Alignment settings for street/track use
 

For all you guys getting on the track with your RX8... What are your alignment settings? Please indicate if you do roadcourse or autocross. I don't know how significantly different those settings should be. I use my RX8 as a daily driver and plan on doing the occasional track day. My settings are as follows with me in the car:

Front Camber -0.7 Left, -0.7 Right
Front Caster 6.7 Left, 7.2 Right
Front Toe 0.09 Left, 0.09 Right
Front Cross Camber 0.0
Front Cross Caster -0.5
Front Total Toe 0.18

Rear Camber -1.4 Left, -1.4 Right
Rear Toe 0.13 Left, 0.12 Right
Rear Total Toe 0.25
Thrust angle 0.01

those are good conservative settings i think. for track use id use a little toe out in front (like -.125 to -.25 total) plus less rear toe-in (like .125 or even try 0) as much front negative camber as you can get (even if it means less caster). tire temps will be the best judge though on camber. if it is a left turning track, for example, then you can bias the camber a little for more right side camber.

james

Hey, have you tried using the search function? This is one of those questions that has lots of answers if you care to look.
________
Oral sex

Annie and I ended up at -0.9 up front with 0 toe and -0.7 in the rear also with 0 toe.

This was not what we wanted as we had heard that -1.5 up front was possible, but -0.9 was all we could get. To help the car rotate, we therefore lessened the amount of rear camber that we could get and didn't bother with putting any toe-in in the back. At the first autocross we did, it seemed to work okay with the 275/35/18 Hoosiers we were running. It did push a fair amount in the slow stuff, but that was overcome by just slowing down more. In the fast stuff, it worked pretty well, though a bit boaty (needs better shocks....)

Ron

There is indeed a bunch of info however there is no thread that allows users to list their specs and compare notes. If you see one, post a link please. Some have their settings in their garage like Dark8 and AlexCisneros. If anyone else has theirs listed please reply here.

I'm running -1.4 (max I could get) camber and 7.3 caster on both sides of the front. -1 camber on the rear, 0 toe all around. It's a little loose and I will add another -.5 rear camber on the next alignment and see if that tightens things up. The car takes on a good 4 wheel drift around fast sweepers. :D

I'm also lowered about .75 inches if that has any effect on how much camber you can get. I also used a floor jack to lift on the wheels when I tightend things up after installing the coilovers.

So does anyone know what is the factory specification on alignment for our car??

Here are pics of the shop manual for the front and rear settings for the sports suspension:

I'm sorry but I'm a little confused.

Is the one on the left for the standard suspension setup while the smaller print on the right is for the sport suspension set?

And there is no difference between front and rear??

As for the camber setting, how come there are a whole set of numbers?

Left column is factory acceptable variation. Far right column is the setting. Second column from right is your vehicles ride height measured from the center of the wheel straight up to the edge of the fender. So, determin your ride height and use the numbers to the right to determine the factory setting. Hope that makes sense.

>Left column is factory acceptable variation................
That I understand. But what I'm saying is there are really two tables of settings. The table on the left is for the regular suspension while the table on the right is for the sport suspension.

Since I've the sport package, I'll only follow the settings on the right table. But what seems to be missing is the Caster settings. Should I use the same one as in the table to the left which is for the regular suspension? And what about the different settings for the front versus the rear? Are these numbers applicable for both front and rear wheels??

Sorry, my bad. Here are the sport suspension tables:

That looks much better ;-) Btw, I realize there is no caster settings for the rear, should I use the one on the front too?

One observation, in general the rear has a more pronunced -ve camber than the front according to the specification. But my impression is that most people will have a more -ve camber on the front instead when they try to set the 8 up for track use! Am I missing something or am I totally off the mark?!

"Btw, I realize there is no caster settings for the rear, should I use the one on the front too?" Not sure what you mean. If you are wanting a caster setting for the rear, there isn't caster adjustments for the rear.

