Wheel Alignment Specs

[GMVPSS]

Good afternoon all,

Would anyone have wheel alignment specifications for VFII Redline wagon?

I am fitting some MCA Coil overs and as the front camber is set with washers (not the normal adjustment screw) I want to get the front camber right before it goes in to Pedders to get the full alignment done.

I booked it in today and asked them what they set the front camber at and they told me Left -1.0° and right -0.5°.

I asked why the difference from left to right and he said it is to get it to drive straight.

Has anyone else had this problem? What is the front end aligned to on your lowered cars?

Thanks in advance!

 

[harrop.senator]

I usually run atleast 1/1.5 the cambers not usually altered on the left side only the caster I always thought the left wheel sits more forward to drive straight on a cambered run off road. You may want some more camber if you fitted coil overs for performance reasons and not looks. Helps the turn in a lot.

 

[Smashfist]

It's common to give more camber on the LHF to allow for road camber - the other way to adjust is to tweak the toe but that will hammer tyre wear a lot worse than fiddling with the camber and rotating tyres regularly.

Spec is between -0.25 and -0.75 if I recall. If you do lots of highway driving try -0.25L -0.4R ish, if you don't do lots of highway and you want nice front turn without pushing go -0.6L -0.75R but be aware that will be trading a little inside tyre wear for handling (unless you're harsh on front tyres then they'll probably wear evenly).

 

[harrop.senator]

My alignment guys just always added .5 of a mm of toe in for each degree of negative camber found it gets it pretty even . I haven't used the mechanical wheel alignment machine at work yet. Pretty damn keen haha.

 

[RiCeY]

–.30° ± .33° left and right are factory specs.

 

[Mike Litherous]

Maybe once the coil overs are in try a more aggressive alignment. I don’t know why more commodore (that’s ve / vf owners) run such low front negative camber. I set my work Ute up with -2.5deg front end camber with 0.5mm per side toe in and the handling for such a big heavy car is rediculisly good. Steering feels awesome. And inside edge tyre wear is zero.

The modern Holden has some good suspension just majorly conservative factory geometry setup for understeer.

 

[GMVPSS]

Thanks for the responses guys.

I'm going to get the ride height set and see what I can get out of the camber washers supplied. Worst case I can make some new camber washers up before the wheel alignment if required.

If I'm looking for 1.5° its going to be easy with the washers I have now.

Will post pics once I get it setup.

 

[vc commodore]

Caster is what determines whether the car drives straight, the majority of the time....Yes, you can "fiddle" with the cambers to get it driving straight, but I generally do that when there is a caster issue creating a left drift. However considering your car is new, this shouldn't have to be done....So by Pedders telling you this, shows they have no idea on the concepts of alignments...

What to set cambers at....Hummm....The way I determine it, is how tyres wear, and also looking at the toe settings...Some have aggressive cambers ie 1 + degree negative, whilst others have less than 1 degree negative and still produce even tyre wear...So, in your instance, I'd be checking cambers BEFORE setting them with your new coil overs....This is easily done by placing a straight edge (spirit levels are perfect for this task) on the base of the tyre and measuring the distance between the straight edge and the top of the tyre....This will give you a rough base line camber setting before troddling off for an alignment.

On the subject of camber settings....The way a person drives a car and the area in which they most frequent, often determines whether an aggressive camber setting allows for even tyre wear or not....Hence why I have suggested the base setting I have.

 

[RiCeY]

Maybe once the coil overs are in try a more aggressive alignment. I don’t know why more commodore (that’s ve / vf owners) run such low front negative camber. I set my work Ute up with -2.5deg front end camber with 0.5mm per side toe in and the handling for such a big heavy car is rediculisly good. Steering feels awesome. And inside edge tyre wear is zero.

The modern Holden has some good suspension just majorly conservative factory geometry setup for understeer.

2.5deg neg camber and zero inner edge tyre wear makes no sense, yes it will turn in a lot better but it will also wear the inside edge as the tyre isn't sitting flat.

 

[Smashfist]

Caster is what determines whether the car drives straight, the majority of the time....Yes, you can "fiddle" with the cambers to get it driving straight, but I generally do that when there is a caster issue creating a left drift. However considering your car is new, this shouldn't have to be done....So by Pedders telling you this, shows they have no idea on the concepts of alignments...

Except caster isn't adjustable on a lot of cars.