Dude - not a rook quesiton.

When you ask an experienced race guy about what is the first thing you should do to improve handling, he'll tell you to get an alignment. All the fancy suspension doo-dads in the world aren't going to help if you don't have the full tread of the tire on the ground.

That said, yes - you'll need an alignment. Your camber will be out of whack, as well as toe. You will begin wearing the inside of your tires off. Trust me - I did it. My Conti ExtremeContact DW tires only got about 30k miles out of them because I had too much camber. The outsides had a good 6/32" tread, while the insides were showing cords.

Do as I say, not as I do!

Oh, you should find a good alignment shop for about $65. My place (Hammond Tire and Auto) has a laser alignment machine that is kick-a$$. Of course, I get off on this stuff. When you are calling around, ask if they can give you a printout of the before and after alignment settings. This is a good test to find a quality shop. Regardless of which exact machine they are using, they should be able to give you before and after readings. Even if it's not a fancy computer printout, a handwritten copy is OK.

 

Just a couple rules of thumb when he's aligning your car to help out. I have no idea what all you have so I will stick with the basics. Many G8's come with caster settings biased wrong, meaning your driver side has more caster than the passenger side. Our cars LOVE more caster! You won't be able to get the amount of caster you need with the stock setup. You'll need either the Pedders Caster Washers or Pedders Caster Adjustment kit. You want a .60 difference in caster bias with the passenger side having more caster. I have mine set at 8.0 passenger and 7.4 driver. Your rear camber should be half of the front camber to help prevent understeer. I have mine set at -1.0 front and -.50 rear. You can have more camber as long as the rear is half of the front. Before getting my rear camber adjusters I was running -1.2 front and -1.8 rear camber. Lots of understeer, but no tire wear. I had this for 6 months or so. While this is way out of spec for the G8, it's not out of spec for the Commodore GTS (I believe). Thrust angle 0. All other settings middle of the pack. Once you replace all your bushings you can set your toe closer to the 0 mark in the front. Hope this helps. Here in DC alignments are crazy expensive at most places. Some places charge $100 or more. Luckily Merchants does 1, 3 and 5 year packages. I got a 5 year alignment package for $190 and it will transfer to another car. The guy our club goes to knows our cars inside and out and he will dial in whatever we want.

Your camber and toe will most likely be way out of whack once you lower your car, so yes you'll need an alignment.

 

Good information, Virus. Thanks for passing this on. Just put on Camaro 20's with the Conti tires and probably need my alignment checked. Just got the car a few weeks ago. Need to get all the basics covered so I can keep a check for the unusual things that will pop up. Sure don't want to wear the tires out too soon. Money is too hard to come by these days!

 

Good info, Virus. Thanks!

 

Actually, thank G8V8 and Pete from Pedders. Another recommendation is to set your rear sway to a harder setting than the front. My BMR's don't have as many settings on the front as the Pedders do. I recently changed my front to full soft and rear to middle setting. Huge improvement in steering with less understeer. I think this weekend when the cars on the lift I'm going to try full hard on front and rear and see where that gets me. The rears hardest setting is quite a bit more than the fronts hardest setting so I'm hoping this will work out with the BMR's. It won't work well with the Pedders. Has anyone else tried this setup with the BMR sways and if so what's your opinion?

 

Hey thanks a lot guys I appreciate the great detailed responses.

 

FYI, some shops have a 5 year 100k alignment warranty, which I suggest getting if your keeping the car. I get an alignment every 6 months.

 

Don't rush the process. Give the alignment guy all the time he needs to get the job done right. After installing my Pedders Street I package we took the car out three times for test drives to get everything dialed in, along with getting a perfectly straight steering wheel. BTW, changes based on which side of the crowned road you're driving on. Huge learning process for me.

 

^agreed. Typically takes my guys 3 hours total to align my car.