I was running -1.4 front and -1 rear and the rear is just little too tail happy. :) For next season I'm going to try -1.4 rear and see if that brings it back to neutral. Keep in mind that I'm setting it up for auto-x. I definately wouldn't want a tail happy car going around a 80 mph sweeper on a race track. A little understeer can be good.

My rear camber is at -1.4 so to get a bit better rotation do you think I should just get more front negative camber or go to rear toe of zero? I plan on dialing in more negative camber up front but don't want to go to extremes due to tire wear concerns.

i always set my camber by looking at tire temps. even if you want to use less camber, you could still use tire temps to determine how close the front versus rear camber settings are.

for maximum performance, you want the inside (inboard third) of the tire a little hotter than the outside. (this is because the inside will heat differentially during braking and straights)

james

What's the general consensus for the front and rear camber settings for both street and occasional track use? More -ve camber on the front than it would be on the rear??

Don't pay too much attention to my alignment settings, remember I run staggered :eek: . Also I am going to be putting more positive camber in the rear to lower the traction of the rear tires and get more rotation. I just haven't gotten around to it :D .

...unless of course Tanabe released their coil over system at SEMA ;)

Did the new 8's(not mine) alignment yesterday w/ about a 1/4 tank of fuel
It is a base with rear spoiler.
500 miles or something on the understeering pig.
Owner(110 lbs?) sat in the car while work was happening.
I sure do like seeing the "red zone" when working with the Hunter machine.
Kinda funny...
Stock wheels make it tough to get alignment rig set up on. We had to tape the frame of each sensor to avoid wheel scratches and could not get an exactly even hook up to the wheel but machine supposedly compensates for the runout.

Left front was the "least adjustable" and alignment was kinda based around that.
Right front has lots of adjustment possible.
Ended up with 1.0 neg with 6.7 caster both sides and .01 toe in a side.
Playing with caster adjustment did not really increase camber.
Car gains LOTS of camber as you turn the steering wheel. I mean up to almost 2 deg neg on outside wheel with just under 3/4 of a wheel turn.
It also gains a little camber as front suspension is compressed and also goes slight toe out.(should help turn in under braking if you choose to do that sort of thing).
Kinda cool that it does all those things. Ideal imo.
As the suspension is uncompressed(car lifted), Camber appeared to decrease ever so slightly(loses about .1 when strongly lifting the car) and toe seemed to just barely toe in.

Rear ended up with 1.4 neg a side and .02 toe in a side.
You can pretty much do/end up with whatever you want in the rear.
Lots of camber available and lots of toe to play with.
Toe adjuster is VERY sensitive to movement. A little twist of the adjuster translates into lots of toe change. Toe adjuster does not really mess with camber either.
Car should be VERY easy to change at track using rear toe as one way to do it.
Too much exit oversteer? just add some toe in at the rear.
Got that push that you hate? just take the rear toe in out of the car but beware of too much rear toe out at the track!
As the car squats on suspension in the rear, it gets a little more camber and slight toe in.
Good for us!
I forgot what is did when we lifted it...sorry.
These lift/pull down on the car does not take into effect bushing changes under power, braking or cornering but I was glad to see that all the math was going in the correct directions.

On a quick recon run, it appears that the "mid corner power on excessive push/understeer" is gone.
Owner should get at least 10 runs and I should get a few in this Sunday at a practice to see how fun/fast the car is.

Car owner prefers tail happy over push but would prefer tail happy/oversteer coming into corner to rotate then neutral mid corner even when accelerating slightly then maybe just a hair of push right at the end of the corner under full power.
We'll see..Kinda hard to do stuff on a completely stock car.
Shocks/maybe a bar(not for sure yet on that)/some 710's and an exhaust should help the zoom-zoom a little bit.
Our local buddie/rallyist builds high quality custom exhausts and car will be there TONIGHT.
I am trying to talk car owner into a on/off straight pipe right out the back but have not been successful...yet...
Car owner wants the exhaust to exit where it does now but that is the HEAVY way and has 2 extra 90 bends!)
I need to make sure that car does not use back pressure to control ports like the older 7's did. I think that it is all electronic now???


