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Alignment Specs

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Old Jan 18, 2012 | 11:40 AM
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Default Alignment Specs

As soon as I pull the S out of the garage for spring I'm going straight to the alignment shop, but I don't know much about alignment on an S2000. With my Integra it was pretty much a case of set the toe and let it go.

It's lowered on Tein Stech's, (~1" drop) my fenders are stock and I'm planning to get some Volk CE's or TE's in 17x7.5 +43 with a 215/45 tire and 17x9 +63 with a 245/40 tire, what would you guys recommened for alignment settings? Just put it all within OEM specs? Add a little more camber? My car is a DD in the summer with occasional track use, and by occasional I mean maybe 3 or 4 times a season, lol.

Any advice is appriciated.
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Old Jan 18, 2012 | 11:48 AM
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Whenever u get what u want take it to firestone store and buy the lifetime warranty alignment so whenever u wanna do any mods to the suspension u can just take it to their store and get it aligned for free as many times as u want/need
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Old Jan 18, 2012 | 12:03 PM
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would be nice, however not sure if firestone offers lifetime in Canada. I'm on s-tech as well, the nice thing with the S is that you can still get it into oem spec with a 1" drop. What tires are you running? Me personally im concerned with tire wear over total grip (which is still be excellent) so im running oem alignment with 4mm total rear toe. Did one track day, also plan on doing a few track days again this year and eventually going back to the star specs.
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Old Jan 18, 2012 | 02:58 PM
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Originally Posted by starchland
would be nice, however not sure if firestone offers lifetime in Canada. I'm on s-tech as well, the nice thing with the S is that you can still get it into oem spec with a 1" drop. What tires are you running? Me personally im concerned with tire wear over total grip (which is still be excellent) so im running oem alignment with 4mm total rear toe. Did one track day, also plan on doing a few track days again this year and eventually going back to the star specs.
I find the alignment on these cars changes frequently, you almost need to do an alignment once a year, and I don't even drive it very much. In spring of this year I'm going to Can-Alignment and hopefully get the car dialed in better than what my Honda dealer has been doing with it in the last two years.

I've had a few guys recommend lower rear toe settings. I think I'm going to try 2.2 mm total toe in the rear, and increase front camber to -1 each side, and maybe rear camber around -1.5. My Honda dealer has my car set up with 5.4 mm of total rear toe right now.
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Old Jan 19, 2012 | 01:28 AM
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Track 3-4x a year is for me a good enough argument for negative camber. For street/track compromise, I'd aim for something like 2.5deg all around, 3 in back if you want to maintain the stock rear camber bias.
Zero front toe, 0.2degrees total rear toe (= .087" = 2.2mm total). This rear toe feels a ton better than the stock range (more linear, less twitchy in a straight line over bumps/irregularities/water/etc, better turn-in) and gives MUCH better tire life.
Wouldn't worry about caster much, ~5.5 or so. IMO anything from 5 - 6.5 degrees = fine.
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Old Jan 19, 2012 | 03:47 AM
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Originally Posted by JFUSION
Originally Posted by starchland' timestamp='1326920637' post='21329522
would be nice, however not sure if firestone offers lifetime in Canada. I'm on s-tech as well, the nice thing with the S is that you can still get it into oem spec with a 1" drop. What tires are you running? Me personally im concerned with tire wear over total grip (which is still be excellent) so im running oem alignment with 4mm total rear toe. Did one track day, also plan on doing a few track days again this year and eventually going back to the star specs.
I find the alignment on these cars changes frequently, you almost need to do an alignment once a year, and I don't even drive it very much. In spring of this year I'm going to Can-Alignment and hopefully get the car dialed in better than what my Honda dealer has been doing with it in the last two years.

