Who has tried a custom alignment

[oversteerdawg]

I'm getting my car aligned and I was thinking of straying from Porsche's specs. Fisrt of all, am I reading it correctly that the factory spec for the front axle actually has 5 minutes of POSITIVE camber? I was thinking of going to about a degree negative (providing I can get there on the stock suspension adjustment) with minimal toe-in.

Also, I noticed the toe settings fr and rr are 5 (plus or minus 5) minutes of toe-in. Does this mean it's safe to run nearly zero toe all around? I'm trying to reduce low speed understeer a bit w/o making the car too twitchy or killing my tires.

Long story short, has anyone tried a degree of negative camber up front, stockish rear camber and minimal toe-in all around?

[John V]

I'm getting my car aligned and I was thinking of straying from Porsche's specs. Fisrt of all, am I reading it correctly that the factory spec for the front axle actually has 5 minutes of POSITIVE camber? I was thinking of going to about a degree negative (providing I can get there on the stock suspension adjustment) with minimal toe-in.

Also, I noticed the toe settings fr and rr are 5 (plus or minus 5) minutes of toe-in. Does this mean it's safe to run nearly zero toe all around? I'm trying to reduce low speed understeer a bit w/o making the car too twitchy or killing my tires.

Long story short, has anyone tried a degree of negative camber up front, stockish rear camber and minimal toe-in all around?

Sure, lots of people.

The first thing I did when I picked up my '00 S was set the front camber to max negative (about -.5 degrees, not much) and reset the front toe to zero.

A friend with an '03 S did the same thing, yet his handles much differently. More push on turn-in than mine, even with the larger (Stock) rear swaybar installed on the '03+ cars. I believe this is because my car has less rear camber and toe than his car does.

As soon as the weather warms up and I can install my US 030 suspension, I'll get the car realigned. The plan is to start with zero front toe and maximum front camber. The rear will start with minimum rear camber and zero toe as well, but I'll dial in camber as needed to keep the back end in line. This is for an autocross car with 245 front and 285 rear tires.

Hope this helps.

[oversteerdawg]

I'm getting my car aligned and I was thinking of straying from Porsche's specs. Fisrt of all, am I reading it correctly that the factory spec for the front axle actually has 5 minutes of POSITIVE camber? I was thinking of going to about a degree negative (providing I can get there on the stock suspension adjustment) with minimal toe-in.

Also, I noticed the toe settings fr and rr are 5 (plus or minus 5) minutes of toe-in. Does this mean it's safe to run nearly zero toe all around? I'm trying to reduce low speed understeer a bit w/o making the car too twitchy or killing my tires.

Long story short, has anyone tried a degree of negative camber up front, stockish rear camber and minimal toe-in all around?

Sure, lots of people.

The first thing I did when I picked up my '00 S was set the front camber to max negative (about -.5 degrees, not much) and reset the front toe to zero.

A friend with an '03 S did the same thing, yet his handles much differently. More push on turn-in than mine, even with the larger (Stock) rear swaybar installed on the '03+ cars. I believe this is because my car has less rear camber and toe than his car does.

As soon as the weather warms up and I can install my US 030 suspension, I'll get the car realigned. The plan is to start with zero front toe and maximum front camber. The rear will start with minimum rear camber and zero toe as well, but I'll dial in camber as needed to keep the back end in line. This is for an autocross car with 245 front and 285 rear tires.

Hope this helps.

I didn't realize camber adjustment was so limited (then again, strut suspension). I'm going to max negative camber up front and the tiniest amount of front toe-in. My experience has been that going to a tiny bit of toe-in will compensate for bushing flex and will toe-out to zero once the car is moving.

What toe and camber settings are you running in the back? I'm thinking of going to zero (as it looks like zero rear toe is w/in spec). Has anyone done that? Is it twitchy, or is the toe curve on the rear suspension aggressive enough to compensate for it? I'm a big of a suspension buff, but I'm not terribly familiar with the motion ratio and geometry of the 986.

This is all on a U.S. M030 car, btw.

[John V]

I'm getting my car aligned and I was thinking of straying from Porsche's specs. Fisrt of all, am I reading it correctly that the factory spec for the front axle actually has 5 minutes of POSITIVE camber? I was thinking of going to about a degree negative (providing I can get there on the stock suspension adjustment) with minimal toe-in.

Also, I noticed the toe settings fr and rr are 5 (plus or minus 5) minutes of toe-in. Does this mean it's safe to run nearly zero toe all around? I'm trying to reduce low speed understeer a bit w/o making the car too twitchy or killing my tires.

Long story short, has anyone tried a degree of negative camber up front, stockish rear camber and minimal toe-in all around?

Sure, lots of people.

The first thing I did when I picked up my '00 S was set the front camber to max negative (about -.5 degrees, not much) and reset the front toe to zero.

A friend with an '03 S did the same thing, yet his handles much differently. More push on turn-in than mine, even with the larger (Stock) rear swaybar installed on the '03+ cars. I believe this is because my car has less rear camber and toe than his car does.

