ragtophardtop

Got my alignment today. Major improvement. I ended up going with slightly more aggressive specs, adding a degree of camber and I cut out about 44 degrees of toe in the rear and added .8 degrees of caster. New alignment:

Front
-1.5 degrees camber
6.5 degrees caster (max)
0 degrees of toe

Rear
-2 degrees camber
16 degrees of toe (was going for 12 degrees and had miscommunication with the tech)

Going from 1 to 2 degrees of negative camber in the rear changed the visual of how the rear tires sit, but not the fronts as much. I think I should have increased the front camber to -1.7 or -1.8, but ended up matching the motoIQ AP2. I'll probably increase the front next time. Overall the car is much more lively and sharp. I had been considering getting a CR steering rack but I don't feel I need to now. Also, the car turns more easily, which I thought it wouldn't do to the extra caster. The front toe must have been screwing with this, because now it turns quickly and steering feel has increased. It's just quick and lively, especially at speed.

Great bang for the buck improvement.

ragtophardtop

After running the alignment in the post above for a while, I decided to experiment with a more neutral alignment for AutoX. I installed EVS lower offset ball joints to accommodate more camber in the front. New alignment:

Front
-2.5 degrees camber
5.9 degrees caster (max)
0 degrees of toe

Rear
-2.5 degrees camber
13 degrees of total toe

The car is faster and is extremely neutral and responsive in the slow speed stuff like slaloms and around barrels, but on anything 30 mph and above, even on on ramps, I can rotate on corner entry with and without gas, so it's too unstable to push at higher speeds. The rear also breaks loose way too easy in the wet, even slow speed corners activate the diff.

Is this the point where people put on a stiffer front bar because of inside rear wheel lift and keep the rear more planted? I'm considering this, backing off the front camber to -2.0 and keeping rear at -2.5, or lowering front camber to -1.7 and rear to -2.2.

Advice appreciated.

@B serious

B serious

Hows it going man

That rear toe setting has to be a typo.....right?

For reference, here is my street S2000 alignment

Its a MY00 with a MY07 rear subframe.
Square 17x9.5 +47, 255/40/17 RE71R.
Ohlins DFV 12K/10K.

Front:
-3.2 Camber (HR offset RCA)
+6 caster
+0.06" total toe

Rear:
-3 camber
+0.08" total toe

I also own a MY07 track car:
Square 17x9 +40, 255 Falken Azenis RT615K+
FA500 14K/12K

Front:
-3.5 deg camber (SPC UBJ)
+6.9 deg caster
+0.06 total toe

Rear:
-3.2 deg camber
+0.08" total toe.

I don't have any instability. The cars are both ultra neutral and rock solid on the road at high or low speed. And they're both very drivable and respectably quick.

Its very odd that your car has a tendency to oversteer randomly.

Do you have an aftermarket LSD or anything like that?

Is your rear toe setting actually 13 deg? (!!!!)

I wouldn't suggest a big front bar yet.... or reducing camber. Camber is the life of the party. These cars seem to respond really well to it.

What tires and sizing are you using?

Spring rates?

I once had an alignment guy leave a rear toe bolt loose. It was a wild ride. Anything loose?

ragtophardtop

Finally getting back to summer driving season after the corona madness, hope you're doing the same!

Yeah, should have been .13 degrees. I took a pic of the new alignment settings so I don't F it up again (attached).

The car is a stock 2008. Suspension and drivetrain are all stock except for diff mount collars. Tires are 225/255 Conti ECS. Early on when I got the car the rear was horrible in the wet and the diff was constantly engaging on starts and corners. When I put the collars & tires on, the rear became much more planted and stable. What I'm experiencing now isn't necessarily that it's unstable or random like something's loose. It's predictable but it rotates super easy on corner entry. It went from understeer on an AutoX course to extremely neutral at low speeds so it dances around the cones and I can put it into a controlled drift at almost any speed, and I can kick the rear end out on an on ramp at 50mph and go into a controlled drift with just a dab of gas and slight turn of the wheel. The rotation is enough that I'm watching it so I don't lose it on on and off ramps where a toyota corolla wouldn't have issues putting the power down.

B serious

nothing really seems out of the ordinary.

I'm not sure why your diff was doing that stuff before. Were the mounts torn? Any chance someone put a clutching LSD in there prior to your ownership?

I would make sure the toe bolts haven't slipped or something....

ragtophardtop

Yeah, that's what I thought. I'm going to have a chat with the guy who did the alignment and get it back on the rack. It's possible something slipped, won't know until I see the numbers. I started thinking also, it's possible the stock suspension just can't handle this much camber up front, because it gets too much grip and it the rear camber can't balance it.

The diff mounts weren't torn, they appeared to be in pretty good shape, they just seemed like they had extra give for only having 50k on them. The collars made a huge difference so I didn't think much about it after. I bought the car bone stock and had it looked at by Evasive. They didn't mention anything about the diff in the inspection.

ragtophardtop

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