OEM crash bolts and alignment question
 

Hi there. I just got my car back from the Toyota service with four new tires. I also asked for an alignment since something about the steering felt off. It would track straight, but for some reason the steering wheel was a little offset to the left (a toe issue?). It bothered me, so I had them fix it. I also had some oem crash bolts in the front for a bit of camber, which they had reset to zero. I want to put the camber back, but will it throw off the toe setting? Enough to warrant me to have to get it fixed again? Also, the steering now feels a little more dead in the center than it used to (feels lighter, a little less communicative), even with the Perrin steering rack lockdown. Could it be the new tires? They're the same Bridgestone Turanza EL400 all seasons as I had previously. My car is a daily driver and I do autocross or drift once a month. I'm running full stock suspension btw.

I remember liking the feel with the camber bolts when I first installed them and I didn't bother to get it aligned then, but I'm not experienced when it comes to this suspension stuff. Any thoughts?

If you go through this next time, I would tell them to keep the camber bolts maxed out and save yourself the hassle. Changing camber now will definitely change the toe settings so it's probably best to get it re-aligned to your desired specs.


As far as the steering feel, I'm pretty sure I know what you're talking about and when that happened to me, it was caused by my toe being pretty far off after adding camber plates. May feel better but it's definitely not better for performance or tire wear.

Adding 1 degree negative camber will have minimal effect on toe.

They reset your camber to zero?

Yeah. I could tell by looking. I forgot to tell them but i'm not annoyed or anything. It was for free and the toe was probably pretty off from installing/uninstalling lowering springs

If his toe is zeroed out, then adding -1.2 degrees (or whatever they get from OEM bolts) of camber on each side will probably result in 1/32"-1/16" toe in on each side up front. That is enough to pretty significantly affect handling.

@Ocean-Grown 86, I would advise an alignment and have them either zero out the toe or maybe add a bit of toe out up front (1/32" each side would be my recommendation).

Zero camber isn't good. I don't even think the OEM alignment specs call for zero camber.
@CSG Mike would be able to answer that one more accurately, but right off the bat it sounds like they did it wrong.

I meant zero camber in front. I believe that's the oem spec with the original fat strut bolt. The rears still have a little negative camber

Either way i'm going to get it redone before my next track event

The cars generally came with a couple tenths of a degree of front negative camber from the factory.

Any recommendation for the rears? All stock btw

Oh you're probably right. I just assumed there was zero up front stock or something very close to that

About the same amount up front but toe in. It will give the car better stability at speed. Plenty of people just zero it out though. Just a personal preference thing.

Thanks for the advice. Looks like i'll be getting an alignment in the near future. Does anybody else have recommendations for alignment specs with stock suspension and crash bolts?

Zero out your toe, or run a tiny bit of toe-in (1/16"), but max your camber.

You'll like how it feels.