 

The first time you have the alignment done the way you want it to normally takes a little while. After that changes should be fairly quick. All the people in the Washington, DC club are fortunate enough to have an alignment guy that knows our setups very well thanks to G8V8. G8V8 trained him while the guy was aligning his car and was nice enough to buy him some tools to make it easier. I alwasy slip him a $20 each time I take my car in.

 

Oh, another thing. Bring some weight when you go. You want to have your equivalent weight in the driver's seat while it's being aligned. If you weigh 200lbs, out some barbells or whatnot in the seat. It will affect your alignment.

When I last aligned my racecar (I did it in my garage with string and a tape measure), I forgot this step. Put the front left at -2.8* camber, and front right at -2.2*. Then realized I forgot to put weights in. When I put the weight in, I remeasured. I was at -2.9* left and -2.0* right. Had to do it all over again.

 

Oh, another thing. Bring some weight when you go. You want to have your equivalent weight in the driver's seat while it's being aligned. If you weigh 200lbs, out some barbells or whatnot in the seat. It will affect your alignment.

When I last aligned my racecar (I did it in my garage with string and a tape measure), I forgot this step. Put the front left at -2.8* camber, and front right at -2.2*. Then realized I forgot to put weights in. When I put the weight in, I remeasured. I was at -2.9* left and -2.0* right. Had to do it all over again.

Awesome recommendation! I really wanted to do this when I aligned my car, but didn't. I should have my new LCA's and all the front bushings completed within the next couple weeks. When I take it in for alignment, I'm going to try to do this! My alignment guys said that BMW service centers are required to do this when they align cars.

 

^^ I always try to sit in the car when the alignment is being done. This does two things. I get the proper weight in the car without risk to my upholstery and I can hold the steering wheel in the exact center when the toe is set. It does make a difference.

The BMW manual is insane they call for weights placed in every seat, floor and in the trunk.. I would keep it loaded as you will be driving it mostly to include fuel level. If you fill up every time you get to 1/2 a tank than split the difference and use 3/4 tank for the alignment, if you run until you are on fumes try 1/2 a tank as the middle ground. If you race and have tested and know you will race on a mostly empty or full tank use that level.

Alignments should be made with your driving style and local road conditions in mind. The stock settings are made as the average of everything and everyone with a large range of acceptable "green" settings that are too large for a truly focused and balanced car. Depending if you are a sedate highway cruiser, a dragstrip queen, an autocross guy, or the exit ramp champion of the world and how much crown your typical local road has.. You would want a alignment that best reflects your goals and acceptable tire wear vs handling.

Since my ride lives in F Stock SCCA autocross 5% of the time and daily driving with hard cornering for the rest (I love the twisties). I have max allowable balanced negative camber 1.4 front and rear. I also got a GM caster kit and increased the caster on the lower side to equal it out since road crown isn't a big issue on CA highways and with caster more is always better with this type of car and suspension.

Tire wear is greatly effected by your toe settings. You can run more camber if you also run a little toe in. You have to remember these settings are made statically but they will be running dynamically when used on the car. On the front of a RWD car - 0 toe static will actually be a little toe out when driving due to drag and part flex and even more toe out when braking hard into a corner, that is why static toe out will wear away your tires faster while going straight getting even more toe out dynamically and why having a little toe in will end up with a good 0 toe situation dynamically until you get on the brakes hard where it will go a little out right when you want it.

In the rear toe also changes from the static settings between acceleration (more toe in) and braking (more toe out). I end up pretty close to 0 static here leaning toward just a little toe out.

The rules in my class in autocross do not allow the use of aftermarket swaybars on the rear or aftermarket suspension adjustment hardware. I have found that the GXP with all stock bits likes a balanced camber set-up in hard cornering. It is a remarkably well balanced car. If I was running the Camaro I think I would use less rear camber but with this car being closer to equal seems to work better.

With my driving style the additional camber actually evens out the tire wear across the treads of the tires since in aggressive cornering the outside sees more work and that is where most of my wear occurs, by running additional neg camber along with good toe settings I get very good even tire wear on average and very good handling.

