In other Camaro news...
I played mechanic on Monday so I could bend the dust shield on the passenger side front brake and chip some paint in the fender lip of the same corner. Wait, that's not why I did it. Those were the bonus rewards I gave myself while taking slop out of some bolt positions to give myself a bunch of camber up front.
My new buddy named "Chip."
I don't have before measurements, or particulary good pics, but most Camaros seem to be delivered with about -0.5 degrees and the FSM spec for "Street" use is -.75 deg +-.8deg. The "Track" spec is -1.5 deg +- .15deg. Based solely on visual observations, I'd estimate my initial camber at -0.5 driver side and 0.0 passenger side without driver.
These 24mm nuts on the bolts fix the knuckle to the strut mount. The upper hole is elongated and allows for quite a bit of camber for an unmodified MacPhearson strut. Loosening the nuts and tapping them back to free the splines in the bolts lets you use that extra space in the upper hole to push the strut in towards the engine which also pulls the top of the knuckle in and changes the kingpin inclination to give you more camber. When I did the adjustment with the car raised by taking a wheel off and using a ratchet, the rotation from tightening worked against me (counter clockwise if you're looking from the front of the car) on the driver side and in my favor on the passenger side.
The Team WTF?! camber gauge showed 2 fingers of camber on each side Monday evening after moving the assembly.
Tuesday, I got it on a rack at a local shop with a highly recommended autocross friendly tech who asked me what specs I wanted, let me sit in the car, etc, and this is what I have now (L/R):
F Camber: -1.9 / -2.0
Caster: 7.0 / 6.9 (non-adjustable)
F Toe: 0.00 / 0.00
R Camber: -1.5 / -1.5
R Toe: 0.03 / 0.04
The before setting on the rack (after my driveway work) was -1.7 camber for left front and -2.0 on passenger side. Hitting with an impact while on the rack to loosen and re-tighten gave me an additional -0.2 on the driver side compared to what I could do by myself in my driveway.
I'm uncertain about the rear settings I chose. My goal is to make it easy to drive fast.
The only reference point is Mark Scroggs, who 1) was the only one competing in the car last year, 2) stomped the class at nearly every event all year last year (and doing the same this year), 3) is kind of an alien driver. Mark is pretty free with sharing info, so I had not only his settings, but what he was trying to do with them.
At the time, he was using a fair amount of rear camber and a little toe in at the rear to try to tame power on oversteer when the boost hits on corner exit. My inital thought was using the same camber and a little more toe for a little more stability would be a good place to start.
Then I saw the before numbers on my car. Less camber (-1.2 compared to -1.75) and a LOT more toe in (.2 vs .06 total degrees). When I saw that, I thought about how the car felt on power coming out of turns.
My initial thought was "take what Scroggs did, add a little toe in and see where things stand. When he posted his specs (at the time), he was trying to dial out some of the boost induced power on oversteer so he could be earlier and more aggressive on the throttle. I thought adding a little toe in from that would be a good place for me to start. It reminded me a lot of a certain time in the RX-8 when John and I were both pretty quick. I was happy with the rear and JV wanted it to be a little looser. We eventually went looser and JV picked up a lot of time. I did not, but for other head-up-ass reasons. So, what to do? Aim for making it looser than it was Sunday.
So, I went with -1.5 camber and .08 total toe in (I know it says .03 and .04 above). I expect it to be quite different than last weekend, but tires should get warmer too (it was cold and windy last week and tires never got warm).
My thought, or hope, was that it would be easier to borrow some toe plates and add a little more toe in on site this weekend than having to futz with camber, too, and that we'll be better off dialing in from too loose than from too tight (or, rather, will help me more as a driver).
One weird thing was after the alignment, we did a steering angle sensor reset. After the reset, the sensor was reporting full right lock when pointed straight ahead. Reset it again and same thing. We had to let the car sit about 15 minutes and third time worked.