As soon as the weather warms up and I can install my US 030 suspension, I'll get the car realigned. The plan is to start with zero front toe and maximum front camber. The rear will start with minimum rear camber and zero toe as well, but I'll dial in camber as needed to keep the back end in line. This is for an autocross car with 245 front and 285 rear tires.

Hope this helps.

I didn't realize camber adjustment was so limited (then again, strut suspension). I'm going to max negative camber up front and the tiniest amount of front toe-in. My experience has been that going to a tiny bit of toe-in will compensate for bushing flex and will toe-out to zero once the car is moving.

What toe and camber settings are you running in the back? I'm thinking of going to zero (as it looks like zero rear toe is w/in spec). Has anyone done that? Is it twitchy, or is the toe curve on the rear suspension aggressive enough to compensate for it? I'm a big of a suspension buff, but I'm not terribly familiar with the motion ratio and geometry of the 986.

This is all on a U.S. M030 car, btw.

I don't know my rear toe and camber settings exactly since the car's never been on a rack, but based on quickie measurements of the camber and how the car feels, it's around -1.5 degrees negative camber and close to zero toe. The car is not twitchy in daily driving. I don't know how much toe the 986 gains through compression.

Although it has struts up front and limited negative camber, the 986 has a bunch of caster and has good roll stiffness, especially a US 030 car. This helps the front camber situation a bunch. You can certainly do some toe-in up front, but I don't think there's a reason to.

What do you want to do with the car? Track? Autocross? Spirited street driving? I can tell you what I've done and what others have done with the car, but unless you plan to drive it like us it's not gonna be too helpful. ;)

[mee]

I didn't realize camber adjustment was so limited (then again, strut suspension). I'm going to max negative camber up front and the tiniest amount of front toe-in. My experience has been that going to a tiny bit of toe-in will compensate for bushing flex and will toe-out to zero once the car is moving.

What toe and camber settings are you running in the back? I'm thinking of going to zero (as it looks like zero rear toe is w/in spec). Has anyone done that? Is it twitchy, or is the toe curve on the rear suspension aggressive enough to compensate for it? I'm a big of a suspension buff, but I'm not terribly familiar with the motion ratio and geometry of the 986.

This is all on a U.S. M030 car, btw.

Everything is relative. In the end, it depends on what you want, what you're used to, how you drive, what speeds you're talking, the rest of your suspension, etc. I've seen many different opinions on this subject, so following is only one man's opinion. I have done numerous alignments on my Boxster. FWIW, I think factory tire and alignment specs are a bit of a joke. IMNSHO:

Max (and symmetrical) neg camber in the front is a good starting point on a stock (incl RoW/030) for an aggressive setup. A hair of toe-in as you suggest is fine, but I don't find the Boxster particularly sensitive to front toe. A good rule of thumb considering torsional flex, caster, etc., is to set the rear camber about -0.5 to -1.0 more than the front. I find the Boxster to be wildly sensitive to rear toe which often goes out. Zero for me is a scary wild ride (may work for some under their particular conditions). The middle of the factory spec range is loose but workable for low-speed work. The high end of the factory toe is more what I like for higher speeds and if you want to man-handle the car more and not have it come around too easily (depends of what other electronic aids you may or may not have). If you really want to thrash your car at higher speeds, more like 911 rear toe will keep things in check, but you will not really be able to get the car around no matter how hard you try.

Good luck and post your opinions/impressions ;)

[oversteerdawg]

This is going to for a car that commutes 65 miles a day and sees the track once a month. I'm happy with how the car handles, but I wouldn't mind a touch less low speed understeer. I'm aligning it today to max negative camber up front with minimal toe-in up front. On the rear, I'm going to about a degree negative in the rear with a touch of toe-in. I'm mounting some new Bridgetone RE-01R's and I'll post my impressions of both alignment and the tires.

[jmatta]

For what it's worth, after my H&R sport springs were installed on my '02 S, the car was aligned. Looking at the printout, I see my front camber is - .8* and toe out is .05*. Rear camber is -2.6 and toe out is .10*

This is not an aggressive alignment as my car is only street driven (my 911 sees all track duty). The car is very responsive in normal/sprirted driving.

[oversteerdawg]

For what it's worth, after my H&R sport springs were installed on my '02 S, the car was aligned. Looking at the printout, I see my front camber is - .8* and toe out is .05*. Rear camber is -2.6 and toe out is .10*

This is not an aggressive alignment as my car is only street driven (my 911 sees all track duty). The car is very responsive in normal/sprirted driving.

I'd consider going to a tiny bit (or zero) of toe-in up front. There's no reason to toe-out a street car. It just kills your tires and makes the car less stable under braking and at high speeds.

[jmatta]

Interesting, because my car is extremely stable with this alignment. I am sensitive to a car responding to my wheel input, thus the toe out. I have none of the twitchiness associated with the setting, as it's very minor (unlike my track 911). I'll have to see about tire wear as my car is driven about 2500 miles a year; the tires will get hard before they wear out.

Edited February 15, 2007 by jmatta