Lowered today (pics), type of alignment? - 986 Forum - The Community for Porsche Boxster & Cayman Owners

Kirk · 08-01-2008, 04:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RobZ

Do you recommend the adjustable toe arms for street use?

In the front they should be able to adjust the car to within spec, about -1 degree of camber. The problem is in the rear. I think the spec is around -1.5 degrees or so (I'm just guessing). The first time around the guy aligning my car could only get -2.5. Later with more work he got it down to -2.0. If you want to actually hit the spec, you'll probably need the adjustable toe arms. Without them you'll run too much negative camber in the rear. Is that a bad thing? Well not really. It won't hurt the handling any but you'll get a lot more tire wear on the inside. So maybe you'll eat up tires more, but that may not be a big deal to you. It kind of depends on your priorities. Plus you have to weigh the cost of tires versus ~$400 for "good" adjustable toe arms.

Right now I've got -3.0 degrees in the back, -1.5 in the front, and I recently bought camber plates to get more negative camber in the front. Why? Because I'd rather have an aggressive autocross alignment and say screw the tires.

Kirk

brp987 · 08-01-2008, 05:46 PM

I also have eibach/bilsteins. I brought it in for alignment requesting oem angles. They could not do it, and I have -2.8 rear camber. I even had tarett adjustable toe arms at the ready and said put them on if needed to get oem angles. They didn't put the toe arms on. The camber eccentric is max'd out.

Just to add a little confusion, when the car is lowered the toe arms angle down towards the center of car. They are no longer in a neutral angle, with the result that loading the suspension in hard cornering causes toe angle changes (bump steer). For this Tarett also sells adjustable rear toe links that also compensate for lowered suspensions. Whether this effect is noticeable or not I don't know.

RobZ · 08-02-2008, 08:13 AM

Now I'm wondering if I should even have it aligned at all. I doubt shops in my area have experience aligning P-cars.

Gary in BR · 08-02-2008, 09:35 AM

I had alignment problems on the Elbachs I had and with my current KSports.
Once I went with adjustable toe arms the alignment is very close to OEM specs.

With the toe arms I get more than 3000 miles out of the rear tires. Going on 8k as of today.

RobZ · 08-02-2008, 02:23 PM

Ouch, 3000 miles?

I'll likely order the toe arms then. The spring settled more and it looks like it dropped another 1/2" or more front and rear. I hope I don't end up like this: