Gawd, I wish I knew what you guys were talking about!  lol!

But hey, Jim, Rich, I just put on a new set of 245/50/16s on my 5.0

Reeeeal sticky. I love them.

Now, I need to get them aligned soon.

Cornering is very important. With stock running gear, can you recommend an aggressive corning alignment I can take to the boys at Ford?

Thanks for any help!

Brad

 "Jim Warman" <mechanic@telusplanet.net> wrote in message
 news:eN8ug.136173$S61.11763@edtnps90...
 > All the late model Fords that I align have had what I think is too much
 > negative camber from the factory... nearly 2 degrees on one of the very
 few
 > Merc Marauders I've aligned. I'd probably regard your present settings as
 > something I wouldn't want to exceed on a street driven car..... unless the
 > customer regarded cornering ability as more important than possible tire
 > wear......

 Cornering well is important.

 > However, with what you have for current camber settings (this is read off
 a
 > rack rather than some arbtrary markings in the plates?), I wouldn't expect
 > abnormal wear.

 The settings are from the rack.

 And that brings us to toe which can kill a tire quicker than
 > any other alignment angle. A small amount (about 0.10 degree - I think
 that
 > extrapolates to about 1/16th inch) of toe in will usually help straight
 line
 > stability.

 Toe is +1/16 left and right for Total Toe +1/8".

 Generally, a small amount of toe out (it will look like -0.10
 > degree or so on the rack) will help the car turn into the corner better.
 > 0.20 degree either way is pushing it and anything over 0.30 degree is
 likely
 > going to give excessive wear (the more the toe, the worse the wear). Too
 > much toe out will wear the inside edge first with featheredging towards
 the
 > outside (in some cases, you may need to rub your hand across the tread to
 > find featheredging..... rub one way, then the other), while too much toe
 in
 > will give the same symptoms mirrored on the tire.

 That's what caught my attention. Rubbing my hand across the tread (opposite
 to tire rotation) you can feel a sharp edge on the outside edge of the tire.
 Inside edge and rear tires do not have the same feel.

 Maybe the answer is to have the alignment confirmed and to set the Toe to 0.

 Richard

OK... if you move your hand across the tread from outside to inside you can
feel it "catch"????? Moving your hand from inside to outside feels
smooth????

If these conditions are present, I would think that toe is out of whack
(toed out) by a significant amount.

A word on our tools..... electronic alignment racks need periodic
calibration. I have instructed our vendor to stop by on any trips through
town and our rack gets calibrated about once a year. If there is ever any
doubt about toe settings, a decent shop should have a trammel bar... This is
a mechanical means to verify toe settings. If something doesn't feel right
after an alignment, I will use the trammel bar to take a possible unknown
out of the equation....