Kyras

Vintage helped me out tremendously with my 2001 alignment. The car quit eating tires once I got the alignment set to recommended numbers. Now I need help on my 2005 alignment. (I did search but didn't find any recommendations.) My hope is that if I get it aligned to certain numbers, I will be happier with the feel of it. I still like the feel of my 2001 better on twisty roads. I'm not sure what words describe it but the 2001 feels more trust worthy and reliable in curves than the 2005. I trusted the 2001 when I drove it to go where I put it, but I don't feel that way about the 2005, and I'm hoping that an alignment might improve the way it feels.

The 2005 owners manual has these specs, but doesn't give ranges:

Toe
Front 0.00 in (0.0mm)
Rear in 0.15 in (3.7 mm)

Camber
Front -0*30'
Rear -1*30'

Caster
Front 6*

Do you have any recommendations for alignment on a 2004 or 2005?

Kyras

OK, game's over. Somebody help me out here. Pretty please. I have no where to start with this if I take my car in for an alignment, now that I've got my local dealership trained on how to use their machine (3 times on my 2001).

rjosey8385

Okeydokey, I'll start and somebody feel free to jump in and correct. I run an aggressive street (aka autocross but low tire-wear) alignment and this is it (as best I can remember...I have an E-mail in to my alignment guy but haven't heard back, and since it's been a year since he did it, I'm assuming he doesn't have it saved):

-1.5 camber in the front and -1.9 in the rear (took it out as far as it would go in the rear, and that's all he could get). The toe-in in the front I know was 0 degrees, but I think in the rear we went with a toe-in of 1/8". The caster I couldn't tell you...I'm still a bit unclear on the caster.

tomcatt

Hey RJ,

When you say this is an aggressive street alignment with low tire wear, does this mean the car tends more towards oversteer, or is it more neutral? I have a stock 2003, and I want to get it in for an alignment check in the spring.

Kyras

Tom, you know your 2003 doesn't have the same specs as a 2004/2005, right?

rjosey8385

With this alignment you may end up with a teensy bit more oversteer...are you racing the car, TC? If not, for aggressive street driving, I doubt you'll notice that. You will feel more firmly planted. I got 13,500 out of my rear tires with this alignment...the fronts were still good for another 6,000 or so miles on it.

The racing and competition guys (check out the Autocross FAQ sticky in Racing and Competition Forum) are saying that the '04 can probably go with a slightly more aggressive autocross alignment than the '00-'03s, but I think mine's only the low side of that aggressiveness since I'm also driving it on the street.

http://forums.s2ki.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=172595

As far as trusting an alignment that comes on the car, normally when someone does an alignment to factory specs, they're getting the specs "within range"...in other words, the factory says LEFT FRONT CAMBER MUST BE -1.2 TO -1.4 (the green zone) and as soon as the computer shows that the alignment is anywhere within that green zone, they stop messing with it (if they overshoot but it's still in the green area, that's when you get the upper limits), so you could get an alignment on the left that's just barely in the -1.2 zone and the right that's at the upper edge of -1.4 (for example).

tomcatt

Yep, that I know.

tomcatt

RJ,

Thanks for the info. No, I'm not racing (yet) but I do want to eventually do some sort of AX school, if only to better understand how to control the car. I'd like to try to get the car's handling optimized as best I can, get as much tire wear as I can, without going overboard with a full-race setup.

It's all a compromise, I know, but if I can reach the best compromise possible I'll be happy.

Thanks again!