Alignment .. "in Spec" Not Good Enough, add your custom spec's and benefits Options

[KevinK2]

Mazda allows up to 1/4" toe-in (measured at tires), front or rear. This will be "in spec" and eat up tires and mpg's. Alignment shops hope to do minimal adjustments for the fixed price deals.

*** MS6 spec's from an alignment sheet ***

For M6 OEM Alignment Spec's, Check the steering pull link below. (note 17' = 17 minutes = 17/60 =.28 deg)


Suggested Alignment Spec

For street use, pay extra if needed, but set front and rear total toe-in at .09 deg +/- .04 deg ( .04" +/- .02" @ tire ). Rear camber of -1.6 deg MS6, and -1.1 M6 deg (spec targets), +/-.2 deg. [ Be clear about the toe spec units: degrees is typically used]

Ask for their before and after alignment data sheets.

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If you care about handling, SPC adjustable front ball joints is a must. Mazda front camber spec is between +.7 deg and -1.28 deg. I'd start at 1.2 deg negative. +/.- .2 deg. This will also reduce excessive wear of the outer edge when enjoying the curves.

SPC Ball Joints

SPC Installation

For autox, drag, or circuit driving, others can suggest more aggressive spec's. But this gets you in the right ball park for normal use.

If you run wide 40 series tires, and don't corner hard a lot at track events, high neg camber (-2 deg or more) will wear out the inner tire edges.

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Steering Pull TSB

If car pulls to the right, make sure right front caster is greater than left. Special upper control arms are available to change caster:

Steering Pull TSB, M6

The MS6 has same front upper control arms as the M6. Lower control arms have stiffer bushings.


(revised 4-09)

[Kokopellian]

Thanks man. VERY good information for everyone here. This should be stickied. I can second your findings as I have my alignment set within the specs you posted. Not only am I netting better mpg, but, my tires are not wearing on the edges after 2k miles, and the car isn't drifting like it used to. I'm not too worried about cornering harder since I'm in TX. We don't have many curves. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/32.gif)

I'll post up my alignment specs when I get a chance.

[rom3]

Thanks for this information. I don't pretend to understand it all, but what I'd like to know is how many "mpg" are we talking about here if one car is at the worst extreme vs the best extreme for mpg on the toe in?

Not happy with my mpg so far and interested in anything I can do to improve it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif)

[LBV]

You know, this info s/b posted as a sticky as I had my alignment done twice ... once "to spec" and then again to fix the camber on the back.

[cherryspeed]

Well it wouldn't surprise me to find out my camber is set the most aggressive:

Front -2.2, Rear -3.3

Car handles like a dream (IMG:style_emoticons/default/36.gif) . I do not expect the tires to last long.

[sloopercat]

I used the spec posted above with -1.2 camber in the front. As I posted before, it feels like the car just lost 1000#'s. Turns in more like my Mx-5, not like the heavy pig it was. Main reason I did it was to cure the chewing up of the outside edge of my Proxes 4's, which occurred after 1000 miles of straight interstate highway driving. I have sinced put the summer tires on, 235/40 T1-r's on Rx8 rims and just did not want to see those chewed up as well.

[ryceboi]

alright, you've convinced me to get the spc ball joints. good info kevin. sticky please.

[Mazda6sMtx]

I haven't ordered SPC ball joints yet, but my setup is 0.00 toe front and rear, and -1.0 degree camber in the rear. Once I get the SPC ball joints I"m going to run -1.5 degrees in the front and toe out the rear 0.1" The car handles crazy now, I'm on Eibach Sportlines with Koni shocks, and both RB sways with AWR endlinks.

[Jamespeed6]

Well it wouldn't surprise me to find out my camber is set the most aggressive:

Front -2.2, Rear -3.3

Car handles like a dream (IMG:style_emoticons/default/36.gif) . I do not expect the tires to last long.

Don't you find that the car has too much rear grip with -3.3°? With the front weight and drive bias of the vehicle, I'm running more front camber than rear:
-2.3° in front -2.0° rear with zero toe all the way around. I should have the toe set out a little out in the front, but this is a daily driver first and the tires will wear out fast enough with the camber settings.

For reference, at the track, I'm running 245/35-18 Hoosier A3S05's with phenomenal results. The combination of a good allignmnet (requiring adjustable ball joints in this case) and sticky tires really wakes this car up: worth every penny for both. It looks like the allignment and tires picked up between 3 & 4 seconds (out of 55 or so) at the autocross over the stock allignment and the Falken Azenis, which is an eternity in an autocross.

