Its hard to find good help these days

[I8A4RE]

that just proves my point, but not everyone has kermut (scracy, done in japan), Ftoevolution (NZ) etc

[RalliartBoy]

everyone thats had a working one has done it themselves

+1.

i have put a lot of time into the FTO myself along with manofwood and aza.

Reason being is i took it to the mechanic next to work when i first bought it to service it and do the brakes and he had no idea what it was and did a sh*t job of a basic service.

So, i went and bought the best of every filter, oil, spark plug and service material that i can and we put in over 8 hours of labour into the car on one day and then backed up and did the suspension, exhaust and other parts on another day.

The car has never missed a beat and never will, it is very reliable and solid.

Plus, we learnt a lot about the car anddiscovered how good of a condition it is in.

Am happy to continue to put the work into the car myself and use the best parts possible as the money i save on labour means i can afford it.

[Dr_Jones]

Wrong brake pads are a turd. By the time you realise the car is not driveable. I bought some EBC redstuff for the GTO and got supplied not only the wrong pad but also the wrong compound. I rang the joint up and was told they were "red" (in colour). I said yeah but these are the entry level pads not the ones I paid for. Got em in the end.

[manofwood]

bugger getting other people to work on your cars, i think the people that have the cert4 in automotive mechanics have less mechanical aptitude than the noobs.
i only ever got my gearbox oil changed in my car by someone else because i couldnt find that specific oil myself, and i didnt have the tool required to pump the oil in.
i did everything else, and will continue to. i'm the only one i can trust!

[mr-charisma]

Next up was a wheel alignment. Now Im very specific about my alignment. I go to my local shop (because I had to run home & get online for work) and tell them - " I want 0.5 of a degree toe in and 1.25 degrees of negative camber." I have my reasons for these figures which I will not go into now. I then run home, do what I need to do for work, then get the call that the car is ready. I run down to pick it up & speak to the..... *shudders*.... junior who has done the alignment. With great enthusiasm he tells me he dialed in some 'custom' figures to my alignment cause I told him I was about to go racing. 2 degrees of neg camber and 0 degree of toe in.... cause one goes quicker on a race track when there is no toe resisitance....

I got the sh*ts & told him to put it right back on the rig & put the half degree of toe in I asked for Evil or Very Mad He did so. If you've ever driven an overpowered front wheel drive car with no toe in, you'll know what Im talking about. Try holding a tram in a straight line when driving it thru 2 ditches... its not easy.

Hey mate,

Would you mind explaining your alignment figures?
I was of the understanding that a slight toe-out would do an FTO some good in countering understeer? Is the steering way too touchy with no toe-in? And is this going to be the case on a stockish FTO without the NOS?

Now obviously since I have Poly bushes, should I be letting them know not to dial in as much toe-in as they normally would for a standard daily runabout?

Obviously you've got your reasons for the -1.25 deg camber .. due to all the suspension mods you've done I take it?

Have you had it all checked out by a suspension workshop to come to those figures? or just trial & error?

Deviates a bit from the standard Mitsi settings;

Front MIN PREF MAX
Caster left 2°20' 2°50' 3°20'
Caster Right 2°20' 2°50' 3°20'
Camber left -0°30' 0°00' 0°30'
Camber right -0°30' 0°00' 0°30'
Total toe -0°17' 0°00' 0°17'
SAI 14°06'

REAR MIN PREF MAX
Camber left -1°30' -1°00' -0°30'
Camber right -1°30' -1°00' -0°30'
Total toe 0°05' 0°17' 0°17'

[Bennoz]

Ever tried driving a front wheel drive car with a good amount of negative camber and toe out? When you are already compromising the stability of the ride with negative camber, having the wheels angled out means it wants to rail road in & out of every rut in the road. You be lucky not break a thumb trying to hold on to the steering wheel which is trying to drive itself.

Adding toe in creates a slight friction that cancels out the "I want to steer myself" feeling you get from toe out. Even having them set to zero gives quite a lot of feedback when you have up over a degree of neg camber. Your understeer is greatly reduce by the negative camber, so its good practice to dial in the rest of your settings around that point.

You gotta remember, for every positive suspension change, there is a negative. For instance lots of negative camber gives you a sensational cornering ability & helps to reduce understeer by making the contact point of the tyre hitting the road, a more agressive angle - on the flip side, it decreases your top speed stability and the car is a lot hairyer to control at pace.... so you come to the decisions by testing extremes, then finding a happy medium. Some race cars use upto 8 or 10 degrees of neg camber, my car (spending 95% of it time on the road) has 1.25 degrees.

If I had an alignment machine at home, I'd be changing them for track & daily driving styles. For track I'd probably bump up the neg camber to 2 or 3 degrees & dial the toe at zero.

For road, back to 1 to 1.5 degree neg camber, 0.5 of a degree toe in. This is a good street sport setup. Not too harsh so's that the tyres wear quickly, but sporty enough to be able to enjoy some hard cornering.

I have all this done by my suspension guy.

On stock FTO's the only thing that is adjustable is toe. There is no facility to change camber of castor. I've got the Tein tops which give camber adjustability, and the anti lift bushes, which give incresed castor.

[I8A4RE]

I took mine to my suspension place and asked for semi racing/street setup they dialed up -.25 camber for the front and -1.25 for the rear. Gotta say the car handled unreal.

