Hello All,
I am taking my roadster in for a front-end alignment next week and want to see what the concensus is on setup. The specs that I got out of my manual (Chilton) is
Caster 1 30'
Camber 1 25'
toe-in .08 - .12
Kingpin Inclination 6 35'
Wheel Pivot ratio Inner: 36 16'
Outer: 29 20'
A friend of mine commented that I may want a more "aggressive" (negative camber) setup since I drive pretty low milage and to quote him "the tires will dry-rot before you get your wear out of them"
Any thoghts on this?
Tom
Front End Alignment
Moderators: notoptoy, S Allen, Solex68
-
rossto1965
Here is the information that I got from my "other" source
>
> Hi Tom,
>
> In the interest of passing on the wisdom, here is what
> I got from Gordon Glasgow, cut and pasted from his
> note. I had the shop use these numbers and have been
> happy with the results.
>
> Gordon Glasgow wrote:
>
> For spirited street driving, try:
>
> 1 degree negative camber
> 2 to 3 degrees positive caster
> 1/16 to 1/8" toe-in.
>
> Good luck Tom!
>
>
> Hi Tom,
>
> In the interest of passing on the wisdom, here is what
> I got from Gordon Glasgow, cut and pasted from his
> note. I had the shop use these numbers and have been
> happy with the results.
>
> Gordon Glasgow wrote:
>
> For spirited street driving, try:
>
> 1 degree negative camber
> 2 to 3 degrees positive caster
> 1/16 to 1/8" toe-in.
>
> Good luck Tom!
>
-
hport
- Roadster Fanatic
- Posts: 91
- Joined: Sun Aug 15, 2004 7:54 pm
- Location: Finger Lakes, New York
Tom,
The specs from Gordon's site sound good.
I have setup many different high performance cars using almost those same numbers. The Caster ( + 2 to 3 degrees) is very important to get good return to center with little effort, our cars don't have power assist steering. The Camber ( - 1.0 to 2.0 degrees) will give you good centered steering on straights and add to the overall handling of the car. If you build in a .3 cross camber, with the left side being more positive, you can compensate for road crown. The Toe-in of ( + .05 to .20 degrees) will give you excellent directional control. Make sure the alignment is done as a 4 wheel alignment. The rear is non-adjustable, but needs to be checked and the front should be aligned to the rear for a perfect alignment.
The only tire wear item is Camber using these numbers. The cars don't weigh very much and depending on your style of driving, they shouldn't wear tires out any faster then factory specs.
Remember, the factory tires were 1/2 the width of the 195 / 205 that you can run today. So the the specs needed to change to reflect the geometery change caused by the tire size.
Enjoy,
JC
The specs from Gordon's site sound good.
I have setup many different high performance cars using almost those same numbers. The Caster ( + 2 to 3 degrees) is very important to get good return to center with little effort, our cars don't have power assist steering. The Camber ( - 1.0 to 2.0 degrees) will give you good centered steering on straights and add to the overall handling of the car. If you build in a .3 cross camber, with the left side being more positive, you can compensate for road crown. The Toe-in of ( + .05 to .20 degrees) will give you excellent directional control. Make sure the alignment is done as a 4 wheel alignment. The rear is non-adjustable, but needs to be checked and the front should be aligned to the rear for a perfect alignment.
The only tire wear item is Camber using these numbers. The cars don't weigh very much and depending on your style of driving, they shouldn't wear tires out any faster then factory specs.
Remember, the factory tires were 1/2 the width of the 195 / 205 that you can run today. So the the specs needed to change to reflect the geometery change caused by the tire size.
Enjoy,
JC
68 2000 solex