[Chucky12]

James, with the 245/35 Hoosier tires and the negative front camber, do you still have clearance between the front tires and the suspension on the inside of the tire? I just got 245 Azenis and when I put them on, there is almost no clearance left on the inside. I have the adjustable ball joints waiting to be installed, but I'm not sure I even have room to add negative front camber with the autocross tires.

[dawei213]

James, with the 245/35 Hoosier tires and the negative front camber, do you still have clearance between the front tires and the suspension on the inside of the tire? I just got 245 Azenis and when I put them on, there is almost no clearance left on the inside. I have the adjustable ball joints waiting to be installed, but I'm not sure I even have room to add negative front camber with the autocross tires.

Duh! Don't tell me that (IMG:style_emoticons/default/6.gif) . I got the 245 Azenis as well. Mine is 245/40-17.

As for alignment spec listing, this is a great idea.

[Stretch]

Adding negative camber up front will not decrease the gap between the tire and the fender since the knuckle will move with the tire. It only adds fender clearance.

FWIW, I would have run -2 degrees front and rear on my car if I still owned the car when the ball joints were released. As it was, even without camber adjustment on my '6, tire temps were surprisingly even across the tire width. I had just under a degree of negative camber up front from lowering the car. I ran HKS coilovers lowered about 1.5 inches with a RB rear sway, 245/45/16 Toyo RA-1's, all on a 2950lb base Mazda 6i.

[HiOfficer]

Somewhere on the board there was a chart showing traction vs camber angle. IIRC, grip started to drop sharply at about 1degee from vertical with the road.
2 questions:
i When cornering hard, the forces want to roll the tire off the rim. Is camber needed to counter that? Let's say the car had an ideal suspension that held the wheel vertical to the pavement (not possible with a street driven MS6). Does it still need negative camber counter for optimum traction.
ii Back to a real car. How much camber can I dial in before noticably lenghtening stopping distance in dry weather? The fronts which do most of the work in a hard stop would have initial camber (w adj ball joints) plus negative camber from nosedive when braking. How much before I add 5 or 10% to dry road braking distance?

[sloopercat]

Somewhere on the board there was a chart showing traction vs camber angle. IIRC, grip started to drop sharply at about 1degee from vertical with the road.
2 questions:
i When cornering hard, the forces want to roll the tire off the rim. Is camber needed to counter that? Let's say the car had an ideal suspension that held the wheel vertical to the pavement (not possible with a street driven MS6). Does it still need negative camber counter for optimum traction.
ii Back to a real car. How much camber can I dial in before noticably lenghtening stopping distance in dry weather? The fronts which do most of the work in a hard stop would have initial camber (w adj ball joints) plus negative camber from nosedive when braking. How much before I add 5 or 10% to dry road braking distance?

As the car rolls over on cornering, so does the contact patch. Having negative camber will cause the tire to be more parallel with the ground as the car begins to tilt. The suspension naturally accomadates that as it goes more negative in camber as the suspension is compressed. The other thing it helps with is as the car squats under acceleration, it lifts and cause the wheel to go into positive camber mode. I think the squat and lift contributes a lot to the wear folks report on the outside edge of the fron tires.

http://www.mazda6tech.com/index.php?option...8&Itemid=50

The above gets into some more detail and explains it better than I am able.

[nickski]

Adding negative camber up front will not decrease the gap between the tire and the fender since the knuckle will move with the tire. It only adds fender clearance.

FWIW, I would have run -2 degrees front and rear on my car if I still owned the car when the ball joints were released. As it was, even without camber adjustment on my '6, tire temps were surprisingly even across the tire width. I had just under a degree of negative camber up front from lowering the car. I ran HKS coilovers lowered about 1.5 inches with a RB rear sway, 245/45/16 Toyo RA-1's, all on a 2950lb base Mazda 6i.

Stretch, you don't own a 6 any more?

[ryceboi]

Stretch, you don't own a 6 any more?

he traded it for a sti.

[ryceboi]

so after adjusting the front camber to -1.0 or more, how will that affect my acceleration and braking? and fuel economy?

[Chucky12]

Got an alignment done this week. I have the front and rears both at -1.6 degrees +/- .2 degrees.

[DisplacedNE]

so after adjusting the front camber to -1.0 or more, how will that affect my acceleration and braking? and fuel economy?

My guess would be none and none. Adjusting the camber would should only help with cornering performance and tire wear in cornering (while possibly causing more uneven wear in straight driving).

[The_Shawn]

sorry guys im a complete newb. i need an alignment soon as my car is beginning to tug to the left. without the SPC ball joints, am i correct in reading that this:


For street use, pay extra if needed, but set front and rear total toe-in at .06" +/- .03" @ tire (.14 deg +/- .04 deg). Rear camber of -1.6 deg (spec target) +/-.2 deg.



is the correct settings i should tell the tech to set it at?