DonF

I bought a 2011 Grandsport a couple of months ago & I have been told by a few to get the front end re-aligned because if I leave it at GM's settings I will wear out the front tires on the inside.
I do notice that the steering is much much more touchy then the 2002 Z06 I had & don't know if the alignment would cure this.
What specs are recommended? Thanks

DonF

I guess I will use the Pfadt Pure Street specs from what I read. Unless I get alot of neg feed back, thanks

eboggs_jkvl

Alignment answer:

If the toe is off, you'll cup the tires.

If the camber is off you'll wear the inside/outside edge but not with cupping.

Caster doesn't really kill the tires that I know of.

So, set the toe to -0.01 on all 4 wheels (+/- 0.0)

Set the camber to -0.1 on all 4 wheels (+/- 0.0)

Set the caster to stock.


What do you use negative camber for? Think about it.... You want the tires to present a flat foot print on turns, yes? No? When they want to go really fast in the turns, the camber is set to a higher negative number, yes, No?

I suggest "yes" to those 2 questions. So, what does negative camber do to a tire that is running straight down a superhighway? Think on it a sec.... It ***** the wheel to put more pressure on the inside edge of the tire. Where is the "bad" wear the horror stories have complained about? The inside edge of the tire is "down to the belts" and the rest of the tire is great. Sound familiar?

Yeah, yeah, almost 0 camber is horrible!!!

Think about this... A solid rear axle has how much camber? I'm thinking 0. Does a solid rear axle wear out the inside edge of the tires? I'm thinking, no.

So, in conclusion and before I put on my asbestos suit, I will set my toe to -0.01, my camber to -0.1, and the caster to the stock number. I'll continue down life's superhighways in ignorant bliss with the top down and a smile on my face.


When I go racing, pylon crushing, or X-Cross, then I'll crank in the negative camber, -2.0 or whatever, and go for it!


Good reading: http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tirete...e.jsp?techid=4

Elmer

Gearhead Jim

We've always used about .5 negative camber front & rear, 0 toe. Good tire life and good handling.

99c54me

A comment, not a flame.

I recently replaced my tires. The fronts were worn out, rears close. I have run -0.5 deg camber on all for the entire tire life and can report the wear across the tread was perfect on all 4 tires.

I know common sense points to zero camber, but in practice common sense may not apply.

Elmer, I'm curious, can you report your tread wear (inside vs outside) with a zero camber setup?

eboggs_jkvl

No offense taken. I have absolutely even wear on my tires. I am running GSD3s on all 4 corners and the tread is perfect. I've run the same camber setting on my 98 Camaro and used the GSD3s on it and had similar results. There is no handling issue for my driving but I do not check the pulling Gs on my turns either. My first set of tires died a very young death. These have at least 25K on them and I'm no where near the warning bars.

Elmer

Bill Dearborn

Toe in is usually referred to as positive toe while toe out is negative toe. To get rid of a nervous feeling in the steering you need to have toe in or positive toe front and rear. Rear should have a more toe in than the front while the front can be just a bit off from zero. Toe out will cause the inside of the tires to wear faster and in combination with a fair amount of negative camber you can wear the inside of the tires down to cord in short order. Zero or a small amount of positive toe will cut the tire wear on the inside but if you go with too much positive toe you can cause the outside of the tire to wear even though you have a lot of negative camber. Look at the number of Z06s that have excessive wear on the outside of their rear tires to see what I mean. They all have about -1.00 degrees or more of camber and still wear out the outside of the rear tire.

Bill

USAF-Vette

I got pretty severe cupping on my original GY tires. The are loud as heck (yeah, they are still in the car.)

el es tu

Really non aggressive street alignment (values are all in degrees):

0.0 toe front
-0.1 toe rear

-1.0 camber front
-.6 camber rear

caster not so much an issue as long as theres 0 cross tolerance
0 on the sai as well


btw the factory specs call for more rear camber, but most people have found that its preferrential to run more up front. Its important to make sure that there isnt any cross tolerance for any of the values - some mechanics will half *** an alignment if its "within spec" - dont allow them to do this.

Pfadt Racing

Well, in our experience with street and track cars it's not camber that kills tires until you start getting into really large amounts of negative camber. Toe is a much bigger factor on tire wear than camber is. 1 degree negative camber is going to have a negligible effect on tire wear and make the car a whole lot more confident in cornering than zeroing it out.

Driving these cars isn't about living life in a straight line all the time. If you haven't taken your Corvette for a spin through a canyon or twisty road lately you're missing out on a huge portion of the Corvette ownership experience. With a good alignment tech performing the work our Performance Street alignment setting will give you good tire wear if you're tearing a straight line at 150 across Texas, as well as improve the balance and response when you're trying to stay ahead of the M3 behind you on that back road.

Click the image below to get a full size printable version.

haljensen

I bought a new '05 in '05, had an alignment done by a pro shop @ 500 miles, it was way off.

Traded the '05 for an '08 and had an alignment done @ 500 miles again by the same shop. The '08 was off but not as bad as the '05.

IMHO a professional alignment (Not the Dealer) for $125.00 was money well spent.

DonF

Thank you for all of your in put, have a Merry Christmas!

JRHAWK9

I agree 100% have been telling people this for years but nobody seems to believe me.... Maybe they will listen to you.

I have both my Firehawk and Vette set up with -1.0° camber and 0 toe and have recorded tens of thousand's of driving miles and my tires are wearing beautifully on both cars. I had both alignments done at a shop that aligns autoX and road racing cars so he aligned it to the specs he recommended. Below is what my Vette is aligned to, showing the before and after specs:

swvalleyguy

I had my GS aligned to the Pfadt Street & Performance numbers and performance seems to be very good and now I probably won't wear out a 2k+$ set of tires in 3k miles.

One issue you find is some shops give you baloney about having to align to factory specs. One Firestone shop wanted $192 to do "exotic alignment", while another Firestone shop further down the street did it for $80.

JoesC5

When I installed new Bridgestones on my Z06 I had a $90 alignment done. I went with -0.9* camber on the fronts with 0.08* toe.
-0.6* camber on the rear with -0.02* toe.

I have run it about 5,000 miles since including 150 MPH in the 33* banked turns at Talledega(160+ down the backstretch) and at the Dragon in the Smokey Mountains. Handled fine and wear appears to be good. I've worn about 1/32" to 2/32" off the original 10/32" in the first 5,000 miles.