Stock tires are the SP sport 8090's and appear to have some good stick.
We see if I have the same opinion after running it at the autox course...
FM

Thanks for the writeup. Please follow up after your tests on a track or autocross. I am particularly interested in all the settings as I feel mine could use some minor tweaking to reduce corner exit power-on understeer.

Did you find any ride height differences on the car?

Any ideas how to fix a side to side ride height difference of a 1/4 inch?

Thanks.

We are starting at a baseline setup so that we can measure how much time each mod is worth on the autox course.
We can keep the board informed(unless we find the "special secret" that makes the car as fast as S-2000's!)
We were just "shooting in the dark" + a little bit of consultation with others with this first setup.

I did not measure ride height or measure corner weights.

Fixing things like what you describe above(ride height) is very possible but somewhat difficult to do if you want to stay legal in SCCA's solo2 Bstock class.
If you do not care about legality and want to do something about your ride height diffs, just shim the stock springs or perches.
The hard part is getting ahold of a corner weighting pads/box.
Most race shops can set u up but make extra sure that the floor where they are doing the setup is level or that they level the pads with a super long bubble or electronic level(or other means).
Be sure to ballast the seat etc. so that you are in a race ready condition.

I looked at your original post in this thread and if it was my car I would first take most of your front and rear toe in out and try to fix that left front caster so that it matches the right. Remember that more caster = more camber as you turn the steering wheel.

I really need to do some pyrometer testing to figure all the stuff out "for real" though on the 8.
I sold my good one too! UGH!

Good luck,
FM

110 lbs? Male or female? And what is the "red zone"?
________
Hot Box Vaporizers

It is a female.

Hunter machine screen flashes red when you take settings out of "factory" ranges.

I was not "thrilled" with setup this Sunday but not totally unhappy either
The car needs some rear toe-in.
I still do not think that the big front bar is the way to go either. I might be one of the few on that one though.
I would rather size bar for long corners/turnarounds and use the shocks to tune for slaloms.
That is just me though. AND some shocks ARE needed.
I have a set of D/A's from my TTRX and are going to look if they will fit/work.
Doubtful but worth taking a look at.
Car does brake nicely if you do not use antilock too much and seems to turn in for the first 2 transitions nicely but starts to oversteer/crab sideways a little too much in the rear when power hits at top rpms while turning.
Hopefully we will get it worked out.
FM

Of course fastmike was running on the stock tires in Shelbi's car..... ;-)

We meanwhile were on 275/35/18 Hoosier A3S04s (we'll get the Kumho 710s when they're out next year,) and have our Racing Beat front swaybar. Temps were in the low to mid 40's, so our poor tires were having a very hard time getting up to temp and staying there. :-(

The car worked very well with some minor push, but that had more to do with the surface than anything else, as we were turning on VHT at one point. The car was very predictable, and could be made to get some good rotation at the limits. The car does still exhibit some pretty strong push in real slow turns, but as I noted earlier, this can be overcome by slowing down more.

While I agree with FM that the car needs shocks, I whole-heartedly disagree with his idea of not changing the front sway bar. It tightened up the car a bunch and it still turns in very well. We'll ultimately get shocks and tune the slow speed understeer out of the car that way.

BTW, of our little practice, I took top Pax time against some good ES cars. It will be very interesting to compare the car to the 968 we're planning to run next year......

Ron

I rode w/ Shelbi on one of her runs, and the difference between front bar v. no front bar was pretty dramatic. I DEFINITELY would not take the bar off our car...

I would have to agree the difference between both cars was HUGE!
Mine was tail happy (needs more rear toe), on stock tires and no shocks (yet).
The difference in our driving styles is also very different.
Not sure when/if I will be doing anything to the car, but my first order of business would definately be to get good shocks and do a minor modification to the alignment.
The only similarity between the two cars was the amount of cones we hit and the dents we ended up with on the rt front under the door. :mad:

Shelbi

Cone dents?

