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?

A starting point:

-1.5 camber rear.
-1.0 camber front.
A little toe-in all the way around. (On the order of 1/16" total.)
Max-ish caster in front, about 6 degrees.

In general on a street car you want to keep the toe-in on all four corners. For an autoX specialist, going with a small amount of toe-out in the front can help the car to turn in a bit better. But the car becomes more "dirty" and you have to be able to constantly pay attention to where it is going--look away for a moment and it is liable to change lanes on you.

More negative camber can help grip in the corners, but that's at the expense of uneven tire wear, and often a little bit of traction in braking.

Note that with a car at or near stock ride height you can max out the negative camber relatively easily. Some cars won't give you more than about 2 degrees worth without lowering or other modifications.

--DD

Dave,
Do you have someone in mind to do the alignment?

Kevin
I have talked to Paul at Performance Automotive in Malvern. Do you have someone you recommend?

You might want to talk to Bill Sherwood @ CSE in Oreland. He was very active in the SCCA back in the day. I had them do my alignment/corner balance a number of years ago and was pleased. I would suggest a look over and visit to see if they feel comfortable to you. There are fancier places, but the rear alignment on these cars can take a little bit of time that not everyone has the patience or ability to do well.
http://cseauto.com/site/about-us/owners-message/

I'm familiar with Bill, Dion has actually used him before for some repairs. He's right around the corner from me. Performance used to be a Porsche only shop. Have since expanded into other German cars. I stopped to talk to them about the alignment. They gave me a tour of the shop and asked if I wanted to be present while the work was being done. Paul has been setting up street autocross cars for years and will be doing my car himself. So I'm pretty sure I'm going to give them a try. It's right near where I work too. I was just trying to get some numbers to get started.

I don't like to use more than 3/4 degree negative camber on a dual use street car. Tire wear on the inside edge is drastically increased to achieve a modest improvement in corner grip.
More often I set street cars up at 1/2 degree negative all around.

Thanks Chris. This is exactly what I was looking for. Performance gains vs tire wear.

I've recently found a Porsche shop here in the Eastern Panhandle of WV that can do four wheel alignment and corner balancing and I've finally finished with most of my suspension and brake work (must replace atrocious spacers near future), so I'm wondering what recipe's the go fast crowd might suggest?
Dave and Chris, please chim in!

The stats:

V-8

Hankook Ventus V12 evo 225/50ZR16 front, 2.5” spacers (atrocious I know, thanks PO)
Koni red front
Stock sway bar front
Turbo tie rods

Fuzion ZRi 245/45R16 rear, 3” spacers (nutz, thanks PO)
Koni yellow with perches
220 springs
Stock sway bar rear
Boxed trailing arms
Rear chassis stiffening kit.

1986 911SC front hubs

Primarily street with no need for tire longevity, sometime track day car Summit Point WV

Additional info-Sheridan standard widebody. Quite a bit lighter than stock.

I'm going with Chris's recommendations. Because of wheel offset that may be all I can run.

I would follow the same recommendations as above with emphasis on this:
Make sure you have toe-in at the rear wheels, approx. 1/16" both sides. Boxed trailing arms may make this difficult.
Increase the front torsion bars to 21mm.
The widened front lowers the effective spring rate due to suspension geometry.
Get a bigger, adjustable front anti-sway bar.

Thanks Racer Chris!

For a track car, the usual rule of thumb is "as much negative camber as you can get"--subject to the numbers being the same left to right, and close-ish front to rear. Radial tires like lots and lots of negative camber, typically.

Street cars like quite a bit less, due to concerns about tire wear. And to the fact that they aren't usually cornering as hard as a track car, so they may never use the outer part of the tire.

If your car is both, you have to pick your compromise.

And in the end, you will need to do testing to see what works best for your car in your particular use. Different drivers like different setups, and one driver may like different setups on different tracks. So take any recommendations as a starting point, and then do your own testing to find what works best for you.

--DD

Thanks DD! I appreciate the input :-)

For me the cars have always been driven on the street but only a limited number of miles each year. The tires are going to get too old long before they get worn out from excessive camber. So, I've run max camber (~-1.7 deg up front, I don't remember but think about the same in the rear), slight toe out up front, and zero toe in the rear. It makes the car responsive and fun to drive. I've had little to no problem with tramlining (following grooves in the road) with this set up.

Lots of camber will wear the inside edges of the tire and it will be accelerated if you run much toe. I've found more camber, less toe to be a good set up with moderate wear and good performance.

Depending on how many miles you'll be putting on it each year, I say go for the most performance you can w/o burning through tires before they they are too old and need to be replaced due to age.

Chris if this is how you have my car setup then it works really well... the car just hunts for the apex and very crisp turn in moment.

The best street performance is available at camber settings of less than 3/4 degree negative. Only on track with very sticky tires is it possible to get additional performance from increased camber settings.

