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My 997.1 Turbo is in the shop now. I need to give the technician the alignment settings i want. I also have Tarett front camber plates in my possession that i may or may not use depending on the alignment spec i choose to use. I'm a bit confused about the recommended alignment settings for aggressive street driving. I'm getting huge variances in recommended alignment settings.
Some people are recommending ranges that are approximately:
-0.8 degrees front camber and
-1.8 to -2.0 degrees rear camber
some other seems to be recommending:
-2.5 degrees front camber and
-2.0 rear camber
and anywhere from 0.02 toe out to zero toe front and .14 toe in at the rear.
Having less than -1 degree front camber seems mind boggling to me and seems like a truck setting. I don't think i've ever had a sports car with less than -1 degree front camber, but what do i know about Porsches? Vehicle in question is my first 911, so yep, i don't know squat.
I don't mind increased tire wear. From my understanding, tire wear mostly comes from toe settings, not as much from camber. One of my old cars was set up with almost -3 degrees front camber (Honda S2000) and tire wear was fairly reasonable.
So, 997 Turbo brethren, what's your recommended alignment settings? And how does it perform on the street? I intend to take the vehicle to occasional SCCA auto crosses.
Seems difficult to get a quality alignment in Hawaii. Here's what i got from Porsche of Hawaii. Reference it to what nzskater provided above:
And here's my email to my service advisor. Hopefully i didn't sound condescending, which is NOT what i am trying to achieve. Just trying to get a proper alignment:
Jason,
I think the technician mis-read the alignment sheet i provided. See the attached PDF. Rear alignment is up top, and front alignment is bottom. I think the confusion was he thought front was up top and rear was on bottom, hence the reason it was so far off what i asked for in the sheet i provided.
Front camber should be set to -2° 12' (or -2.2° since your alignment machine only reads degrees to a decimal point and not degrees and minutes like the sheet i provided. ***I’ll explain this below). It should NOT be at -1.1° front left and -1.3° front right. If i wanted only -1.1° front left and -1.3° front right, i wouldn’t have paid to install the front camber plates since my vehicle was already at -1.7° when it arrived at Porsche prior to touching it and before the camber plates were installed. I know for a fact my car can achieve -2.2° with the camber plates installed.
Front toe should be set to -0° 03' (or -0.05°). It should NOT be set to +0.03.
And by the way, why is my front left caster so far off?
Rear camber and toe are not what i requested, but it’s close enough so that doesn’t need to be touched.
***Some alignment machines read degrees and minutes, your machine only reads degrees to a decimal point. A degree has 60 minutes, so a half a degree is 30 minutes. The alignment specs mentioned above has the converted reading in (parentheses) to what your alignment machine reads. So in other words, -1° 30' converts to -1.5°. Or in the case of my front camber, -2° 12' converts to -2.2°. You divide 12 by 60 since there’s 60 minutes in a degree.
If you or the technician have any questions, please give me a call. Sorry i missed your call today. When i saw your missed call, i knew it was already too late to call back.
Last edited by Harry Da Hamster; Nov 1, 2017 at 11:48 PM.
