Miata alignment

[ldp82]

My car is just about done for the summer! (it took longer then I thought it would) I will be attending driver ed events this year and need to get ant alignment.

What do you guys think would be a good initial set up for a mostly track driven ITA(ish) miata? 700/350 spring rates Racing beat hollow bar up front stock rear bar.


Thanks for the help!
-Luke

[Wreckerboy]

A good basic set of alignment specs can be found over at spec miata dot com. Search around over there for the "JD Set Up Guide" and you'll get a good starting point.

[ldp82]

thanks for the reply his setup looks interesting, i had been following some of the chatter about running more front camber then rear and vise versa.

i think i will run a little toe out in front a little toe in in the rear 3.5 caster and im starting to think -2.25 camber front and -2.0 camber rear i still have to do some research.

[ldp82]

Any other suggestions guys?

[davidb72]

If you are just starting out and aren't looking for that last .001 second I would suggest not being so aggressive with the alignment.

I'd go 1.8 degrees front camber, 2.0 degrees rear camber. Not having all that camber makes the car brake much nicer. Get as much caster as you can get in the front, but sacrifice caster for camber.

0 toe all the way around.

[tnord]

2.0 MINIMUM camber each end, i think 2.5 is more what you want. i would also make sure camber is equal F to R. i wouldn't sacrifice camber for slightly better braking, as you'll likely already have the best brakes of any ITA car out there.

as much castor as you can get.

zero toe all the way around, and maybe a touch toe out (up to 1/16 maybe). i would leave the rear at 0 for now. see how it feels.

5'' min ride height. depending on the track you might want to raise it up a bit.

50/50 xweights, tune to the track on that day depending on how the car feels. document what you're doing so you can go back to 50/50 for the next track without having to go on the scales.

:eclipsee_steering:

[ldp82]

thanks for the help guys!

i am running xp10/xp8 pads with a adj. prop valve so the brakes should work well.

also the car has no power steering i was told to run less caster because of this, what do you guys think?

[tnord]

i don't have PS and still crank in as much castor as possible. if it's too hard to turn the wheel like this, either;

1) bring the steering wheel closer to you
2) hit the weights

don't sacrifice the performance of the car because of it. and oh yeah, make damn well sure you bed those pads properly, or they will destroy your rotors and maybe pistons in one weekend or less. i've seen it happen.

[ldp82]

ok i will put in lots of caster.

thanks for the tips on the pads, i will make sure the bed them in before the event. carbotech talks about doing a few laps to get the pads hot then let them cool, I don’t know how I feel about this, I don’t want to over heat them and I don’t want to miss track time letting them cool, but if its best its what I will do.

HAWK's directions for bedding in pads are lots of almost stops from 30mph up to 60mph getting some brake fade then drive the car too cool the pads but do not use the brakes at all for a while (overnight)

What do you suggest?

[tnord]

for the most part I followed the instructions provided by carbotech. i didn't throw away a whole day to do it, i just went out on the access roads around the track late friday afternoon.

with the hawk blues you can get away with just throwing them on the car and racing without any bedding. they won't be optimal, and you might trash a set of rotors fairly quickly, but they'll work.

the carbotechs if you try that could possibly just flat out fail. a friend of mine did that, and in 3 sessions grooved a set of rotors worse than i've EVER seen, melted the pad to the piston, and melted the seal in the caliper so that brake fluid went flying out when he hit the brakes. not good.

[ldp82]

my plan is to bed them saterday night, by driving around and getting on them a little bit but not too crazy let them cool over night then on Sunday set the prop valve, so the car should be ready for monday.