Allignment settings (definitive thread)

[Weapon X]

Hey, I was just wondering what kind of allignment settings you use on your car for drift/auto x/touge/etc. I want to make this thread as definitive as possible so please post your car, suspension mods, settings...and what kind of tires you're running. I'll post my settings later, just want to see if this thread gets a buzz at all.

[driftfreak]

I got a good write up on that, on my site...
http://www.speed-tribe.net/pages/suspension.htm
but anyway i run about 2.5deg nag camber..im farting around with diffrent toe setting this weekend..but now im at half a degree of toe out front
and no toe at all in the rear...

Im running junk tires all around i think right now there 215/40/16 but i got sevral rims to play with that are diffrent sizes..

my next suspension upgrade(after i fix a few things) is to get 25MM spacers up front and over finders...

this is all for touge/drift

[Weapon X]

Thanks alot man, nice writeup btw.

[Weapon X]

bump....

[driftfreak]

Dont count on to many people posting here... as it seems to me not to many people know about suspension...even the basics...there all about bolt on and go...

[_uG TM]

I do my alignments at school. I put what I want in at factory spec, then I will add - camber to a hundreth of a degree. Make sure everything is in good condition especally the tie rods. Broke 2, second one just recently this year .

Toe I keep in spec, just so Im not always wearing out my tires.. Camber doesnt wear out your tires as much as toe does.

Usually I will overcompensate when adjusting these on the alignment rack so everything will settle in the correct specs.. usually hundreths over or under depending on what I am adjusting.

Next week I will be putting my car back on the rack, because I broke my second tie rod, putting on gymkhana springs, and new shocks. I might overhaul my rack and pinion for manual steering and take out all of the power steering as well. like the pistons, plug the p.s. holes, and grease the pinion. I will get a full print out of my specs, what I have replaced and such.

[Weapon X]

Originally posted by driftfreak
Dont count on to many people posting here... as it seems to me not to many people know about suspension...even the basics...there all about bolt on and go...

That's pretty ironic for a drifting forum.

[driftfreak]

Originally posted by Weapon X
That's pretty ironic for a drifting forum.

True that...and i hope it changes...

[miata619drifter]

crap....i just posted an alignment settings question in the Drifting section.

i guess i'm getting my answers here.

funny strongbad pic btw

[Ada180sx]

First of all I have a JDM S13.

My susp mods are as follows:

Racing Gear JTC'N1 dampers
Yashio Factory Pillowball Tension Rods
Section Pillowball Rear Upper arms
Section Pillowball Toe Control Arms
Uras Urathane Subframe Spacers
Urathane Sway bar bushings
R32 GT-R rear Sway bar

And you can't really talk about susp w/o talking about chassis rigidity so:

Front/Rear Cusco Strut Tower Bars
Safety 21 9pt Roll cage
Trunk Bar
And soon to be added Pillar bar

Power also comes into play here so:
aprox: 350whp and 348ft/lbs torque

Now to the alignment settings:

Front: 2.5deg camber 0 toe 7 deg caster
rear: 2.5deg camber 0 toe (no caster adjustment in the rear)


If you are a person who doesn't have this kinda power or these susp mods you can use less rear camber, say 1deg or 1.5, and a little bit of toe out in the back, try about .5mm and work out from there. I would say no more than 1.5mm though because you are gonna go through tires so fast. Even if you don't have the rear arms get the pillow tension rods and save yourself many headaches.

[banged240_drift]

im getting adjustable tension rods here in like a week

so heres a few q's of my own
different degrees of toe are used to make it under or over steer right?

what is caster?

cani even adjust caster with the tension rods?

[MrodDrft]

i think caster is the angle of the shocks or coilovers, is that even remotely correct ?

[driftfreak]

yes toe can be used for adjusting the cornering..i have a little write up about alignments on my web page...
simply toe in=more stable toe out=better turn in...more toe=more tire wear..

Caster is the angle of the axis that the wheel/tire moves on while turning the stearing wheel...that very well could be the angel of the shot/strut/coilover unit..

[Menchi]

how about tire pressure? everyone here should at least be able to answer that, I run about ten over and I hear that SCCA racers somtimes go 15 over spec psi. overpressurizing eliminates tire roll but I hear makes drifting more difficult.

[Menchi]

most cars are stock toe-in to create a slight pressure between them, this gives'em steadier tracking and prevents bump steer. but when a car with a toe-in setup takes a corner the outside tires take on more than half the load. the imbalence with the inner tires creats a slight understeer into turns, (just another way manufacturers have made cars handle worse thoughout the years) and excessive toe-in will also wear your tires pretty badly. I don't tune my toe angel because I'm poor and can't afford to but if I could afford it, my tuning would definitly depend on the car I was driving. but for everone here who drives an S13 which tend to understeer but I don't need to tell you that, I would probably toe out a bit if the car wasn't my daily driver also. I would like to hear what some touge racers run because most of the touge runs are in pretty bad shape where I love and bump steer would be a big problem, it is even on the flat land here, so I would imagine that they run the stock toe angle.