Anyone know the stock camber and toe settings?

[TheJudge05]

I wondering what the stock toe-in and camber settings are for the front and rear for an 05' GTO?

[PartsGedder]

OE Specs
Front
Toe 0 deg to +1.7 deg
Camber +.3 deg to -.7 deg
Castor is fixed, but the spec is +6.0 deg to +8.5 deg, unless you use an aftermarket adjustable bush.

Rear
Rear camber is -.42 deg to -1.68 deg. Changes in ride height change the camber. This can be adjusted with replacement eccentric bushes or by changing the ride height.
Rear toe is 0 deg to +.4 deg

Are you looking for specs for an alignment or just the OE for comparison? The OE spec range is really large and the car can be in spec, but still handle poorly.

I spoke with Mike White (dms) on the specs, one of his favorite street playing set ups is:
Front
Toe Left +.10 to +.15 Right +.10 to +.15
Camber Left -0.25 / Right -0.3
Castor Left 7.5 to 8.5 / Right 7.5 to 8.5

Rear
Camber Left -1.2 to -1.0 / Right -1.2 to -1.0
Rear Toe Left .05 / Right .05

[dms]

Is yur suspension stock? Are you having inside tire wear front and rear?

mike
dms

[TheJudge05]

Is yur suspension stock? Are you having inside tire wear front and rear?

mike
dms

Bone stock suspension. Original tires (5 years old but only 17k on car) are being replaced. The tires are worning in two ways, 1 excessive burn-outs (operator error) 2 the inside of the tires are wearing more then the outside, passenger side seems worse then the drivers side. I see that maybe the strut was touched once or twice by the tire but not a constant rub and doesn't look like much at all just a touch. My research seems to indicate that the front camber is set too negative. Just using a large angle bracket and a nice flat garage floor, I can see that the top of the tire is in about 10mm, my calculations say that the camber is then set about -1.25 degrees, is the same for both sides. The rear camber appears to be much higher, around 25-30mm inboard, thus more negative camber then front. Both conditions would cause inside tire wear but also yeild better handling in corners.
It looks like the front camber adjustment is easy and I could almost do it myself, but the rest needs to be done by a good shop.

Ok, so any advice would be much appreciated. thanks...

[TheJudge05]

OE Specs
Front
Toe 0 deg to +1.7 deg
Camber +.3 deg to -.7 deg
Castor is fixed, but the spec is +6.0 deg to +8.5 deg, unless you use an aftermarket adjustable bush.

Rear
Rear camber is -.42 deg to -1.68 deg. Changes in ride height change the camber. This can be adjusted with replacement eccentric bushes or by changing the ride height.
Rear toe is 0 deg to +.4 deg

Are you looking for specs for an alignment or just the OE for comparison? The OE spec range is really large and the car can be in spec, but still handle poorly.

I spoke with Mike White (dms) on the specs, one of his favorite street playing set ups is:
Front
Toe Left +.10 to +.15 Right +.10 to +.15
Camber Left -0.25 / Right -0.3
Castor Left 7.5 to 8.5 / Right 7.5 to 8.5

Rear
Camber Left -1.2 to -1.0 / Right -1.2 to -1.0
Rear Toe Left .05 / Right .05

Btw, thanks much for all the detailed info...

[andyramsaran]

Caster can be adjusted on the stock Caster rod there is washers on both side towards the inside you can add or remove up to one washer it makes a big change i did it to my GTO I'm a GM tech i set my Caster to 0 and handle a whole lot better on the hwy

[andyramsaran]

oh one more thing for the front Camber gring the up strut hole andyou can set it to zero deg camber and it will not wear out ur front tires

[dms]

I seriously disagree with your alignment! setting your caster to 0 is seriously bad. the caster on the GTO needs to be in the 7 plus degrees at a minimum.

I have probably driven more GTOs than anyone in the USA with well over a 1000 plus GTO upgrades. To me, there is an obvious difference in handling between -.3 degrees negative camber and 0 or the +.2 that is allowed. _.3 degrees camber is not anywheres near the wear problem area. What is a serious wear problem are OE strut bushings that are collapsing and then the centers migrating towards the engine compartment. This can cause a substantial amount of camber/toe change because the center strut bushing and the strut shaft, may move all over the place, creating, ultimately changing toe, which can be the most distructive of all alignment angles.

