MX-5 Wheel Alignment Specs..

[CPDJ]

Hi All,
I am looking for alignment specs for a stock NC.
It turns out my requirements happen to be exactly the same as the Admins, right down to the daily driving distance i.e:
*I drive the car daily to work (70k round trip) and do the odd track day.
*The car is completely standard.
*I want an alignment that would work with occasional spirited driving and would not wear the insides of my tyres.

p.s. Am based in Melb.

Cheers.

[SPy vs. SPy]

I believe "Spinning Wheel" is the company you need to talk to

otherwise, page 280 (Jeez, these guys need to get out more )of this thread http://mx5cartalk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=17056&hilit=garage+cafe&start=4185 says everyone still gets to the Garage Cafe every Thursday night around 7.30pm

Quote from CheyneMX5
"Hey there! We usually meet at a little spot called The Garage Cafe in Carlton.http://www.garagecafe.com.au . People usually roll in after 7:30pm on Thursday ..."

I'd mosey over there and ask some of the NC boys their thoughts.

Cheers
SPy

[JBT]

I am looking for alignment specs for a stock NC.

Front: Max castor, about 0.5 - 1.0 degree negative camber, about 2-3 mm total toe in
Rear: about 1.5 degrees negative camber, about 2-3 mm total toe in

Those specs work fine and will not wear your tyres...but the odd track day will.

Make sure you go to some place that regularly has their equipment calibrated and has competent operators.

[broady]

^ This thread is for NA/NB alignment, check out this thread for NC alignment:

http://forum.miata.net/vb/showthread.php?t=167092

Scroll down to Charlie Brown's post for the good bit.

[JBT]

^ This thread is for NA/NB alignment...

Funny, I don't see that in the thread title.

My settings are as per my post above with 5.5-6.2 degrees of castor. Used for road, track and hillclimb with Whiteline adjustable sway bars.

[Charlie Brown]

^ This thread is for NA/NB alignment...

Funny, I don't see that in the thread title.

That's because the Adimin reposted the thread when the board was updated.
The original post was before the NC was released and the thread title hasn't been change to reflect the model(s).

Broady's post links to the NC alignment.

JBT's specs are fine for his intended use, especially with adjustable sways and is a great place for you to start.

Remember that a wheel alignment is always a compromise if you are doing a mix of road and track. You need to decide what you want and then can live with.

Better track times equate to more aggressive alignment and the harder the day to day driving becomes.

I’m currently running an aggressive alignment more track orientated than road so I have to put up with the car moving around on the road a lot. It tramlines, changes direction over bumps and under brakes, etc, etc., but on the track it performs very well. When the time comes to hang up the helmet then I’ll change the alignment to suit spirited road use, similar to JBT’s but with a little less toe.

A little note for those NC owners worried about inside tyre wear with negative camber. I’m running around 2.3 - 2.5 negative camber and after 30,000 kilometres there’s only about 1mm more wear on the inside than the outside of the tyres.
I doubt that you’ll see and additional inside tyre wear running up to 1.5 negative camber with normal spirited road use.

[JBT]

I had the NC re-aligned last week. I really just wanted it checked due to some extra wear on the inside of the right front which I put down to mostly right turns at a track day or two. They've taken my fronts back from around one degree negative to close to zero camber and heaps of castor These guys used to be good but seem to have lost the plot. The car didn't feel quite right after the alignment and was taken back twice for adjustment. Predictably, it was understeering to blazes at the Noosa hillclimb on the weekend.

I'm going elsewhere later this week to get it sorted by someone who does suspension and actually drives cars in competition....track and hillclimb.

[gorby]

Off to get mine aligned this weekend, before the eomm. So will try one of the settings in this thread. Looking forward to the results.

[CoffeeBoss]

Stu @ Spinning Wheel has a newly updated spec for NC owners: see here.

Feel free to contact me directly for specifics, I have my alignment scanned for those who really must see it... but if you're in or near Sydney, please go visit Stu for the real thing.

