24 replies to this topic

[Heath]

After I can sort the stance of my green car out I'm going to take it in for a wheel alignment at 'Edgars Tyrepower', a Melbourne workshop that has been recommended to me (apparently the bloke has done a lot of racing classic cars so he knows his stuff).

But I've been wondering what settings I should actually aim for? The settings I'm after are for something I would consider 'sporty' i.e. regular use vehicle on good street tyres, no ridiculous camber or anything but more aggressive than factory settings to make it turn in better. I thrash the pants off it through the twisties etc

What have you used in the past with good success? Any comments about setups that did or didn't seem to work well? Should I just ask the expert doing it?

I was thinking in the ballpark of -1.5� Camber and +1.5� Caster, and some 'small' amount of toe in?

Opinions appreciated.

[Litre8]

Is this an RTS or non-RTS front end?

RTS gives increasing -ve camber on compression so needs less initial, also provides more +ve caster.

[76lxhatch]

These are my personal preferences for similar driving to what you describe. Other people may have different ideas, but I've found these work quite well.

I like around -1 degree camber regardless of RTS or not; you may get away with -1.5 but I would think it will start eating the tyres a bit much. It may seem like a good idea to have more negative camber with non-RTS but you lose the ability to dial in some positive caster if you do that.

Toe 0 with UC RTS, 1mm or 2mm toe out (yes out) with non-RTS helps induce a bit of oversteer to make up for the lack of positive caster. This does assume a reasonably solid front end with urethane bushes etc, perhaps add 1mm or 2mm of toe in for rubber especially if a bit old. Compared to Commodores which love to tramline, a Torana will still sit on the road nicely even with a touch of toe out, so its not really a big issue.

Caster as much as you can get while maintaining wheel clearance and acceptable steering weight. With non-RTS and -1 degrees camber or less you should be able to get up to 1 degree caster without excessive/unsafe shimming. With UC RTS you should be able to get at least 1.5 degrees easily, anything over 2 you have to decide how heavy you want the steering.

[Heath]

I'm pretty sure it's a non-RTS front end, definitely has the old style upper arms.

I just did my upper arm bushes with Super Pro urethane units; I figure they are pretty important in keeping nice rigid camber, I was going to do the lower arms but the rubber bushes there were okay so I just left them.

Interesting about the toe... I will keep that in mind. But I am a bit hesitant to go static toe out because I haven't "done" everything on the front end, just fixed a few things that were pretty stuffed. There might be a bit of play in certain things (I haven't really cared about the handling of this car until now)

[TerrA LX]

^ problem herne is that alot of guys these days never worked on toranas or old cars at all and realistically would not give a shit if the 2008 corolla has 1deg extra camber, just gets them back sooner for tyres.

[76lxhatch]

Interesting about the toe... I will keep that in mind. But I am a bit hesitant to go static toe out because I haven't "done" everything on the front end, just fixed a few things that were pretty stuffed. There might be a bit of play in certain things (I haven't really cared about the handling of this car until now)

The toe can be difficult to set very accurately (e.g. to within 0.5mm) at home without good measuring equipment to begin with, but if you were to find out while the car is on the alignment rig exactly how much one turn of the tie rod end equates to then you could muck with it to your heart's content after the initial alignment. Just make sure you write down any changes and make alterations in terms of increments of turns, from the known starting point at wheel alignment. (Don't forget to adjust both sides evenly if you want to keep the steering wheel centred)

And yeah the wheel alignment guy did look at me funny when I told him I wanted toe out the first time, but I was happy with the result.

[Heath]

Still a Torana is different to every other car out there and I would merely assume that different geometries can really change things. Somebody might know a lot about wheel alignments but for example may not be aware of the RTS changes that occurred with a Torana.

And Torana owners on here who have given a lot of thought to the suspension of their Toranas have probably played with different combinations a bit, people like Peter_UC or Brett_32i, or anyone who races etc

Anyway good stuff so far, cheers. I am aware of adjusting the toe without a machine by going off the thread pitch and geometry, will definitely keep that in mind!

