Ugh... I'm supposed to be autocrossing tomorrow... Will it be bad enough that I shouldn't even bother going? I'm not racing competitively. Just for fun... If its going to handle absolutely horribly and chew up my tires I'm not sure I want to go though...

I thought I read somewhere OEM spec was around .56 total or something like that?

 

If you haven't done much autocross before, then just go. It'll be a good learning experience no matter how your car is setup. Then, when you change the settings and go back again, you'll have a better understanding of what those changes did as far as handling characteristics and whether or not this setting or the new one suits your driving style/setup.

It's hard to tell if you don't have much time behind the wheel. i'm sure you'll have fun either way, so i say just go.

 

Definitely not my first time... I just don't do it to win. I do it for fun and to improve my skill level.

Yeah I'll probably have fun as long as it doesn't throw off the handling too bad... I just don't want it to eat up my tires too bad. Its 120 miles round trip to/from the site + my runs...

 

You should be fine for the 120 mile round trip with an extra quarter inch of toe but try to get it reset ASAP. I'm not sure how the car will handle for you but it might actually help since your rear tires are so big. You're just running a little pre-slip angle back there. Good luck.

 

Grrr, would be nice if they gave UNITS! I'd bet anything those toe measurements are in degrees, not inches, though. I'd hope so, anyway, 0.5" total toe would be over a degree of rear toe. Expect <3000 miles rear tire life with that much (been there)! Vs. 18k on similar tires with minimal toe.

.25deg per side, 0.50deg total, *is* twice what you asked for, you might take it back and have them give you what you wanted!

In my experience, too much toe (IMO, 0.25degrees per side, 0.50degrees total, is excessive), sucks for absolutely everything. Made my car's handling more squirrelly, but at the same time less pointable at turn-in. Tire wear is RIDICULOUS. -2 degrees camber with 0.2 degrees total rear toe will give you about twice the rear tire life that -1.5degrees camber at 0.5 degrees total rear toe will.

I've tried the gamut of toe settings, from 0.15degrees total to 1.0 degrees total.
In my experience, the car behaves more linearly and *less* twitchy with less rear toe vs. a lot of rear toe. AND you get much greater tire life. AND the car does a much better job of finding the apex and generally going where you point it.

I'd ask them to set it where you told them to.

 

Thanks ZDan. They were having a 50% off alignment plans deal, so I purchased a 5 year plan anyways... so getting them to fix it shouldn't be a big deal. I'll go back tomorrow and make sure I'm more clear.

Anyone else have any other recommended changes or does everything else look ok? I know it won't be perfect the first time and will need to be dialed in to my preferences, just trying to get a good starting point.

 

That's a good point Dan, have the alignment shop confirm the toe units, inches or degrees.

 

When I asked initially they told me they needed the units in degrees... so I'm pretty sure they are in degrees.

 

So just to clarify I should ask for .10-.14 degrees of rear toe on each side, correct?

 

0.10 - 0.15 degrees per side (minimum increment is likely .05deg) will be fine.