I've seen mentioned a few times where people have had their wheel alignments adjusted to different specs from those of the factory.

Did you notice any difference in handling?

If so what specs did you use and why?

 

DavidM is one to speak to

 

Biggest effect comes from rear toe. You can adjust the balance of the car with it. More toe in gives more straight line stability and more understeer. Reduce it too far and the car is ludicrously taily. The S2000 comes with a lot of rear toe in (6mm total) from the factory, or at least it's supposed to. This to my mind indicates something amiss with the overall design and/or tuning of the suspension, particularly the rear. If I had a free hand I'd halve the rear toe and stiffen the front anti-roll bar. If you want something that works well for most people try the revised UK specs that you can find posted on their section of the board. They change the front castor (better steering feel) and camber angles (not sure of the rationale for that but it's probably just a little more baised toward grip on the grip vs wear curve). If you do change camber beware of going too far on the rear because you'll lose traction. It's already quite a lot as standard.

 

I can't dissagree with anything Naishou has said above as if I had a 'free hand' then I'd do the same. Though, working with what we have here my mission has always been to give the back more grip (or as much as possible) and maybe even sacrifice some front end grip to achieve that (as I have plenty of that). So with that mission I am now on my 3rd allignent setting.

1st was the OEM allignemnt which I'd say was not as good as either of the other alignemnts I've had. The car seemed too taily out of the factory.

2nd alignement was something like:
-2deg of camber at the front
-1deg of camber at the rear
4.5deg of caster at the front (ie. less then OEM)
2mm front toe-IN
6mm of rear toe-IN

Car feft more stable and was less inclined to step out. It felt in particluar much better on quick change of direction as you no longer felt like you were going to flick the back out. Unlimatelly I still did not think I had enough rear-end grip and wanted more - hence the change to the 3rd allignment

3rd allignment (ie. my current one) is the UK revised specs that Naishou was pointing to. They go something like this:
-1deg of camber at the front
-2deg of camber at the rear
6.5deg of caster at the front
0mm front toe-IN
4mm of rear toe-IN

I am pretty happy with it but now that my rear tyres are totally shot the car is taily again (btw, I doubt that they are shot because of the allignment as they are worn very evenly). I certainly feel more understeer through the front but really not enough to think that I'm lacking in front end grip. When I get the rear tyres replaced I'll get it realligned again to the UK specs, but might ask for 5mm toe-IN at the back as I still would like more grip at the back. Maybe it can use a fraction less camber (ie. around -1.7) to get the power down better?

 

Thanks guys. Very interesting

 

Very good info nice posts guys.

 

I too have new rears coming up so might look at those UK specs I think.

 

I'm also running the UK alignment.
Car is less tail happy when powering out of corners.

 

Im actually enjoying a little tail action (no pun intended). I dont have any experience with a LSD so letting it out a little under slower speeds is a safer way for me to get used to handling the oversteer then when its tuned and on the limit. When its raining I try and do some low speed slides when there is nothing around for the same reason just as long as there is noone around.

 

I have just fitted a set of Toyo RA-1 motorsport tyres and had my alignment checked for the first time.

As it was, it had too little front negative camber, too much toe-out on the front and too much toe-in on the rear.

We set it as follows:

Rear camber = negative 1deg 20min
Rear toe-in = 3.5mm

Front caster = 6deg
Front camber = negative 1deg 30min
Front toe-in = 0.7mm

Main change was negative camber on the front to make the tyres work better, and get better turn-in for corners.
I have a Phillip Island sprint in April, so it will be interesting to see how the car feels after the changes.

The alignment was done by Traction tyres(Yokohama motorsport) in Rowville.