[TerrA LX]

not real good for repeat business TerrA , if i did a wheel alignment on a car of yours and it chopped up a tyre due to a camber issue would you come and buy tyres off me???. There might be people out there that don't care , but they probably work for a franchise .

My comment was not aimed at anyone and especially not at the mob that heath has named, just a generalisation of the way the industry has gone, from spare parts to tyre mobs thru to mechanical repairs, most of them hardly give you the time of day and from personal experience fixing friends and neighbours cars after they have been to a mechanic, most business are more that happy to take your money, no matter if you come back or not.
Sorry if my org. comment offended, I myself only use a guy that built ATCC toranas BITD, I trust his work as he does mine.

[axistr]

I have found that setting the left side to neg 30min camber and drivers side positive 10min, left caster pos 1.30min, right 1.30min 0r 1.15min and set the toe to 0 on the wheel alignment mechine when pushing out at the front of the front tyres with both hands simulating drag on the wheels driving down the road. setting the toe to 1.5mm in will normally give you 0 toe under drag.

The above settings are all static and will give you good handeling and good tyre for every day driving on the road. For track work I would run around 1.30min -2.30min deg neg to both sides camber and even caster of around 3.30min positive.With track work you could give it a bit of toe out to increase the turn in with less understeer at high speed cornering

Make sure your drive axle is square in the chassis for all above settings

Now before you all argue just remember how many companys make camber kits for vehicles that totaly screw a set of tyres in now time flat, It wasn't untill the VE commodore that they started to produce vehicles with relistic cambers, they did this by coppying the Germans. (fact) Holden purchased a BMW E39 5 series and coppied it, the engineers admitted this in an interview 12 months after the release of the VE and at the time this vehicle was still in the Holden vehicle fleet. Remember how bad the VB-VC-VH-VN-VS choped out tyres with 1 1/2 degrease negitive camber and they recomended 2.5mm toe in.

With sloppy front ends you can get away with wild setting, stiffen it up with good shocks,springs,bushes and sticky wide tyres and you will need good setting to suit. Its all about the foot print of the tyre on the road surface, and you just carn't go through corners fast enough constantly on the street to get good tyre ware through high negitive camber settings, race cars can, street cars carn't.

Hope this helps.
Lenny

[GML-31]

if they stock the shims to do it properly your in with a chance you will get a descent job done

[76lxhatch]

On a related note - if you can make some reasonable measurements on a level surface at home in the driveway and get it close, that will save time and money with the wheel alignment. Most places hate the shims with a passion (some will even refuse to do alignments with them), so the closer you have it to begin with the less they have to change and they might feel a bit more inclined to do it right. Preferably use a selection of thin and thick shims so that there is easy adjustment to varying degrees, and know exactly what thickness and number of shims you have in each spot when you take it in, saves a lot of grief.

[Heath]

Sorry forgot to update. Had this done on the weekend and I'm very impressed with the results. This printout shows before and after (I wasn't driving it like this for long - just after I changed springs, check out the toe out lol)

[TerrA LX]

Bend the diff.

[rodomo]

Heath's wheels are buckled?

[Heath]

Yeah to adjust the rear end you have to get the oxy onto it.

[axistr]

It's easy, just remove or loosen the front or rear or both lower(rear suspension) control arm bolt, if there is enough moverment in the hole lever it in the direction needed to correct the alignment fault and retighten the bolts, if tightened firm they will not move, you may have to die grind the hole a little to get a bit more adjustment, sometimes moving the other side in the opposite direction can help. Thrust angle should be straight ahead or very slightly pointed down hill if you need a little help to push the front end up hill if you carn't get even caster and cambers on the steer axle.

Lenny.

[axistr]

Forgot to mention if the toe or camber is out on a live drive axle you can heat an axle housing with the oxy, heating in the correct spot will heat shrink the axle to adjust toe and camber, there is a bit of an art to doing a heat shrink but is easy when you know how.