B20VtecVillain

CLIFF Notes- Asking what is the best Front/Rear Toe setting for a DC2 on coil overs, 16" wheels with 205/45 tires and some basic suspension/chassis add-ons.

I'm getting ready to mount 4 new tires on my DC2 daily and want to make sure I'm setting the alignment properly so as not to ruin them prematurely or have a crappy ride at speed. The car is a 95 GSR with GC coil overs at DC2R Spring rates, GC extended top hats, Koni yellows, Hard Race roll center adjusters, DC2R F/R sway bars, ASR rear subframe brace, PassJDM front and rear strut bars, Function7 billet rear LCAs, wheels are 16" 5 lug DC2R wearing 205/45/16. Usually when aligning this car in the past I have gone with .01 Toe front (left and right) and .07 Toe rear(left and right, for a total front Toe of .02 and total rear Toe of .14. Recently though I was told that with my Caster/Camber I would benefit from going zero Toe all around, as well as someone else telling me to go zero toe up front and .04 on each side in the rear in order to help the rear end rotate a bit easier when driving for fun. I'm not too concerned about Caster/Camber since they aren't adjustable on our cars without modifications, but I will list my current Camber/Caster below in order to, hopefully, get a better response. Any feedback is appreciated.
Current Specs:
FR: -2.0 deg Camber/.4 deg Caster/.01 deg Toe
FL: -2.0 deg Camber/.7 deg Caster/.01 deg Toe
RR: -.7 deg Camber/.07 deg Toe
RL: -.6 deg Camber/.07 deg Toe

If it matters, front SAI is 12.8 deg left & right and Included Angle is 10.8 deg Left and 10.9 deg Right.

redlinetuning

That .01 and .07 toe change to .0 and .04 is so minimal you would not notice a difference. If you really want to do some serious testing, get a quick trick alignment kit and take it to the autocross courses and do your testing and tuning there.

B20VtecVillain

I figured on the street that it wouldn't be very noticable, I just wasn't sure if there would be a difference in tire wear over the 35k or so miles I generally get out of a set of street rubber. My last set, which I had also tracked on twice, is down to about 30% tread (Potenza RE11) and the fronts have a bit more wear on the inside than the rest of the tire. This is what prompted me to perhaps zero out the Toe.
As for an on track setup, I actually think I would notice a difference between zero toe and .04 of Toe In, especially in the rear and regarding the nature of it wanting to rotate freely or not. In the past my road course setup has generally been ~2.3-2.5 negative camber and a little bit of Toe in, around .05. This car is no longer being tracked though as I now have my built K swap in the EM1 chassis, so as a daily driver I'm really just looking for the best settings for longevity of the tires and not really the best for any kind of cornering. The only reason this car has the aforementioned suspension components is because it used to serve my track duties as well, now I'm putting some basic UHP summer tires on it and have my suspension set for comfort and such more than cornering so I want my alignment specs to match. I guess I'm kinda stuck just trYing the zero Toe and then seeing the results, but by the time I notice uneven wear with experimenting the damage which I'm trying to avoid has already then begun. More of a cost saving measure at this point because it's one thing to only get 1/3 of a tires recommended life out of it on the track, but on the street for a daily driver that could get expensive quick at $700-750 a set.

testify

Street car?

0 toe all around for a street car.

FlewByU352

Best is debatable and different between driving styles.

0 toe front and rear is good as a base but here is my experience. 0 toe is always good in the front as you never want toe in, however some drive with slight toe out. I tried even the slightest toe out in the front and turn in was insanely responsive but high speed anything the car was darty, twitchy, and uncomfortable. Now with the rear you never want toe out, and zero toe is a safe non tire wearing alignment, however you massively lose high speed stability without toe in.

For camber, I have found it very hard to achieve even tire wear with -2 degrees in the rear. With aero or dedicated race tires you might be able to take use of that much but for anything lacking those you won't use the whole contact patch. With -2 degrees of camber in the rear and hard turns sometimes breaking into a slide, my outside edges of my RE11 and RE71R haven't seen wear. It's about 1/4" from touching the triangles on the tires. The front however I have -2.5 degrees and I am utilizing the full contact patch perfectly around turns, but my tires are wearing faster on the inside due to the loss in straight line traction.

Andy@AMR

If your looking for some basic settings that will work good overall I would just go 2 degree in front, and 1 in the rear. TOE SET TO ZERO. As close to ZERO as possible.

If you really want to dial in camber properly, and for racing then I suggest you get a tire temp gauge, and don't listen to anyone online, and dial it in properly. What works for you will be different to what works best for someone else.

B20VtecVillain

Thank you very much for the info guys, very informative and I seriously appreciate the input! Sounds like I'm going to definitely get the front Toe zeroed and maybe just leave a small amount of Toe in for the rear. Reason being is this car is no longer used as a corner carver, but does see the occasional high speed freeway run when I'm in the mood and on long trips of straight empty highway roads.
(I travel I95 and I495 regularly at odd hours when there's almost no one around)
I'm ok with a little bit of "abnormal" tire wear over the life of the tires if the result is more high speed stability/safety. With my current settings, the car does corner very well but does feel a a little bit uncomfortable at high speeds, and if zero rear Toe is going to increase that feeling of high speed instability I certainly do not want that. I think I will go ahead and go zero front Toe and maybe .04-.05 L/R Toe in for a total of .08-.1 rear Toe in. Thanks again very much, suspension has never been my strong suit at all. I can spec out and build 300+whp all motor and 800+whp forced induction engine setups all day, but ask me to setup a suspension or chassis component and I'm lost lol.

B20VtecVillain

Also, while I'm talking with those obviously familiar with chassis/suspension. Have any of you ever heard of removing or switching to a smaller rear sway bar in order to make the car "safer" as a street car? Reason I ask is because a guy at the shop told me that my rear sway bar is too thick and that I should take it off or go back to a stock GSR bar since I'm no longer using this car for the track really. What sparked this convo is me describing the only time I've ever lost control of this car on the street; that being going around a large sweeping C-turn at 80-85 mph and having the rear end kick out on me to the point where it almost sent me in a complete 180 but counter steering allowed me to basically maintain a couple hundred feet of sliding sideways then regaining control as normal. I thought I simply goofed and hit the turn too fast but he seems to think I would have been fine had it not been for my very stiff & braced rear and thicker than stock sway bar. I believe mine is 2-3mm larger diameter than a stock GSR bar. Is there any truth to this statement of having "too much" sway bar and/or bracing for a street car?

testify

Hes right.

A larger rear sway bar definitely does serve to reduce traction.

Lift off oversteer when you have to slam on your brakes for traffic can be bad news.

With that said, as long as you're not an idiot, you should be able to handle it.

Also, when a FWD car oversteers, the correct thing to do is counter steer and go WOT.