OK taking my 08 GT to Ford for a front wheel alignment. I recently lowered the car 1.2" all around with Vogtland springs and Koni STR.S struts and new GT500 strut mounts. Have driven it for about 3600 miles. It appears that the inner edge of the tires are just starting to wear a little. I drive mostly highway 120 miles x 5 days a week. Its obvious there is an increase in the negative camber since the lowering. My question is, what numbers should Ford align it too? Factory specs, some negative camber?? Keep in mind I have 275 40/20's up front, which I plan on downsizing to OEM diameter when these are done.

 

The amount of camber, is really a driver decision..

I run about -2*, while OEM is about -.5, I think. With a 1.2" drop, you are going to get about 1* of additional negative camber, If I recall correctly. Do a search for posts of Norm Peterson in THIS section to confirm, as he just posted this a few weeks back.

Jazzer

 

Factory camber for your '08 is -0.75°, with a tolerance of 0.75° either way from there.

Camber gain from stock height is about -0.6° per inch lowered, so you're about 0.75° more negative than you were before lowering. Given your high proportion of highway use and no mention of any sort of hard cornering, you probably don't want camber set any further negative than the -0.75° stock preferred number. In fact, if cornering isn't particularly important at all, maybe down around -0.5° might be even better for your driving.

But make sure that the toe is ever so slightly "toe-in". Lowering may have driven your toe 'out', and bad toe is much tougher on tires than bad camber.

I don't know what method your dealer is going to suggest for bringing your camber back down, but there's Ford's own camber bolt solution (that requires some drilling as well) and the installation of various aftermarket camber plates. It's probably too late to suggest Steeda HD strut mounts, which have about a degree of camber adjustability built into them. I think H&R makes camber bolts that can be torqued to the full strut to knuckle torque spec, which are acceptable at least from a strength standpoint. I will recommend against using anybody's crash bolts that do not specifically list at least a 148 ft-lb torque setting (166 being preferable). There's a reason that Ford requires those higher numbers, and a reason that the 166's replaced the 148's.


Norm