80LS1T Posted June 23, 2008 Share Posted June 23, 2008 I am looking to get some advice on some front wheel alignment specs for my 280ZX. I have adjustable tension rods so caster and toe are the only adjustable angles. I want the car to feel better at high speeds but still turn half way decent. I don't auto-x my car so I need a street set up but more towards stability at higher speeds. One of these days I'm going to make my rear adjustable so I can take some of the negative camber out and fine tune the toe but for now its only the front! Thanks guys! Guy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnc Posted June 23, 2008 Share Posted June 23, 2008 No real difference in the front from the S30: http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=126789 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
80LS1T Posted June 24, 2008 Author Share Posted June 24, 2008 Well I did my alignment today. I have about 0* camber, 7* caster, and 0*.25' toe(I don't know what if that is .25 degrees.... .25"? anyone know? That's how our alignment machine reads it?). Is 7* too much? Should I have toe in or out on my cars front end? I read that sticky John but Im still unsure? I am running 225/40/18's in front and 265/35/18's in the rear. I drove the car home but it feels "darty" like it it wants to follow every little line in the road. Could that be caused by the difference in tire sizes? The rear end had about -2.5* of camber on both sides and toe was at -0*.16' (LR) and 0*.05' (RR). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMortensen Posted June 24, 2008 Share Posted June 24, 2008 Toe angle to inch conversion: http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=126700 If your alignment machine is a Hunter, you can choose to display in either format, you just have to select the inches in the right screen (I can't give any more detail than that as it's been 10 years since I did my last alignment). Your rear is obviously off compared to the front. The negative toe value is toe out. Toe out in the rear is not good, especially with semi-trailing arm rear suspension. You could look into slotting the crossmember to get some adjustability back there to fix. If I were you and everything were adjustable I'd try more toe in up front, like 1/8" total toe in, and more neg camber if you can get any, maybe -1 or -1.5 degree or so. Then work on the rear and try to match them up more or less to the front settings. 3/16" toe in out back works well on the semi-trailing arm setup, get rid of the squishy rubber bushings back there on the arms too. If you really want it to handle well, get rid of the subframe bushings that attach the crossmember to the chassis and replace with aluminum or poly. This stuff is all fairly common in the 510 world, you can look there for more answers too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
80LS1T Posted June 24, 2008 Author Share Posted June 24, 2008 Yeah I have all new poly bushings in the rear arms....what a treat that was! I didn't think there was anything avaliable for the subframe bushings or I would have put poly ones in there aswell. I need to get off my butt and slot the rear subframe. I drove the car up to some higher speeds tonight and if felt good. Just at lower speeds it seems to dart around. Is it possible that I have my steering gear set too tight causing my steering to be too responsive. I just remember there being a screw on the top of the gear box and I think I messed with it, don't really know what it does. I just know when I put new seals in it I think I had to take it appart so it might be out of adjustment cause I don't remember it being this "tight" of steering. I drove it last year like this too but never did an alignment. Guy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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