[Charlie Brown]

Feel free to contact me directly for specifics, I have my alignment scanned for those who really must see it...

but if you're in or near Sydney, please go visit Stu for the real thing.

Matt, Glad you said that BUT Stu doesn't want every man and his dog running off to their aligner and using his alignment.

I'd suggest that you be careful who gets to see the numbers, otherwise your next visit to Stu might not be too pleasant. I know from personal experience.

[dazzana8]

i got wheel allignment done at work the wheel alligner thougt he would be funny and put 2 degrees of camber on the rear so i fixed up the rear myself ... the car is a stock na8 with 195/50R15s

specs are roughtly

Front
Caster: max (5. something degrees cant remember exactly)
Camber: came up .8 degrees with the caster settings
toe: total 1.2mm (.6 either side)

Rear (my setting)
Camber 1.3 (half a degree more than front)
Toe: same as front

the setting is not very agressive but it feels settled thru corners and will oversteer if you try hard enough

[Scoota]

I've found the following setup to be good for road and track. It's primarily a track car, an NA6 with PSS-9's (low), Super-Pro bushes, Toyo R888's. The car is dríven to the circuit generally (except Wakefield Park).

Front
Camber: -2.0 degrees
Toe-in: 0.0 mm
Castor: +4.0 degrees
Rear
Camber: -2.0 degrees
Toe-in: 0.0 mm

This is what I call "good": No bump steer or "wandering" on bumpy tarmac roads, responsive front-end but not "twitchy", and no other nasty habits.

Over the past few months (including three track days) I have made the following observations:
1. Tread wear seems to be greater in the outer part of the tread, ie. more negative camber required.
2. Turn-in is predictable but could be sharper, ie. more toe-in required (?)
In general I have been happy with the handling manners, but I am going to make some adjustments to improve the wear distribution. Based on these findings I am going to try the following:

Front
Camber: -2.5 degrees
Toe-in: 0.5 mm
Castor: +5.0 degrees
Rear
Camber: -2.5 degrees
Toe-in: 0.0 mm

I will let you know how that goes at Phillip Island on the 4th of Feb. I will also have some tread temperature gradient readings with the next set of findings, both road and track. Phillip Island is very hard on the right-hand-side tyres, so that should be interesting!

[manga_blue]

I've just been resetting mine back to its optimal specs. 2 years of bashing up and down ripple strips on track days since the last alignment knocks the settings around a fair bit.

In a process of constant tweaking and improvement I'm up to about rev 10 of track settings. These are now:
Front
Ride height: 320mm
Camber: -3.5 degrees
Toe-in: 0.0 mm
Castor: +4.5 degrees
Rear
Ride height: 325mm (more or less, lowering it gives more rear grip but less braking stability, I often play with it on the day)
Camber: -3.0 degrees
Toe-in: 0.0 mm

It's stable, predictable and very, very sticky like this at track speeds. I get perfectly even tread wear. It's too nervous at lower speeds on the road however. If I leave the R-specs on then it's a bit like driving a fruit bat.

As a daily I use:
Front
Ride height: 350mm
Camber: -2.0 degrees
Toe-in: 0.0 mm
Castor: +4.5 degrees
Rear
Ride height: 355mm
Camber: -1.5 degrees
Toe-in: 0.0 mm

Raising the suspension by about 30mm for daily duties automatically brings the camber back to around 2.0/1.5 without any other adjustments and it's responsive, very stable and even wearing for the street tyres. I also get enough clearance to drive over most debris and the smaller roadkill.

It's always worth perusing Emilio's setup guides at http://949racing.com/miata-race-alignment-info.aspx

[sailaholic]

Great white up, Thanks manga. Good solution for track vs Street driving. I was wondering how you were adjusting it each time.

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk

[manga_blue]

No worries. One of Shaikh's mates measured and published the camber curves, showing just how much camber change our cars have. The idea to use height to reset camber for dual use flowed from that.

http://www.virkki.com/jyri/miata/camber/ (and if you're running the latest version of Java you'll need to start up Configure Java from the Start menu and add this site to the Security Exception List)