Performance Orientated Alignment

[Luken10]

Did some searching around the forums and couldn't find a definitive answer. Does anyone know of some tried and true performance alignment specs for the P5? It seems our cars don't have a lot of room for adjustment, could someone explain the pros and cons of camber/crash bolts to me?

Also, it seems my car has a strong return to center effect with the steering wheel. Compared to other cars my steering doesn't feel nearly as eager to turn. It just wants to constantly return to the center position. It isn't heavy in the sense that the power steering pump has gone, just in the way the steering wheel reacts to inputs.

I have Mazdaspeed springs and struts, as well as 205/50-16 tires. I also don't have any abnormal tire wear.

 

[njaremka]

unless you have coilovers with camber plates, or you are willing to install camber bolts, there really isn't a lot of adjusting that can be made.

 

[Preferio]

If I remember correctly, the camber has about 1 degree of adjustment by rotating the strut mounts.

I always align my car to stock specs, however my alignment machine has a performance/handling program and I can pick certain specs for certain handling attributes. There's also a feature that allows you to correct certain handling issues like too much/little over/understeer and other problems. It's actually really cool. I plan on setting the RX8s to one of the performance setups. There aren't any preloaded performance specs for the MSP like the 8, but doing enough research on the forums you should be able to find specs from SCCAers and whatnot.

 

[Luken10]

I ended up getting some Toyo R888 tires on my car. I really need a more aggressive alignment to make these tires last. I found this excerpt on the Protege FAQ.

" In fact, Protegs tend to wear out the outside of their front tires very quickly when they’re
driven aggressively, due to their mild camber curve. If you like cornering hard, 1.5-2 of
negative camber will actually IMPROVE tire wear by making the front tires wear more evenly
across the entire tread. "

I ruined a set of tires at a track day because the outside of the tires wore away much sooner than the rest of the tire. From my research the most negative camber we can achieve stock is about 1 degree. I am looking into getting some camber bolts in order to alleviate this issue. Does anyone have any insight on brands I should be buying for the best results?