What do you guys think about doing your own alignments?
There's real cheap tools for setting camber or you could set up something that uses a tilt box.
Toe in is easy to make a fixture to do that.

I'm asking because I have 4 cars that will need alignment soon and I do at least 1-3 cars a year. The shops are all 60+ minute round trips, up to a couple hours there minimum, so by time I get back a better part of the day is shot.

with even simply tools this is very easy to do... however and this is the big however, you must have a flat working surface otherwise it's not going to work and this is why I had Chris do mine..

Yep, I was thinking about that because my floor isn't perfect. My idea on that is bolt plates to the floor in the four corners that are perfectly level.

I do my own. As far as I can tell from having paid for it before, there is no difference except a lighter wallet.

Linoleum tiles. (Or other thin-ish floor tiles.) Use a nice tube level (tube with colored water in it) to figure out how much height has to be added to the floor in each spot. You can even paint the number of tiles on the spot on the floor so you don't have to measure every time. The tiles are tough and stack to give you a decent amount of leveling.

Put driver-equivalent weight in the driver's seat. Especially if you're a big guy like many of us.

Strings are a little bit of a pain to set up--mostly getting the reference to the actual centerline correct--but are dead-nuts simple once they are set. If you're going to be aligning one car a whole lot, it can be worth it to build fixtures that attach to the car itself that hold the strings. Still useful, but less guaranteed to be precise, on other cars of that model.

Measuring camber is easy. Caster is the tough one, and usually you'd just measure camber change as the steering wheel is turned a specific amount.

--DD

'yup - $$$$

long time ago, my six was setup by Ken Mack of Sportech in Sunnvale for "combo use" - vintage racing, AX & street - for racing i ran 7&8's with directional tires
(Ken was an accomplished 914/6 racer, so he knew what would work)

front camber -1.5, caster 5*, toe =00;
rear -2.0 camber, rear toe 0.4'

it's incredibly stable & neutral on the track (of course i have a full competition suspension & am running 8x16" wheels & spacers with about 1-1/2" more track width to go with that claim, so ymmv)

yes - it eats tires; - i made the mistake of buying g-force summer performance street tires a few yrs ago - they were stone hard in 4 yrs with under 30% wear - scary on the street & really awful at AX - and cuz they were directional I had to pay to have 'em swapped side to side on the wheels to compensate for the camber wear (worst on rear)

for that reason i now run 4 Fuchs 7x16's all around with AS3s, so i can cross-rotate to improve the life a bit; and they are still competent enuf for occasional AX & DE track use

maybe someday i might realign it to less drastic specs, ( i saved a boxful of rear plates for just that reason) but as said above, our tires will be age-dead long before camber wear is a problem

- i have the string setup & Smartcamber tools as well as a set of snap-on turnplates & Ammco gauge & Ray Scruggs book, & have done several of my cars that way,

- as others say - if we value our time, just pay to get it done - either way "a day is shot", and we might additionally get some good advice from a tech who actually races or AX's & knows what the settings affect ( yes, i live 60-100 miles from any competent race-align shop that knows Porsche's or has an interest in the extra time cost of doing a to-my-spec-job)

(... pay attention to DD - he has been competently answering this question for as many yrs as our forums & old BBS's exist)

I think you meant front toe-out to improve turn-in. Rear toe-out gives you a car where the back wants to steer the front...

--DD

Thanks Dave I've found a few sites and YT vids on how to do this. Since I may be doing this often enough I'm going to look into a more permanent level floor area solution.
I'm also thinking on making corner balance fixtures, found a niffty calc program for using 4:1 fixtures and bathroom scales.

http://rennlight.com/cgi-bin/balance.cgi?n...p;LR=0&RR=0

I have heard from folks on the Bird Board that the bathroom scale solution does not work very well. It is sensitive to exactly how you set it up, and difficult to get repeatable measurements.

I didn't check the link, so it is possible that this is a better version than discussed on the Bird's Racing BBS, and doesn't have those issues, but it's definitely something to at least think about.

--DD

Soooo, this is what Performance Automotive in Kearneysville, WV (just down the street from Summit Point Raceway) suggested.

Camber , Toe-in , Castor

Front L, -.94 , All 1/16 , 5 1/4
Front R, -.65
Rear L, -1.64
Rear R, -1.54

Corner weight-
Front 490 both
Rear 700 both
Stock Curb weight 2138
Mine (sbc) weight 2380

Keep in mind this isn't an exact science and when you take some here, you have to add some there, gain here, compromise there. Each car is unique. This was as good as they could get what they were shooting for without ALOT more modification in suspension adjustability.

Initial test drive seems like a different car. I can corner in excess of my ability. Track day tomorrow at the Point to see more and learn, learn, learn!

Good to know when I get that far I'll post my results.
The link is just a calculator for 4:1 set-up.

As if I need another project on the list

The guy was using Ruggles scales which look fairly simple to copy.

There's someone selling a real set of corner weight scales for $500 on pelican.

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

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