Alignment question

I had my alignment done last year and I have all the settings it was set to. I had a Porsche indie do and he was pretty excited about it. My car is going in to be lowered. Would I use the same numbers or does everything change? thanks.

Toe is generally kept the same to prior values but can be changed to improve certain aspects (initial turn-in, straight line running, braking stability to name a few). There's always a trade-off though. Camber change will result from the lowering and this slightly more negative camber is considered a benefit to the handling of the car. I believe caster angle is not adjustable on the stock 996 (neither front nor rear).

Toe is key because that is what will wear out the edges of your tires. Check with your Indie that you have slightly toe in or zero toe at each wheel. Some alignment places will tell you total toe is -1 or 0 (across the front or across the rear), but what they don't tell you is that one wheel is +3 (bad) and they adjusted the other side to be -3 to get a total zero toe. It may look good on paper but you will wear out the front tires in no time.

Here is what my indie did last time. Just wondering if I can keep the same with my car being lowered. He�s super expensive. If I can have my other shop do this for 1/2 the cost, I would rather.

They corrected toe by pumping another 23 psi into the left rear?

[QUOTE=Argeo;17177990 Here is what my indie did last time. Just wondering if I can keep the same with my car being lowered. He�s super expensive. If I can have my other shop do this for 1/2 the cost, I would rather.[/QUOTE] depends on how low u go. U may need adjustable links. Any decent shop with an alignment rack can adjust ecentric bolts to get the numbers right... if they r in the range of movement.

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Those numbers will change when the car is lowered (as I explained in the first reply) in that sense you cant 'keep' them. But you can 'keep' front and rear toe the same as long as you are willing to have them set back to those specs. If you are not, then I would wait with lowering the car until you are... Lowering will result in more toe-out at the front than the 0.5� you have now and in more toe-in at the rear than what you have now. Since the front toe setting is already out of the factory specified range (spec is toe-in, not toe-out and you have a hell of a lot of it) you must expect greater inner shoulder tyre wear and probably lousy straight line running on anything less than flat roads. The long and short of it: the car will drive better when you leave it at its current ride height than lowering it without having front and rear toe readjusted. Look at how front and rear toe factory specs remain the same between different ride heights in a range that covers 40mm. Based on that it's easy to see you should re-adjust toe after lowering. BTW 5'=5/60=0.0825� (degrees) and 0.5�=0.5x60=30' (minutes) so your front toe is set to a value that is more track oriented than road (good for initial turn-in, not so much for straight line running).

As someone who has lowered, I can confirm what others have said. You WILL need to have it re-aligned, but I think you know that. As far as the specs go, depending on your car and how much you lower, you may not be able to get the camber adjusted to those settings. I lowered my C2 on B8s and H&R springs. I ended up with adjusters maxed out and still a pretty aggressive negative camber in the rear. I ended up replacing upper control arms (dogbones) with adjustable units to get back to a milder street camber setup to save tires. The other issue some come across is rear toe. As has been said, toe will change when you lower. The same issue as with camber can occur on some cars, where the adjuster is maxed out and the toe is still out of spec. This is only remedied by aftermarket rear toe arms. I personally ended up with using Tarrett adjustable rear toe arms and locked out the factory cam adjuster. In my case, this was a blessing in disguise, as even with alignment numbers set the same, but tire wear issues (inside edge) went away. Clearly the stock toe arms were worn out, although were not visible worn. I also question that extreme tire pressure increase in the left rear. Seems like a sneaky way to get greens, that won�t be effective the minute you drive off the rack and put pressures to normal settings.

Thanks everyone. A lot of info to digest here. Interesting about the tire pressure. I don�t track and I really even drive fast. I just like the lowered look. I am also going H&r with bilstein b8. I did the same with my old Boxster and really liked the look. Figured I�d try with the 996. Thanks again.

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Yes, I needed adjustable rear upper links. Noooo way to get a reasonable camber without that level of adjustment. Adjustable toe links were already there and help dramatically with high speed stability. IMO, these 3 parts per side are a must for lowered 996s.

How low are you guys going? I have PSS10's. I have the rears at the max height which leaves roughly a 2 finger wheel gap. I was able to achieve -2.3 neg camber with 3/32" total toe in with all stock arms in the rear.

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For my Cab, the H&R lowering springs leave about 1 finger (+ a pinch) to the rear wheel. From memory, the camber was more like -2.8. I drove around with it like that for a couple of days and it did not drive well at all (very jumpy and twitchy). With the adjustable arms, it is almost in spec. Sorry the car is in storage or I could get more info/pictures. Ride and Handling are fantastic and fit my preferences quite well.

I am dropping an inch or less. Again, strictly for looks. Talking to my regular mechanic, he mentioned he could lower it and align it. He just needs the specs. It�s a 996 4s and I am lowering with h&r lowering springs and adding bilstein B8�s. Anyone, please let me know. Thanks.

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what specs does he need if he says he can do an alignment, have him set it to factory specs. The specs r on your old read out.

He said He could go go to the original spec, but said with me lowering, see if desirable to do something different. Maybe I call H&R. I�m an accountant dammit. I�ll ask my indie, maybe he can do me a favor and let me know.

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you will want the toe and castor to be the same. U can bring the camber up to 2.5*ish. Euro spec is 1*, usa spec is 0*. The higher * is better for track and worse on tire wear. Some say high speed stability suffers too. That being said i run 2.5* all the way around an i find it good up to 135mph, but i have an areokit which may help. I dont put a ton of miles a year in mine do if they wear out in 6-8k miles they will probably be aged out anyways. U have to decide 4 yourself what u want.

I will have mine aligned to the stock settings when I finally get my Ohlin's on. It's a street car and I'm not going to chase anyone around. The lower stance and stiffer springs don't require a different setting to be effective. (infinite wisdom, not)

Thanks guys. I will relay the message.