So you reckon ben i could dial more into my front??

[Bennoz]

I took mine to my suspension place and asked for semi racing/street setup they dialed up -.25 camber for the front and -1.25 for the rear. Gotta say the car handled unreal.

So you reckon ben i could dial more into my front??

Thats a set up for a rear wheel drive car Did they know it was front wheel?

[I8A4RE]

Probably not, but i though you want less camber on the driving wheels eg more road surface more traction???

[Bennoz]

lol

Yes but when cornering, the natural weight of the car causes the tyre to roll on its edge.
See image below - that gap at the base of tyre will cancel out when that vehicle turns to the left hard. So if you had no camber to start with then you will probably cause the tyre to roll from a vertical to a situation of positive camber if you catch my drift. Ie, you'll have that gap under the tyre, but the whole tyre will be leaning outward.

[I8A4RE]

Yeah I understand how camber works, so what your saying is i should still have more camber on the front, because with the little amount i have now, when cornering my wheel will end up with no camber or even worse positive camber......yes?

[Bennoz]

Correct. 0.25 of a degree is f*ck all. Go up to a degree at least. I dont know why they put more on the rear too... thats gonna lead to more understeer. I find its best to match the front & rear camber figures on front wheel drives.

Easy way to tell is by the amount of wear that on the tyre wall. (Thats also an indication that your pressure is too low as well.)

[mr-charisma]

Just got it back from the shop .. got the 0.5 toe in, but since its still stock suspension I don't think they were able to dial in the neg camber..

Although the camber figures before alignment were;

Front Left: -1.25'
Front Right: -2.07'
Rear left: -1.16'
Rear Right: -0.52'

After;

Front Left: -1.24'
Front Right: -2.08'
Rear Left: -1.15'
Rear Right: --0.56

Also, isn't the rear toe in supposed to actually match the Front toe in? cause they put the front as +0.5mm for both wheels, but the rear is +0.7mm for left & +0.9mm for right...

[Bennoz]

Those camber figures are all over the shop I'd be going & buying some Tein strut tops.

The rear toe doesn't neccessarily have to match the front. You can set it to whatever you like. If you set it to be toe'd in, it will make the back of the car fairly sedate when cornering, set them to be toe'd out & you'll have fun catching the ass as it goes past your bumper

[mr-charisma]

Those camber figures are all over the shop I'd be going & buying some Tein strut tops.

The rear toe doesn't neccessarily have to match the front. You can set it to whatever you like. If you set it to be toe'd in, it will make the back of the car fairly sedate when cornering, set them to be toe'd out & you'll have fun catching the ass as it goes past your bumper

Hehe, toe out for the ass end it is!

I'll move the Tein tops to being next on my list after exhaust then

[evoman]

Thought I would pull this out of the grave lol.

Interesting reading how your spring binding issue occurred Bennoz. Had the same experience a while ago. Which brings me to the question, is there any point getting camber tops when you can hardly dial in much camber without the springs binding anyway? Or are there ways of getting around that?

I've had a number of reasons to have several wheel alignments since buying the car, and I've found that on the few times I can't get my car to my local mechanic, most people have NFI what the stock alignment settings might be for an FTO, and I know a lot of the alignment systems over here don't have the FTO in their database. Consequently I thought I would post up my alignment printout which was done by my local mechanic who has a system that does have the FTO on the database - just in case it is of any help to anyone.

[Dan25]

Would a Version R be different to the other models though?

[evoman]

Don't think so. Pretty sure these are just factory recommended ranges which would probably be the same for all model FTOs.

[Bennoz]

Interesting reading how your spring binding issue occurred Bennoz. Had the same experience a while ago. Which brings me to the question, is there any point getting camber tops when you can hardly dial in much camber without the springs binding anyway? Or are there ways of getting around that?

Yeah, I tried a few things. First thing I tried was putting in camber pins. They replace one of the 2 bolts that connect the hub to the strut & can give you up to 2 degrees per side.
Only issue with them is, they never stay in the same friggen location. They rotate all on their own (all though they aint supposed to.) So I gave that idea away & went with the
anti-lift lower rear control arm bushes. These will give you an extra degree or 2 as well. So, currently with that & the Tein tops, my adjustability range is about 3 degrees.
I usually have it set to 1.5 though.

[Shane001]

Gotta love old posts lol!

Interestingly on the racecar we run 1mm toe out per wheel on the front, and 1mm toe in per wheel on the back. I don't find it twitchy in the front but then again I'm flat out all the time and driving on relatively consistent surfaces. I wouldn't want to run these settings on a daily driver.

We now have coilovers so have no issues with the stock springs binding, and run the camber tops at their maximum setting. I also run the bolt mentioned by Ben above, and interestingly for me this has never moved. And yes after Ben and several other racers warned me about this I check it after every run, but it didn't even move at Bathurst. Don't know why I have no problems with it? I'm also running the antilift bush on the front.

All up I've measured/calculated I'm running around 3.5-4 deg neg camber on the front, and around 1.5-2 deg neg on the rear. So far I've done all my own wheel alignments on the car. One day I'll get around to taking it to a professional workshop, but for now doing it myself seems to be working OK, and helps with the learning curve

Whatever you do don't run toe out on the rear, as I found out at Eastern Creek this induces snap oversteer lol!