Yup

Brand new cones + 40 degree weather = DENTS

Both of us hit far more cones on the passenger side. Both cars ended up with dents on the lower panel - Shelbi's is more under the leading edge of the door, mine is on the bottom part of the fender.

SUCKY!

:(

Shelbi, let me know if you figure out if your dent can be pulled out. I've got one name of a guy down closer to me, I may see if he's available to look at it over the long weekend.

Whew! There for a minute I had the image of you running over course workers!! :)

yeah, running over the course workers give you 4 sec penalties and dents ;)


...Luckily Miami doesn't see 40 degree weather. Our cones are soft and gooey :)

FM, might want to try 0 toe in the front :o

Zero is basically what we ended up with front and rear.
I did not like car's rear under full power while turning.
I need to add some rear toe.
I can do that without going back on the rack and setting everything up.
8 makes it easy to adjust rear toe.
I am going to add about an 1/8 inch in a side for a 1/4" total rear in.
FM

Street/Track Alignment settings
 

I am indeed bringing this topic from the "death" :)

I have searched but nothing is quite clear with this topic. At least I am not getting what I am looking for.

Now with ALL the experience some of the forum members have with alignment settings, what is a good compromise street/track wise?

I just installed my MS suspension that lowered the car by ~1" and I looking into getting this setting spot on. I am aware camber and toe perhaps changed due to lowering the car. Coming from a Miata with similar characterisitics, I am having a hard time finding these settings.

I am aware that there are definite setting for track, AX and street. However one that can be a good compromise is what I am looking for.

After installing the suspension, the car "hunts" the road and it easily follows any imperfections I encounter, making it very nervous. Needless to say, it's a bit harder to drive and I assume this is due to the Toe settings.

The car had the "factory specs" before.

Anyways thanks for your help.

Carlos

Max negative front camber, max caster after camber. Front toe zero. Rear camber -0.5 more negative than front camber. Rear toe either zero, or 1/8 in.

FWIW max front camber occurs at the minimum caster setting and I would do just the opposite on the rear camber, especially on a lowered stiffer suspension

What? My car started at -0.1 front camber and 5.6 degrees of caster. After alignment it got -1.1 degrees of camber (max possible on my car) and 6.2 degrees of caster. My car had about 0.2 degrees of toe out from the factory, on both sides, front and rear. Now the toe is zero front and rear.

With a lowered suspension, I would be concerned about loosing the rear end over bumps. That is the biggest problem on my Miata that is lowered about 1.75". So I would think that going with -1 (or -1.5 if you can get it) front camber, and -1.5 or -2 rear camber would be a good idea. If the springs are really really stiff, you could maybe deal with less rear camber. If its primarily an autox car, I would say set the rear camber equal to the front.

First, it's an RX-8, not a Miata, completely different car, suspension, and geometry.

Second, you're not hearing what I'm telling you. Maximum camber occurs at minimum caster. That doesn't mean there aren't inbetween settings. You only have 1.1 deg, I had 1.7 on the left and 2.2 on the right in a Stock class car i.e. no lowering which increases camber capability. So to simply tell someone "max camber" is like saying "somewhere wy over there" when giving directions. You're setting them up to end someplace different than you may have intended. If I had 2 deg in the front you're telling me to run 2.5 deg in the rear, which IMO is seriously f'd up.

ps: and why do you want the settings to be equal? Do you want to have slower cornering speed in both directions???

I usually set the front camber 0.5 degrees less than the rears with the maximum caster.. So it should be about -1 F/ -1.5 R and around >5 caster...

This will give me a good compromise between Street and Track...

However what I am having a hard time is TOE settings since this needs to be adjusted so the car is less nervous in the road. As I said it picks up every imperfection and it follows it...

What should my Toe setting be? In? Out? F? R?

