going for an alignment this week. Whats the best camber settings for my setup? I'd like minimal wear and maximum grip (don't we all)

225/45/17 8.5
255/40/17 9.0

 

Toe = infinitely more important than camber. For max tire life with max grip:

front toe: zero
front camber: -.5 to -1.5 degrees

rear toe: 0.2-0.3 degrees total (0.1 - 0.15 degrees per side)(or 1/8" toe-in total if the shop uses inches, 3mm total if they us millimeters)
rear camber: -1 to -2 degrees


Camber doesn't kill tires, toe does. Running ~2 degrees camber will only cost you ~10%-15% in terms of tire life, and will give significatly greater ultimate grip. Running max AP1 spec rear toe of ~0.64 degrees total will cut tire life in HALF or worse, with no upside (worse handling, worse fuel economy, slower accel).

 

This is what I just went to when I installed the 225/45/17 - 255/40/17 combo on my AP2 wheels.

front toe: zero
front camber: -1.5 degrees

rear toe: 0.3 degrees total
rear camber: -2 degrees

 

^^^good specs...I'd want a little less toe in the rear and maybe a little more camber up front.

 

AP2 or AP1?

rear toe helps keep the car pointing where you want it when you get on the power around turns without is being real twitchy. I like 0.3deg toe in. 1/8" on 255/40/17s is about 0.28 degrees

Run up to 0.5 deg toe in for race applications where rear end stability is premium on the power in high speed situations. Tire temps need monitored so that they don't get to high though.

I have AP2
I'm running -2.9 camber front and -2.6 rear
zero toe front
0.3deg toe in rear.

I like it.

 

In my experience, too much rear toe (more than ~.4-.5degrees) makes the rear end more unpredictable and twitchy. And anyway, getting on the power stabilizes the car, doesn't make it more "twitchy". It's getting OFF the throttle that causes problems....
In any case, the back end of my car moves around WAY more with too much rear toe, particularly over bumps/undulations or in traction challenged conditions.

With a lot of rear toe, as long as conditions are identical at both rear contact patches, not a problem, but ANY asymmetric undulations or traction differences between the two and you've got more load and/or grip on one side and that will push the rear end around. Very unsettling...


Yup. That's a pretty good place to be IMO...

I disagree. Again, "more toe" beyond ~0.3degrees total doesn't, in my experience, give more stability. It does reduce turn-in response when you WANT the car to point, though!
And again, "on the power" gives stability up to the point where you start to spin the tires, then throttle modulation is required, of course (don't just LIFT!).
The rear tires only have so much grip to give, and if they're expending some amount of that working AGAINST each other with excessive toe-in, you'll spin them up SOONER (not that power-on oversteer is an issue in stockish S2000 apps in 2nd gear and up anyway).

A bunch of toe on a race app is IMO a piss-poor bandaid for a bad setup. Better to address balance issues with spring, swaybar, and damping rates and camber. More toe adds drag down the straights, and heats tires more which will impact total grip if you have to redistribute roll stiffness to the front just to accomodate high toe in the back.

It's just an inherently BAD use of tire to have the rears working against each other, heating themselves, scrubbing life away, sacrificing traction that could be used to go faster.

Theoretically, more toe should give more "stability", but in my experience too much makes the car feel a LOT less linear-handling and a lot less predictable in a straight line, while robbing pointability.

Sounds good.
But I don't think that more toe beyond this level necessarily adds stability or is more "aggressive" or racy. Waste of tire grip, waste of tire life, added drag, nonlinear/twitchy in a straight line, but won't turn in. Bad for everything! From my experience, 0.2 - 0.3 degrees total is a pretty good area to be in. 0.5 degrees total is getting into an area where it's a real disaster for handling and tire life.

 

Would these be could specs for an ap2 or does it not matter? I'm lowered on forturne autos.

 

yeah, I probably should have noted that how much power you have does matters with rear toe. b/t 0.4-0.5 is more for big power on RAce tires and suspensions that toe out a bit on compression. I didn't want to write a book when this guy likely doesn't even visit the track.

I wouldn't ever reccomend someone with a NA S2000 to run more than 0.35