Broesel

...set the alignment settings on your car?

I'm trying to get my P5 set up for track use, and want to know what you guys are using for alignment settings. Suspension-wise so far, I've got the Eibach Pro-Kit, SRMotorsports dampers, Eibach camber adjustment cams, and Toyo RA-1 tires. I'm going to be on the track a lot, but also be driving from home to the track (about 70 miles) and occasionally to get groceries or go to the office. Aggressive settings are good.

Thanks for your input.

Roddimus Prime

I'd mimick the OE setting of the MSP. Hard to go wrong when you have the same setup as the worlds best handling FWD ever.

Broesel

You have a point, but I don't necessarily agree with it 100%.

Agreed, the MSP is a really great handling car on the street, but on the track, things are quite different. For example, on a typical street car, -2.5deg camber would be way too much. On the track, it's a good start, but even then maybe not quite enough. I've had full-out track cars with -4deg and felt it was just right, although if I drove that car on the street, I'd cord the inside of the tires in just a few thousand miles. Toe-out on the street is really not necessary, but on the track, since there's an arc difference between the inside and outside wheel, a little toe-out can be a good thing.

When I've run the P5 on the track before, using the stock suspension and alignment settings, the outside edge temperature on the tires was much higher than the middle and inside edge as you should expect. It's like the inside edge of the tire wasn't even touching the ground.

I could sit there with my pyrometer and run a few laps, measure the temps, make a change, ad infinitum, but I was at least hoping to get a good starting point for track settings from any of you who have done track time with your car.

Do any of you actually take your car to the track, or is it all about street driving here? There's nothing wrong with it if you don't track your car, but I need a reference. The track is a completely different place.

I'd love to go up to my local track with someone from here with a street setup and pull some times against me with a track setup. I may have to give you a few seconds since I'm an instructor (we teach "recreational" schools as well as police training) and have a few more laps on the track than many of you probably do. However, if there's another instructor from Summit Point here with a stock P5, please chime in. I'd like to see what kind of difference I can make with some minor tweaks.

Roddimus Prime

You didn't specify you wanted a "track only" set-up. A stock MSP set-up would be the best spec for a dual purpose vehicle which 90% of us have.

If you'd like to get down and dirty on P5 suspension I'd look for "aMaff" he has a very solid P5/MX5 combo as well as "EggyNatey" tracks his P5 regularly.

aMaff

thanks for the name drop

I could help you with the miata, but the P5's pretty much street only so I don't have any solid information on what aggressive setups work. However, from what I've read:
Max camber front (Proteges cars actually lose negative camber as the suspension compresses).
If this is for autocross, you may want to mimic Wayne (apexlater on the other forum). He had toe settings that everyone said were crazy, but he was crazy fast. He's one of our local guys and ran a G-stock MP3. Here's a thread with a little more info:
http://www.msprotege.com/forum/showthread.php?t=109723
He pretty much stopped running that car when I got serious about autocrossing. That was just the most relevant thing I could find you.