TIA<
Carlos

Toe is more important in the rear than the front. Rear toe-in will increase straight-line stability. Police crusiers are often set up with a significant amount of rear toe-in to make them more stable at high-speeds. Rear toe-out will make the car rotate easier. Front toe-in will increase understeer at corner entry, but it will make the car's steering more stable, as will increasing caster. Front toe-out will increase steering response, but will tend to follow ruts and such in the road at speed.

Remember that your alignment can change over time, and any shop should tell you the before and after specs so you can see how your car is wearing. They should also weight the car to your typical load (probably just your weight on the driver's side) before aligning it. I would suggest checking your toe on an alignment rack first, as it is probably toed out. If so, try zero front and rear. If its already zero, try adding a little rear toe-in first, then try adding front toe-in. The rear toe generally has more of an effect on the car's handling than the front.

Fair enough, but since we're talking about instability in lowered, rwd, a-arm front, independent rear suspension, coil-over-shock cars, its still relevant.

I said max because every car is different. Mine can ONLY get 1.1 degrees of negative camber in front. There is no more to be had. Which is why I don't understand why you say that the max camber occurs at minimum caster. Anyway, I think we can agree that the RX-8 wants as much front camber as possible to get and still keep the left and right sides the same. That's -1.1 in my case, but other cars like yours can get more.

The typical RWD alignment has more negative camber in the rear to keep the back end in check. Giving up camber on one end is usually to change the handling of a car by giving up grip on the end that's not slipping to balance the car. More negative camber equals better cornering. Too much negative camber is bad for putting power down and for braking. The rear suspension is designed to get much more negative camber than the front: the engineers did that for a reason.

I was giving advice for a STREET car that is also autox/tracked. I think the rule for these cars of max front, 0.5 more negative in rear is a good, fairly aggressive alignment. Unless you are using very stiff springs or the car is lowed a lot, the front end of the car is camber-challenged and can use all the negative camber it can get.

If you are talking about setting the left and right sides equal to each other on an end, well again, we're talking about a street car. Setting each side to a different value will upset the straight-line stability of the suspension. For autox-only, I would agree that maxing out the front camber on each side is a good idea, since stability is usually a moot point in autox.

Getting rid of camber in the rear to make it break loose at the same time as the front doesn't fix the fact that the front is still breaking loose. But maybe I don't understand what you're trying to say. What alignment would you suggest for this guy?

ok, believe whatver you want

TeamRX8: You still never said what alignment specs you would go with. :nono: :)

Thanks this is indeed very helpful for getting a bit of understanding on this. The lates Miata and RX8 share teh same chassis and even some suspension if I am not mistaken.

In the Miata.net site, for the new car MX5, they even suggest going with the same setup as others have for Street/Track cars with a good compromise. This is well documented and proven.

I am going with -1F/-1.5R, Max Caster ~ 5, and Toe In. This will be a decent compromise w/o destroying my tires during commute. :)

Of course I am still waiting for what TeamRX8 will recommend... :) :)

Carlos

I'm still curious how you guys plan to get max caster AND max camber on the RX-8.

As long as you keep the toe at zero you can run a lot of camber without destroying your tires.

Ok guys here are my secret settings for my suspenion--what do yall think? These are track settings not autocross
1- camber -1.4 F and -1.9R
2- cross camber 0
3- caster 6.6
4- cross caster 0.2
5- toe(front) 0.05 r&l--total toe 0.10
6-rear toe 0.09 r&l --total toe 0.18
8- thrust angle 0.01
Car drives tight--a little squirrley on the street--drive with 2 hands on the wheel. turn in is great --middle turn is solid and the tail is planted. Still has a little power understeer but I figue my R compunds will help some with that. with a 35 offset wheel i also have an increase in my wheel track of about 3/4 of an inch. every little bit helps. the rear toe in really makes for high speed stability(in the esses you really feel it) I had very even tire wear at Roebling.
what do yall think?
Olddragger

Carlos,

I don't think the MX-5 can compare with the RX-8 since they are different in weight. From an exp MX-5 driver, they don't need a lot of negative camber but just a nice toe

Tell you what I have. Don't have much tyre wear so far :fingersx:

Front camber L) -2"08' R) - 1"54' (NOTE: 60' = 1") ;)
Front Toe L) 0.00m R) -0.10m (ie. Zero front toe).

