Car is an '02 WRX and I'm looking for a good compromise between autox and daily driving. Headed to Jeff The alignment guy Wednesday. -stock swaybars -Tokico Spec D adjustable struts -H & R Sport springs -1.5"F -1.4"R -225/45/17 RE070s Front O* Toe -2.5* Camber Caster (non adjustable) Rear 0* Toe -1.5* Camber Look about right? I'm hoping I will be good with stock camber bolts on top and aftermarket camber bolts in the bottom for the front and aftermarket camber bolts on top in the rear. pics for clicks:
2.5 is a lot for street use. Depending how much you drive you're looking at some pretty uneven tire wear. Ditch the bolts and get plates. Then you can increase camber all you want when it's track time... ... or get a set of bars so you don't have to run so much camber by default.
I was thinking the increased wear inside would be offset by the outside wear from autox. Isn't Toe going to be the biggest tire wearer? I don't intend to do swaybars yet as I want to gradually improve things as I've proved out/learned on a setup. I'm just looking for alignment suggestions for my current setup.
Toe will wear your tires faster than camber, but camber will cause uneven wear. For autoX the front is almost enough, and a little too much for DD (I think it's about a perfet compromise). I would go with less camber in the rear, around -1 degree to aid in getting the car to rotate.
I used to run 3.2 degrees on my daily driven Neon. Not a real wear factor, although it technically will cause some. Toe is the biggest offender. Not a Subie setup expert myself, but I would recommend a little toe out in the front..maybe 1/16 to 1/8. That won;t kill your tires too bad. Mainly just to preload all the components and to get a little quicker initial turn in reponse. Rear toe can often be adjusted "in the field" to suit conditions, and then returned to zero for street driving. Not sure how easy it is to adjust...it's pretty easy on some cars.
This is with re070's right? -2.5 front should be a good compromise. You could knock it back a quarter degree or so if yr concerned about wear. They're not like the kooks that need lots of camber. fwiw, my last DD setup was in the -2.75/-1.25 range with 0 toe and no uneven tire wear. I'd also be a bit weary of running 2 sets of bolts in the front. Maybe try maxing out the stock bolts and see if you can get in the -1.5 to -1.75 area with a little persuasion...
Dont do 2 sets of bolts in the front.. we tried it in Zac's wagon.. he got about 5 miles from the shop and clunk.. they shifted.... even thought tightened with an impact.. HARD
If that was when he used my old bolts, I think his problem had more to do with the broken tab. Apparently, the little tab is more important than we realised. Stuart.
No- sway bars do not affect alignment. If it has been a long time since you got an alignment or don't know what the specs were that it was aligned to it would probably be good to get one.
