I know what toe and camber are but is the Z or any car for that matter suppose to have any degree of toe either in or out, while parked?

Since toe being in or out causes tire wear, more so than camber, I would think there should be none?

Also if you took a bone stock Z off the lot, then lowered it 1" or 1.5" or more, without first doing an alignment, would the rear tires naturally toe in or out?

 

they'll toe in, and you want a little bit of toe in, ~0.05-0.1 in the rear because the drive wheels will push out slightly as they begin to move and will essentially be at zero toe when moving

 

The toe setting is a tradeoff between the straight-line stability afforded by toe-in and the quick steering response promoted by toe-out. Nobody wants their street car to constantly wander . Racers are willing to sacrifice a bit of stability on the straightaway for a sharper turn-in to the corners. So street cars are generally set up with toe-in, while race cars are often set up with toe-out.

 

Somewhere I read that toe in promotes tire wear on the outside thread and toe out promotes tire wear on the inside thread. I could be wrong, but I'm too lazy to look up it up.

 

Only on the front tires, racers still toe-in the rear tires for better turning.

 

Camel toe FTW!

 

I hope everyone is on the same page as far as using rear toe in is concerned, never heard of anyone dialing in to rear toe out.

It's alway's been my understanding that the rear suspension has enough bushing compliance as to induce toe change under load, IIRC that's part of the reason for EVO350 equiping their Grand-Am car's with sperical bushings.

 

Remember the oem misalignment specs were developed from reading the real at 55 mph parameters.............the thrust of moving forward at speed forces the suspension back and apart from rubber bushing compression.

So we misalign sitting still to get it right at speed.

This static misalignment changes with bushing wear and age from ozone damage that's why oem is so broad..................examining tire wear patterns frequently tells the expert where to se the static so it works at speed.

What works brand new will be very different from 70k and can only be fixed by periodically replacing suspension components as they wear out of brand new range.

 

Interesting points in this thread. I always found that 0 toe all around works the best on street cars. You get good high speed stability, excellent turn in without tearing up the tires really fast. I found that too much negative camber effects high speed stability more, especially under hard acceleration, than toe. I'd say set it all to 0 all around. Going with a toe in in the front will dumb down the steering and your steering response will be compromised. The rear may help with turn in but you'll chew the tires up quickly. Toe out will give you lots of wandering and make rapid acceleration scary. Again, I think 0 is really the best way to go on the street. It's a compromise...isn't that what suspension is all about? For racing applications, rules change.

 

HAHAHAHA.

some of this info im reading sounds like gran turismo 4 data.

 

I would still toe-in the front & rear tires even on a street car. We are only talking about 1/16" or less, it will make the car much more stable under acceleration and on the highway. You will be very happy driving the car for many 100 miles on the highway with one hand with a slight toe in on all four tires.
With zero toe, any grove in the road and your tire will follow the grove.

FYI - in racing we not only set toe-out in front, but we also look to heat up the tires with toe, if you don't have enough toe - you will never heat the tires enough to become sticky. If you have to much toe, you will cause it to heat up to much and become "greasy", it is a fine line. That is why we take so many tire temps on track since each track and weather conditions will effect the tire differently.

 

Rear suspension by design uses bushing deformation to great advantage as the tires toe in in decel and braking, and toe out on acceleration.

The steering rack, tie ends, tension rods limit this to some degree on the front

 

very nice information here.

 

If you go back to 1990 Q and 300zx launch you will see Nissan made a big deal about these concepts...........variable rear toe........they took a natural phenomenon of IRS and fine tuned it into a design attribute.

However it works best when alignments are at the EXACT midpoint of oem ranges.

 

Great thread. Thanks.