 

^^ I always try to sit in the car when the alignment is being done. This does two things. I get the proper weight in the car without risk to my upholstery and I can hold the steering wheel in the exact center when the toe is set. It does make a difference.

The BMW manual is insane they call for weights placed in every seat, floor and in the trunk.. I would keep it loaded as you will be driving it mostly to include fuel level. If you fill up every time you get to 1/2 a tank than split the difference and use 3/4 tank for the alignment, if you run until you are on fumes try 1/2 a tank as the middle ground. If you race and have tested and know you will race on a mostly empty or full tank use that level.

Alignments should be made with your driving style and local road conditions in mind. The stock settings are made as the average of everything and everyone with a large range of acceptable "green" settings that are too large for a truly focused and balanced car. Depending if you are a sedate highway cruiser, a dragstrip queen, an autocross guy, or the exit ramp champion of the world and how much crown your typical local road has.. You would want a alignment that best reflects your goals and acceptable tire wear vs handling.

Since my ride lives in F Stock SCCA autocross 5% of the time and daily driving with hard cornering for the rest (I love the twisties). I have max allowable balanced negative camber 1.4 front and rear. I also got a GM caster kit and increased the caster on the lower side to equal it out since road crown isn't a big issue on CA highways and with caster more is always better with this type of car and suspension.

Tire wear is greatly effected by your toe settings. You can run more camber if you also run a little toe in. You have to remember these settings are made statically but they will be running dynamically when used on the car. On the front of a RWD car - 0 toe static will actually be a little toe out when driving due to drag and part flex and even more toe out when braking hard into a corner, that is why static toe out will wear away your tires faster while going straight getting even more toe out dynamically and why having a little toe in will end up with a good 0 toe situation dynamically until you get on the brakes hard where it will go a little out right when you want it.

In the rear toe also changes from the static settings between acceleration (more toe in) and braking (more toe out). I end up pretty close to 0 static here leaning toward just a little toe out.

The rules in my class in autocross do not allow the use of aftermarket swaybars on the rear or aftermarket suspension adjustment hardware. I have found that the GXP with all stock bits likes a balanced camber set-up in hard cornering. It is a remarkably well balanced car. If I was running the Camaro I think I would use less rear camber but with this car being closer to equal seems to work better.

With my driving style the additional camber actually evens out the tire wear across the treads of the tires since in aggressive cornering the outside sees more work and that is where most of my wear occurs, by running additional neg camber along with good toe settings I get very good even tire wear on average and very good handling.

Disclaimer -- Bridgestone is my tire sponsor.

As I am not concerned with tire wear I find -2 degrees with .5 degrees toe out up front with -1 degree and .5 toe in rear to be the ideal setup. Even with the front aggressive alignment specifications we see 14K out of the front tires.

 

Lotta good in info in here guys, I learned a few new things. I will be doing an alignment here before to long. I will make sure to have the car preloaded this time around.

I plan on having the alignment done with my race slicks on also.

cheers,
JJ

 

Virus:
Can you advise the name of the shop and technician you mention in note 11 above that does good alignments on G8s in the Washington DC area? Thanks.

 

PM sent with shop info and our G8 club info. We have over 70 members now! Lots of great guys and gals.

 

Virus,
I think that your sharing of invaluable advice, lessons that you pass on from your personal (good or bad) experience, the vast array of technical instruction and direction you willingly provide, etc., merits some kind of "G8 Good Dude (GD)" Award.

Why, I've heard a number of CCG8CC members say several times, "that GD Virus"

I've also heard a much greater number say "Virus is a Great Dude."

~silentW
Upper Marlboro MD
CCG8CC

 

Thank you for the kind words. I'm merely passing it down. I've learned so much from the wonderful people in our club and on this board the last couple of years and it's only right that I share what I've learned with others. G8V8, Live A Little and several others have really helped me out and I am truly blessed to have met such dear friends from the ownership of this car, G8Board.com and CCG8CC.