spa-zz

Umm, no.

It's generally accepted now that the opposite is true.

Race Miata

From my link, TR-S2K asked how to translate degrees to inches. The reply from spa-zz in that link showed the equation to convert inches to degrees. Stick 1/8 or 0.125 into the equation and you get the degrees. If you're too lazy to do that, the next reply from spa-zz once again in the link shows a link to his excel spreadsheet. I thought those were exactly what you were looking for... if you weren't too lazy to scroll down that thread.

Race Miata

This has always been a hot debating topic among chassis setup. Some people DO see quicker turn-in with front toe-in than front toe-out. They are definitely NOT wrong. The reason for the discrepancy is that people are talking different stages of turn-in, different chassis characteristics, and different driving techniques.

The reason why front toe-out helps turn-in response has been discussed in many forums and books. The main idea is to have a better Ackerman geometry for BOTH front tires to track better into the turn. Think about the INSDIE FRONT tire pulling the car into the corner. However...

Mostly in the old days but also happen nowadays on chassis with not-so-good suspension design from the factory, the most effective way to fix handling issues was (is) to sitffen the suspension. With a stiff suspension, whether as a fix to suspension issue or for whatever other reasons, load transfer happens so quick on turn-in that the INSIDE FRONT tire doesn't get a chance to help pulling the car into the corner and you're now relying on the OUTSIDE FRONT tire to steer the car. In this case, you can imagine front toe-IN helps turn-in response.

Nowadays, we are dealing with more FWD cars or front-heavy cars for performance use. A front-heavy car (whether FWD or RWD) has more load on the INSIDE FRONT tire to help pulling the car into the corner than a rear-heavy (or less front-heavy) car does. Also, it's not as easy to get away with a toss-and-catch driving style (which further accelerates load transfer) on a front-heavy car than a less front-heavy one. All these contribute to the phenomenon of more people favoring front toe-out for better turn-in response nowadays.

Singletrack1

The industry standard for alignment equipment uses a 28.5" diameter wheel as a reference. This means the degree measurement is exactly twice the inch measurement.

If you want 1/8" of toe in, it is + .26 degrees.

The popular Hunter alignment equipment uses this standard.

Any Hunter machine made in the last 10 years should be able to do the conversion on the computer.

I wish more people would use degrees as there is no question of what the value is. Inches measurement depends on the reference diameter used for the wheel.

How do I know this? My shop owns a Hunter 8100 alignment system.

Bill