Reg: Best Wheel alignment and steering settings for 1986 Trans Am.

Hi, I'm located in Australia, and just recently bought my first Trans Am.
Over hear Trans Am's are an exotic and no one knows to much about them, most guy's don't really want to even help you, because there not sure, and seems if it's not routine then they aren't keen on learning.

To reason I'm contacting you is I was hoping someone might be able to offer some advice and optimal setting to get my Trans Am's wheel alignment and steering set up. I have found a steering shop that will do it provide I give them the data.

What I have is a 86 Trans Am, that's quite low, I would say about 2.5 to 3 inches lower then factory. I think it still has the factory sway bars, though they do look very large to me. I have just spent $1000 on tyres and want to make sure my settings are spot on so I don't ware them out and that I can obtain the nicest drive feel.

I would be so thankful for any advice you could offer.

Francis.

 

I'd recommend keeping the toe at factory settings so you don't wander and wear tires. Maybe add a small bit of positive caster over stock, and set the negative camber on the front to between 0.5-2.0*, depending on how hard you take corners. I run 1.5* negative camber and still don't wear the outside edge of my tires, but this will vary from person to person. Let me look in my factory service manual for what "stock" settings should be, just in case you haven't got them available. Here: (from a 1991 Camaro Shop Manual)

Camber.........................0.30*+/-0.50*
Caster...........................4.80*+/-0.50*
Toe...............................0.00*+/_0.20*

Even though you're lowered, you should be able to get the toe to zero without any trouble, and get the caster/camber *close* to factory specs. Thankfully these cars have alot of adjustment built in.

Also, on having a tough time finding mechanics because they're confused/scared of your car, tell them its 90% the same as older Holdens, should reassure them a bit.

 

From the faq:


Caster Camber Toe Total
(deg) (deg) (in)
L R L R
Street +4 +4.5 -.5 -.5 3/32
Hard Street +5 +5.5 -1 -1 3/32
Drag Racing +4 +4 0 0 1/32

Use it as a guide, and I highly recommend a little toe-in. Zero toe is nice on an alignment rack but not nice over 100.

FWIW camber will wear the insides edge of the tires, not the outside.

I run the the hard street alignment, and it has worked quite well for over 10 years. If your scared about tire wear you could always run .75 deg neg camber, but still jack the caster as far as it goes up to 5 deg.

 

Thanks, yeah that was a blonde moment. Good advice on settings too, slightly different than mine, but like I said, everyone has their own preference.

 

What Lo-Tec said.

I run the hard street specs too.

I do use a little less toe, I shoot for about 1/16 to make sure there arent any wear issues from feathering. Its slighlty less than the 3/32. Kinda splitting hairs :-)

The zero toe looks good but isnt best when you have 3500# of car at speed trying to push the tires out. At that point the slight toe in actually ends up being zero where it would be toeing out of you set it at zero.

These settings shouldnt cause any abnormal wear either. Run it on 2 of mine and have had no issues to date and many thousadns of miles.

later
Jeremy