Rear camber L) -1"35' R) -1"36'
Rear Toe L) +2.40m R) +2.30m (ie Rear toe in).

so I tell people as, "2 degree camber front and 1 and a half rear. Zero toe @ the front and toe in @ the rear."

BTW = do not get too much camber at the back - it is pointless, wear out the inside and get understeer. For me (it is personal choice), is to have a slight oversteer when turn in and use my right foot to control (*either brake or accelerator). Zero toe front is good for track with long striaght but twisty track and auto-x (with cones and stuff) better to have the front toe out.

I can show you this video . Note the video is in DivX format. (www.divX.com). Adrian in Melbourne, Australia done car from nanny to Porsche Carrera cup racer.

I turn my DSC off when tracking. I actually try toe zero and toe out (but only on the front). I never thought of trying toe zero at the rear. Judging the tyre wear and photo taken my photographers. I do need more camber than 1.5 at the rear. But perheps just slightly more (say 1"45' and definitely not near 2). I have been loving the toe out since it is so progressive underpower. I am a slow in fast out driver and I power out sometimes before mid corner. I trailed break when I push my car and I fear if I zero the rear toe I would have less directional grip.

But that is something to keep in mind and speak to Adrian about it next time I go.

OD I concur with what your experienced.

Trust me Power Understeer will not cured by R Compound tyre - been there, done that. When you are too fast into a corner. You are always too fast :lol:

1.9 at the rear is very nice. I think I need around 1.6 or 1.7. Toe zero will make the car wonder on the road but it is ok on the track??

Last time I had power understeer, which is just 2 weeks ago on the track, I took advice from everywhere but I event found something works for me:

1. Lower the tyre pressure (I end up having 34psi front and 36psi rear when the tyres are hot).
2. Stiffen the damper in the front of my Tein Flex (I have setting of front 1 and rear 4. NB - 0 is the hardest).
3. The zero camber front does not work well when the car understeers.

4. The last thing I need is to slow down and power early :D:

I think there must be a setting for the radials (like the Michellin PS2) and the R Compound tyres -... the grip is SOOOOO different and it is justified to have a seperate settings.

When you are comfortable with one setting and it works for your driving style. It does not matter what other people think. Experiment all options and find one that you feel comfortable with.

I will get slightly more camber at the rear.

more camber on the rear is a safty issue, :nono: not the fastest way going around the track. most alignment shop will give you more camber or toe in so you will not oversteer or crash your ride and give them a bad name. :spank:

I increased the rear camber from -1.5 degree to -1.75 degree.

It is much nice under turn and certainly much safer on the wet track. The tyre wear is bang on target for the track too.

I found -2.25 maybe a bit too much. I will be happier with -2 in the front.

Keep searching the best combo for my new fav track :p

So I am having some problems with my alignment. After I put on my new wheels the handling has been worse. The back wheels rub and they shouldnt. 18x9.5 +40 with tein coilovers. I took it to firestone today and told them I wanted 1.4 camber on front and 1.8-2.0 on the back. They told me that the most they could get it was .8-1.0 in the front and in the back they got it to -1.4 on left rear and -.9 on right rear. He said I need to buy something so that I can achieve that. I dont know what it was, i didnt pay attention because I know I dont need to. Everyone else with the same wheel size isnt having problems so it is the alignment that is wrong. Any advice would be very helpful asap, thanks, Dave

Best advice is take it somewhere else. Find out where racers or autocrossers go and take it there. Make sure your alignment is done with you in the drivers seat.

My alignment specs are here.