jguerdat

2 things:

1) My recent alignment at the Honda dealer had the toe readout in DEGREES, not inches or mm. Verify the units used.

2) As Chris points out, TOTAL rear toe is -.25 inches but there's also a range allowed - yours may be within tolerances (I don't recall what the range is just offhand).

cdelena

[QUOTE]Originally posted by jguerdat
[B] 1) My recent alignment at the Honda dealer had the toe readout in DEGREES, not inches or mm.

sjulius

I didn't know I'd create such a stir! Thanks for all your replies. However, I see that some of you are listing rear toe as a minus 0.25". This means you are requesting toe-out, which I have never seen on the rear of a car. SilverSurfer's original reply, which is the most complete, does list it as positive 0.25", which I suspect is correct. Confirmation, anybody?

SilverSurfer

I just checked my readout again, it does state total rear toe as a positive number. The Min is 0.16" Max is 0.32" Nominal is 0.24", either my readout is wrong or chris mistyped the "-" part of the .25,

sjulius

OK, I'm convinced. Rear is 0.25 toe-in. Thanks.

jguerdat

[QUOTE][B]I remember these from the service manual:

-.5 (deg) camber up front
-1.5(deg) camber rear
0 toe front
rear does have toe in but don't remember.
Don't remember caster.

Rear toe is -0.25 inch
Front caster is 6.0 degrees

Are you sure on the rear toe figure?

SilverSurfer

[QUOTE]Originally posted by jguerdat
[B][QUOTE][b]I remember these from the service manual:

-.5 (deg) camber up front
-1.5(deg) camber rear
0 toe front
rear does have toe in but don't remember.
Don't remember caster.

Rear toe is -0.25 inch
Front caster is 6.0 degrees

Are you sure on the rear toe figure?

sjulius

Looks like a matter of semantics here, but I'm afraid I have to disagree with jguerdat. I can confirm this by looking at my Hunter P411 tomorrow, but positive toe is toe-in, and negative toe is toe-out. Do we all agree that toe -in is where the front of the tires are closer together than the rear (of the same tires)? Actually, I have just looked in several service manuals (not Honda) and they seem to list the spec as toe-in with a positive number, or toe out with a positive number, so there is no ambiguity. Maybe we should agree not to use the word "toe" alone. I'll let you know what the Hunter machine says.

sjulius

I checked my Hunter P411 alignment machine today, and it does use the following convention: Positive toe is TOE-IN, and Negative toe is TOE-OUT. Hope that clears up any confusion. Yes, SCS2k, some of us do have too much time on our hands.

jguerdat

Positive toe is toe-OUT - negative is toe-IN. You may want some front toe-out to crispen response at the expense of wear on the inside edge of the tire. Toe-in at the rear is supposed to make the rear more planted although the TireRack page on alignments seems to indicate that more toe-in will produce oversteer.

Also, my readout indicates the same range but is distinctly marked in degrees... [/QUOTE]

Okay, it looks like I screwed up on my definitions - I bow to the proper usage of positive and negative. Sorry that I didn't check my statement before posting.

So, now that we have that out of the way, there's still the issue of inches vs. degrees. Doing the math indicates that the range is correct in inches so I guess the printout that I have simply uses the wrong unit designator. If that's the case, I have .45" total toe, in line with what some folks are using for autocross but out of the stock range. I had asked for 1/4 inch rear toe and that's what they gave me - per side.

Anyone know for sure what the effect of rear toe is? I had thought less toe-in gave you a "livlier" feel to the rear but TireRack indicates that it would REDUCE oversteer. Thoughts?