment then evened the two sides up.

I don't know how you would get 7+deg without some serious mods.

I didn't know that was your guys $20XX car. I read GRM and remember that car. Some day I would like to build a $20XX Challenge Car. I would also love to do a LeMons/Crapcan race too!