FWD stock class alignment.

OK, I need to get the car aligned anyway, and autocross season is starting. Any recommendations?

It's a street tire GS Volvo C30 (same platform as Mazda 3), being a McStrut car there's basically nothing you can do at the front except toe. At the rear you can adjust more, but as it's a push prone FWD car the last thing I need is any added rear camber as I have a hard enough time getting it to rotate as it is.

What I'm thinking is parallel toe at the front and factory specs at the rear. Am I missing anything?

Take up any slop that you can in the strut mounts and lower ball joints (if there's any slotting.)

I'd go with about 1/8" toe out front, personally.

I played with alignment specs on my old Civic a while back at a test-n-tune, and I had a lot of fun with 1/16" toe out in the rear. She LOVED to rotate then, and I was faster once I got used to it.

See if you can find a factory approved method for getting more negative camber. For instance, the Saturn FSM says you can slot the holes for the lower strut bolts for this. The catch is the fix HAS to be the factory approved fix - slotting, crash bolts, etc. - for your particular car, and in stock class, that's ALL you're allowed to do.

I found zero toe to work well for a dual purpose daily driver and autocross car. Toe out in front increases turn-in response. But toe out also makes the car more twitchy at high speeds, and in the rear a bit more tail happy - not something you want for long commutes on the interstate. But on an autocross course it's loads of fun!

The old loosen, push pull, tighten system will gain some camber. On some cars like the Mazda/Escort BG chassis, you can turn the upper strut mount to change things. Try for as much caster as possible. Since you can't change the rear anti-roll bar, a lot of serious competitors run obscenely high tire pressures in the rear.

iceracer wrote: The old loosen, push pull, tighten system will gain some camber. On some cars like the Mazda/Escort BG chassis, you can turn the upper strut mount to change things. Try for as much caster as possible. Since you can't change the rear anti-roll bar, a lot of serious competitors run obscenely high tire pressures in the rear.

Heh heh. I love being able to get -2 degrees camber on my BG and GD chassis.

On my old '95 ACR (non-slotted struts) I ran crash bolts in the front and using the bias from all the connections, I was able to get almost -2d up front, with zero toe at both ends. I also ran 1 series narrower tires at the rear (195s up front, and 185s at the back, on the stock 6" wheels). That got decent rotation without being too twitchy for the daily cut-and-thrust work.

AAhh, I should have said I've already done the loosen everything, push / pull to max effect then re-tighten. I'm not aware of any factory camber tweaks but I'll check. The problem is the C30 Forum is like many marque forums where giving yourself a frontal lobotomy with a 10lb sledge hammer still leaves you way over qualified in the IQ department. It really is painful in there!

Per 1/8" toe out, wow that seems a lot. When I had my Miata I ran a midges of toe out, I'll give it a try. This is a 97.3% daily driver with occasional autocross duties only.

ah, then 1/16 would work...