camber settings, What are you guys running? Options

[914dave]

Won't be long til we're off to alignment and corner balance. The car is mostly street use and probably a monthly autocross. 21mm bars up front and 180# adjustable coilovers in the rear. 23mm front sway bar and the front spindles are raised 19mm. Torque bias limited slip and a stock rear sway bar.
Are you guys running stock settings? I don't mind a little more aggressive but it's not an all out competition car. I'll sacrifice a little more tire wear for performance. What have you guys run that works?

[larryM]

a chart in Porsche's 1972 Info for Sports Purposes suggests the following for a 914-6

camber front -20' to 30'
camber rear -30' to 40'
toe in front 0 +/- 10'
toe in rear 0 +/- 10'
castor 6* to 7*

that is with 185/70x15's on 7" wheels


here's some notes from several old threads:

914 alignment

4ncarGuy: Alignment shims 914.
. U can't align the 914 with out rear alignment shims
this is what changes the rear toe and camber & caster.
( one millimeter changes the camber 10 minutes or 10 degrees)

DD - Stock specs are for 0 camber front, -1/2 degree rear. I like to push those to -1.0/-1.5 (F/R) for an aggressively-driven street 914. More than that is getting into the realm of "racing" alignment

Suggestions for a somewhat aggressive street alignment:
Front camber, -1.0 degrees. Front toe, 1/16" in. Front caster, 6 degrees.
Rear camber, -1.5 degrees. Rear toe, 1/16" in.

For a less aggressive street alignment, back off the negative camber F&R by about 1/2 degree.

This assumes a relatively neutral balance in the choice of suspension components. Different suspension setups will "want" different alignment specs. (E.g., those with bigger front sway bars may want more negative camber up front, or less in the back.)

I have found the above setup to work pretty well with stock suspension components, hard-compound tires, and rather aggressive driving (including some autoX).

REAR:
Remove shims for more negative camber. Add them for more positive camber.
The shims go above the outboard suspension pivot point, and below the chassis. So making the shims thicker moves the outer point down, tilting the top of the wheel outward. That's (in the direction of) positive camber.
( one millimeter changes the camber 10 minutes or 10 degrees)


Brad Roberts- I like to run 1.2 neg front and 1.5 neg. rear with 5.5 caster in front and 1/16 of toe in front and rear.
this is ok for street tires (just barely) you will see uneven wear over time.
for falkens.. 1.5 front and rear with the same caster and toe.

Most 914's cant get 1.5 neg in the front without modifying the tub.


John rogers
07-08-2002,
Stock alignment works okay on the rear and same for front with an increase of negative camber to a full 1 degree on each front wheel.

track cars car run with 0 toe-in front or even some toe-out but that makes the car really jumpy on the street.

Make sure all mods to the suspension have been done such as lowering, shocks, springs, sway bar, etc before the alignmnet gets done.

There are several posts concerning what alignment specs to use and they differ slightly between street and the track. They are on this site and the other two 914 web sites too.

Usually for street use you want slight negative camber and slight toe in, in front, while for racing more neg camber and some toe OUT in front is better.

If you are just going to drive a little you could get the home alignment article from the site here and then do a professional alignment after all the parts are in and everything has been finalized. That can also include a good corner balance which will make things really handle better.

Wayne has just posted an article on home checking alignment on a 914 I wrote and some picts to go with it (what's new). Can one or two of the math wizes out there (DD?, Jeff?) check my math I used with the Law of Sines? The numbers in the article are based on 15 inch wheels only, any other size would be in error. I have had a couple of checks already, but more never hurts.


Dave at Pelican Parts
07-08-2002,
Max front caster, but keep L & R equal.
~1/16" toe-in at the rear, 0 toe front.
1.5 to 2.0 degrees negative camber in the rear, with the front a half-degree closer to 0 camber.

Sway bars, torsion bars, and springs will change the balance of the car and you may get better results with different camber angles than the above. For instance, if you have a stock front sway bar and no rear, try setting the camber to even all the way around. You may need to tweak from there.

You can go for 1/16" toe-out in front. It will help the initial turn-in response a bit, but the car will get somewhat "twitchy" on the street. You will have to actually drive the car every second--you can find yourself changing lanes accidentally when you look down to change radio stations... It gets a bit wearing after a while, but it is still mostly streetable.

0 front toe will mean you still have to pay some attention, and that the car will turn in a little more crisply than one with front toe-in.

Camber: A little bit of negative camber (tops of wheels lean in toward the centerline of the car) is normal, and a good thing.

Stock specs are for 0 camber front, -1/2 degree rear. I like to push those to -1.0/-1.5 (F/R) for an aggressively-driven street 914. More than that is getting into the realm of "racing" alignment, which is not really appropriate for the street.

Rear toe-out, to quote someone else, "...is evil!!" A good way to swap ends.

*************

".... semi-trailing arms naturally tend to toe out under lateral loads, a trait that created the early 911’s fearsome reputation for lift-off oversteer" which resulted in the "evil tendency" to swap ends as DD points out

****************

The generally accepted theory is that:
Front Toe settings affect the quite important first third of cornering where you set up the line to the apex i.e. initial turn in.
Rear Toe impacts upon acceleration through the apex and the attitude of the car on corner exit, i.e. whether understeer or oversteer shows up.
(if they say it on the internet it must be true)

"toe out in the rear helps with rotation because load transfers to the rear outside tire in a turn and since the rear tires don't turn (other than via dynamic toe), the slip angle is due only to the turning of the front wheels.
However, if the outside tire (loaded tire) already has static toe *out* as it becomes loaded, the slip angle will be greater​,​ and the rear will want to turn more outward than if the static toe were 0.
However all the while you'd think the inside rear tire, pointing inward would counter this, but due to the load transfer to the outside tire, it's lateral grip effects are negligible compared to the outside tire." "I hear that this was something used on the old carrera cup cars." https://forums.nasioc.com/forums

[HalfMoon]

That above compilation was/is quite helpful information for all of us.
Thanks!