UPPER OE STRUT BUSHING WITH 15,000 MILES COMPARING OLD TO NEW. BUSHING IS COLLAPSED 1/2 INCH

UPPER OE STRUT BUSHING WHERE THE CENTER HAS MOVED TOWARDS THE ENGINE COMPARTMENT


TYPICAL OE UPPER STRUT BUSHING TEARING AND MIGRATING


TYPICAL OE UPPER STRUT BUSHING TEARING AND MIGRATING

Another major concern that creates a lot of unneccessary changes in caster/toe are the OE front radius bushings, and now we are seeing a large amount of concerns with the rear radius rod bushing as well. These bushings can allow as much as 2 inches of fore/aft movement when hitting the brake hard. This creates a significant amount of caster/toe change. These OE bushings are fluid filled and leak. When the fluid leaks out, and they with time, and can leak slightly, or totally blow out. When the fluid is gone, the amount of movement increases significantly.

FRONT RADIUS ROD BUSHING DRIPPING WITH UNDER 15K



ANOTHER GRADUALLY LEAKING OE FRONT RADIUS ROD BUSHING



ANOTHER LEAKING OE FRONT RADIUS ROD BUSHING

Pedders offers a discounted solution to to help stabilize the front end

GTO TIRE RUB

GTO Tire Rub Kit

Full Package Retail of $563.25

The GTO has been prone to front tire wear concerns, primarily on the inside edges. Some due to strut to tire contact, but mostly due to poor control of the upper strut position and the excess lower control arm movement on braking, cornering, and acceleration. This kit offers the fix and method to significantly improve front tire wear. A save strut to tire clearance factor is the width of a pencil. Also it is critical to keep and maintain appropriate tire pressures as indicated on your placard Always follow the procedures and specifications of the shop manual produced for your vehicle by the manufacturer. Suspension work should only be attempted by those with the experience and knowledge to safely complete it. Pedders recommends parts and procedures be carried out by a licensed workshop or tradesperson.

Retail $478.76 EA


Item Code Description Qty
4306 GM Strut Clevis Bolt & Nut Pkg 2
4358 Pont GTO Bump Stop Front 2
5030 Strut Mount Bearing 2
5851 Heavy Duty Strut Mounts 2
EP9019 Pont Urethane Radius_Rod Bush 1
EP9166 Pont GTO Radius Rod Castor 1
PDUSA5409 Pont GTO 5409 rpl nut 2

The EP9166 Pedders front radius rod bushing listed above, is a serious upgraded component. Not only does it offer serious control of the fore/aft movement of the front wheels, it also allows you some significant amount of caster adjustability and you can increase casters up to 1.25 degrees. For the record, adding 1.25 degrees caster offers very serious stability increases, better steering feedback, with the only drawback being potential tire to front inner fender whell contact which is easy to fix.

If you have any questions, just ask

thanks
mike
dms

[andyramsaran]

lol sorry i type caster 0 deg what mean't grinding the struts to set 0 deg Camber and yes you are right 7 deg caster sorry about that

[TheJudge05]

@Mike, great info thanks... Would you say that the GTOs with excessive wear and/or collapsing strut mounts, were driven hard or auto-crossed? Have you seen this happen to the weekend driven car that is not raced? This type of failure seems absurd for a car not driven hard. Second, this is not a new design, the GTO is based off of a Holden platform, is this also happening to the Holden version? This is suspension 101 stuff for an automotive engineer, I am shocked this type of failure is occurring...

[dms]

@Mike, great info thanks... Would you say that the GTOs with excessive wear and/or collapsing strut mounts, were driven hard or auto-crossed? Have you seen this happen to the weekend driven car that is not raced? This type of failure seems absurd for a car not driven hard. Second, this is not a new design, the GTO is based off of a Holden platform, is this also happening to the Holden version? This is suspension 101 stuff for an automotive engineer, I am shocked this type of failure is occurring...

I have seen many GTOs with failed strut bushings at 25K and driven by gramma to church on Sundays. Again the originals are damaged right off the boat due to the strapping problems. I think where the vehicle is on the boat, and possible how bad the seas are may have some influence on how bad the are initially.

On the G8 they use the same strut mount and it will collapse just like the GTO, But the collapsing part itself is not what bothers me. It is when it does collapse, the center section of the mount begins to migrate to the engine, and then lets the strut shaft move all over the place. Now on the G8, Holden did a interesting thing and they changed the load direction of the mount by putting it at a angle instead of 90 degrees to the strut shaft itself. This seems to help the reduction and tearing of the center ferrule. Does not help the collapsing, but the exact same mount will last longer on a G8 becuase of this.

Now when you drive hard, the OE strut mounts are toast in 10K to 15K miles.

mike
dms