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Old 2003-05-16, 07:20 AM   #2
AtomicLabMonkey
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Real Name: Austin
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Oshkosh, WI
Posts: 4,063
 
Car: '13 WRX
 
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In general you probably don't want to go with toe-out on a street-driven car. If the leading edges of the tires are pointed outwards like that it will be very "darty", follow the bumps and grooves in the road all the time, and probably get to be a pain in the ass after a while for street use. It's best to stay with either 0-toe or a minimum of toe-in, maybe 1/16" toe-in. Go with as much negative camber as you can get while realizing that the more you camber the tires the more they will wear on the street (my car is set at -2.0 degrees, that's about as much as i'd want to go with for street use cause it's already wearing the tires faster than usual). Also go with as much positive caster as you can get, maybe 5 or 6 degrees if possible.. this will lessen the tendency of the front tires to gain positive camber (bad) when the body rolls, and even cause negative camber gain (good) when the body rolls if you have enough caster. This helps compensate for the relatively poor camber curve of a strut-type suspension. The only side effect of increased caster is increased steering effort. This can actually be good though for a street car when combined with a low or zero toe setting. Most of the reason a factory car tracks straight when it's going down the highway is because the front wheels are toed-in, it provides a stabilizing, centering effect. When you reduce toe-in or set zero-toe you no longer have that stabilization, but the increased steering effort that comes with increased positive caster has its own stabilizing effect, which sort of compensates for not having any toe-in set.

Hope that didn't ramble too much...
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