Toe In Vs Out Experiences
 

Oh hai

I'm in bad need of an alignment on my GC since having done my 6 speed conversion and have been trawling through threads and whatnot to garner as much knowledge as I can from it. Where I'm living I don't have access to the likes of John Fowler type gurus, but I have a friend who manages a tyre joint and is willing to put any kind of alignment I wish on my car.

What I've found from reading different threads is that some schools are pro toe in on the rears, to allow for dynamic shift in a wrx, while some opt for toe out on the rear to induce better turn in response. The cons seem to be that toe in will make the car a bit soft at low speed, while toe out will make it pretty sketchy at high speeds, and potentially induce big oversteer when emergency brake/turn, increasing the likelihood of the back pulling out.

So I'm looking for peoples experiences with both, or one or the other, to then apply what I think would be best for my own alignment. At this stage I'm looking to hit around -1.5 camber both front and rear, with maybe just a small amount of toe in on the rears on a GC with close to every adjustable component available, ultimately just a street car that doesn't feel washy when pushed.

Any thoughts and experiences would be greatly appreciated.

PM sent...

Start at zero toe front/rear and see how the car feels. As for camber I would aim for a little more neg on the front maybe -2.3 degrees

When you quote neg 1.5 on the front do you mean actual degress or one and a half degress? Neg -1.5 degrees is almost -2 as there are 6 minutes/incremements per degree.

Not sure what sway bars you run but they can dramatically affect the balance of the car when it's being pushed hard.

Sorry, should have been more specific Nick. -1 degree 50 minutes, which is around -1.8 decimal degrees. Are you suggesting -2.3 decimal degrees up front, but maintaining around the -1.8 rear?

22mm sway bars up front and rear, rear bar is 3 way adjustable, adjustable rear control arms, coilovers with camber adjustable upper mounts, and so on.

On your mates alignment machine read out aim for:

front
camber -2.0 to -2.3
toe 0.0

rear
camber -1.5 ish ( in other words a bit less than the front )
toe 0.0

This is a good starting point, after that I would play around with your sway bars/coilovers at your leisure , then you are not relying on someone else to help you fine tune all the time. This set up will still give reasonable tyre wear and decent handling.

Then take it out on a skid pan/track day and find out where you are at! Skids!!!

Thanks Steve and Nick, I'll be seeing my mate and doing an alignment tomorrow afternoon, so we'll start there and see how it goes!