I don't think the static toe setting has an impact on the toe curve. But if you start with a high toe setting, the added toe might be more noticeable...


Our car doesn't "sweep negative" under compression. It toes in more (positive toe).

The OP has toe arms anyway. So if they are set up correctly, then his car should have little dynamic toe.

 

Not dynamic toe from the toe curve, toe from the forces of the road against the tire. Imagine what would happen if the control arms were springs. Set the toe to completely zero and move the car forward in your mind. The forces that act upon the wheel as the car moves forward would cause the wheels to toe out. It's this theory that leads me to believe that the car tends to toe out as the car moves down the road. I wasn't coming at it from a toe curve argument. That's too complex for me to think about.

 

Maybe we have our terms mixed up. The rear toe swings back under suspension compression away from driver. Not in towards driver. This results in instability with the rear wanting to come around easier under the suspension load in a corner, like its steering with the turn, which is not good. The way I figure it, with the rear suspension completely bottomed out, there really should be no toe so ultimately your ride height will determine how much starting toe at rest you’re going to end up with. If your not running stock toe arms/suspension geometry then obviously this doesn’t apply.

 

Nope. There are many threads on this, several with dynamic toe measurements included. The car will toe in under compression.

 

stock '01, stock '01, stock '01, stock '01, stock '01, -1.3 front camber, zero front toe, ~5.5-6 front caster, -2.2 rear camber, 0.2deg total rear toe (~.085in. total).

Maybe you could...

You probably have a lot of time/experience invested in your current setup, and I'm sure it works well. But that doesn't mean that it's optimal. If I were your crew chief, I would definitely want to experiment with greatly reduced rear toe settings (which will of course require other changes to balance the car). No reason that having the rears scrub off speed working against each other on the straights and no reason that having less slip angle on the less-loaded inside rear vs outside rear in corners should be better for performance relative to a good minimum-toe setup.

Personally, on my stock AP1 I initially went with the level of rear toe you are using, ~0.6 degrees total (per recommendations found on these forums) and found nonlinear handling behavior and insane rear tire wear rate. I cut rear toe-in to 0.15 total (intended 0.3, but shop interpreted .15deg per side as total!) to preserve rear tire life, was seriously worried that it would be an oversteery mess, but found that minimal rear toe gave more linear, predictable handling, *and* better turn-in responsiveness, *and* more than doubled tire life.

On my modded street/track Z, eliminating the stock excessive rear toe (no stock adjustment) and balancing out resultant oversteer via sway bars and front camber netted ~1second quicker lap times around New Hampshire Motor Speedway (South Oval).

Since then, I've inadvertently and unknowingly returned to HIGH rear toe settings on both cars and found myself wondering what the hell was wrong at the track with them, then later discovering the problem. Knocked back down to ~0.2degrees total, problems solved.

In my experience with these two cars, excessive rear toe-in has sucked, while running very little rear toe has shown no negative side effects.

 

Dude you’re officially high or you don’t understand a word I’m saying, I cant tell. Take your car to get aligned, watch what happens to your toe as you get in and out of your car or push down on the suspension. The rear toes out towards the rear bumper. oem specs the car to run negative toe, to compensate for this as the suspension works. Hell you can even see it in every slammed car on the net, look at the position of the wheel in relation to the rear fender when the car is dropped several inches compared to stock hight, its swept back. I'm dropped about 2" and run .2-3 toe. That feels right to me with my set up.

 

Imo, optimal set up that works for all does not exist.

 

could it be that my toe control arms werent setup properly to minimize toe changes?

Im pretty sure its the toe change that causes this unpredictability to slide on my car being an AP1.

 

Again to clarify for ZDan and anyone else that finds it pertinent towards the discussion, since I think we all are having a hard time discerning what negative/positive/in/out toe means. What ever the stock rear toe setting is from the factory, as the suspension compress through the path, it starts to zero out and progress to the opposite of the factory setting. To me and my vocabulary that is starting at toe in and moving out. Whether you consider that negative/positive or what, its all relative to how your facing the car I suppose. I base my description on the same direction of toe at the front wheels, which may be intuitive but incorrect to do for the rear.

 

The AP1 rears toe IN as suspension compresses, just like ndogg says.

Rear toe "swings back", "away from the driver", "not in towards the driver"?

Maybe I'm high too, but what you've been describing doesn't sound at all like "toe".

Nah, I'm not high, you don't know what toe is!