I've had a few guys recommend lower rear toe settings. I think I'm going to try 2.2 mm total toe in the rear, and increase front camber to -1 each side, and maybe rear camber around -1.5. My Honda dealer has my car set up with 5.4 mm of total rear toe right now.
So ive read many times that the alignment on this car doesnt hold. I have compared old/new printouts and it wasnt unlike any other car ive owned imo...every cars alignment will change due to tire wear will it not?!. First alignment was 10mm rear toe...talk about constant steering wheel correction and unacceptable tire wear.
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Old Jan 19, 2012 | 04:13 AM
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Originally Posted by ZDan
Track 3-4x a year is for me a good enough argument for negative camber. For street/track compromise, I'd aim for something like 2.5deg all around, 3 in back if you want to maintain the stock rear camber bias.
Zero front toe, 0.2degrees total rear toe (= .087" = 2.2mm total). This rear toe feels a ton better than the stock range (more linear, less twitchy in a straight line over bumps/irregularities/water/etc, better turn-in) and gives MUCH better tire life.
Wouldn't worry about caster much, ~5.5 or so. IMO anything from 5 - 6.5 degrees = fine.
Awesome! Thanks for the reply.
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Old Jan 19, 2012 | 06:23 AM
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Originally Posted by starchland
Originally Posted by JFUSION' timestamp='1326931106' post='21330033
[quote name='starchland' timestamp='1326920637' post='21329522']
would be nice, however not sure if firestone offers lifetime in Canada. I'm on s-tech as well, the nice thing with the S is that you can still get it into oem spec with a 1" drop. What tires are you running? Me personally im concerned with tire wear over total grip (which is still be excellent) so im running oem alignment with 4mm total rear toe. Did one track day, also plan on doing a few track days again this year and eventually going back to the star specs.
I find the alignment on these cars changes frequently, you almost need to do an alignment once a year, and I don't even drive it very much. In spring of this year I'm going to Can-Alignment and hopefully get the car dialed in better than what my Honda dealer has been doing with it in the last two years.

I've had a few guys recommend lower rear toe settings. I think I'm going to try 2.2 mm total toe in the rear, and increase front camber to -1 each side, and maybe rear camber around -1.5. My Honda dealer has my car set up with 5.4 mm of total rear toe right now.
So ive read many times that the alignment on this car doesnt hold. I have compared old/new printouts and it wasnt unlike any other car ive owned imo...every cars alignment will change due to tire wear will it not?!. First alignment was 10mm rear toe...talk about constant steering wheel correction and unacceptable tire wear.
[/quote]

My settings have changed quite a bit for some reason, I did an alignment in 2010 and one in 2011, and I only drove the car about 3,000 miles in that time period. I've always read that tires don't affect suspension geometry, plus I didn't even drive the car very much. Maybe my Honda dealer doesn't tighten my adjusters properly.

I was also told that I had a siezed camber adjuster on the front driver side in 2011 but it was fine in 2010, I've never driven the car in winter and it didn't even see rain in the last year. My Honda dealer didn't put much effort to getting the siezed adjuster loose, the guy at
Can-Alignment has told me that he's been successful at getting them freed up, I've got more faith in him so I'm definitely going there this spring.
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Old Jan 19, 2012 | 10:36 AM
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I would like to agree also that tire wear doesnt affect alignment, but looking at poor tire wear after having a not so good alignment, I find it hard to believe this wouldnt affect the alignment reading. Maybe it is also a case of the dyno, where every machine will read a bit different.
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Old Jan 19, 2012 | 01:07 PM
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Originally Posted by fernando.
Originally Posted by ZDan' timestamp='1326968913' post='21331250
Track 3-4x a year is for me a good enough argument for negative camber. For street/track compromise, I'd aim for something like 2.5deg all around, 3 in back if you want to maintain the stock rear camber bias.
Zero front toe, 0.2degrees total rear toe (= .087" = 2.2mm total). This rear toe feels a ton better than the stock range (more linear, less twitchy in a straight line over bumps/irregularities/water/etc, better turn-in) and gives MUCH better tire life.
Wouldn't worry about caster much, ~5.5 or so. IMO anything from 5 - 6.5 degrees = fine.
Awesome! Thanks for the reply.
Yer welcome!

You could go a bit less on camber, depending on how you want to balance camber wear vs. cornering grip. In my experience, ~2-2.5 degrees camber will knock off about 12-15% of tire life. Based on how you want to trade it off, anything from, say, 1.5 negative to 3 negative should be fine for street/track, with front vs. rear set as you prefer for balance.
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