How much does alignment affect FE?

[philip1]

the answer is a TON!!!!!!!

I recently did an autocross alignment (lots of negative camber) my milage plummeted from 31.7 to 25.3 MPG . I will be going back to the stock settings as soon as I can. this hurts the pocket book real bad

[RoadWarrior]

Did you reset the toe? I think it will usually go toe in when you add negative camber. I've got some negative in on mine but I've got the toe as neutral as I could and it rolls for miles and will still hook in hard.

[philip1]

Originally Posted by RoadWarrior

Did you reset the toe? I think it will usually go toe in when you add negative camber. I've got some negative in on mine but I've got the toe as neutral as I could and it rolls for miles and will still hook in hard.

yep toe was set to stock specs but camber was set to -3*in the front and -2.5* in the back. I will be having the car re-aligned to the stock camber and toe settings .75* front and 0* rear camber before my new tires go on. I have seen these cars get 36mpg highway and I hope that I will see that soon.

[theholycow]

I can imagine increase RR from the tire riding on its corner all the time, squashing one sidewall badly, and having to bend the tread in a direction it isn't designed to bend very much.

[R.I.D.E.]

I got stopped by a cop once because I was driving a car to another shop with a bent frame. It was bent badly enough that the tires were squealing going straight down the road and if you took your hands off the wheel it would do a 90 degree turn in about 2 seconds.

Pulled the frame and drove back fine.

Dont know what the mileage was, I was too busy trying to keep it on the road, but I'll bet it was less than 1/3 of what it would have been with the wheels pointing in the right direction.

35 years ago.

regards
gary

[philip1]

the alignment is back inside the factory specs and the LRR tires are on I also added some moon disk wheel covers. it will coast forever now.

[goofy1]

very nice looking moon disc on the Lord Vader. as the coasting long distances let me quote Vader "the force is strong with this one"

[philip1]

"Never underestimate the power of the force"
preliminary results revealed 36 mpg. Hard data will follow on friday after a week of commuting.

anyway on to the better pics.