Alignment Setting Recommendations Please

[ISONSX]

I need some advice as to the alignment settings that I should use. My 95 is a daily driver (31K miles and climbing). It has the factory 16/17 wheels with brand new 205/45-16 and 245-40-17 Goodyear F1 GS-D3 tires. I selected these tires based reseach and feedback here on Prime. Since the factory Yokohomas wore out way too fast, I went with this tire as the best compromise for me and now need to get the alignment done. The car has RM Racing lowering springs that result in a one and one-half inch drop per the documents I recieved with the car.

From what very little I know and understand about the alignment, the FAQ indicated that "running a 1.5 mm toe-in per side (for the rear) provides even tire wear on the rear tires and makes them last even longer. Again, but further reducing rear toe there is some performance tradeoff." From the FAQ, the front toe out is (3.5) mm.

I am looking for advice as to the best settings that will, in equal parts:
1) not significantly change the original design characteristics of the car (i.e., I don't want to give up a significant amount of the crispness in the handling)
2) save some tire life

These might sound like somewhat conflicting desires but there should be an optimal balance that someone can give me. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[nsxtasy]

I am looking for advice as to the best settings that will, in equal parts:
1) not significantly change the original design characteristics of the car (i.e., I don't want to give up a significant amount of the crispness in the handling)
2) save some tire life

These might sound like somewhat conflicting desires but there should be an optimal balance that someone can give me.

They are absolutely conflicting desires. The balance that is optimal for you may be different from the balance that is optimal for someone else.

If you want the most crispness in handling, set the rear toe to the original '91 spec of 6 mm. If you want the longest tire life and you don't care about the crisp handling, you can reduce it down to 2 mm or even zero. And, of course, you can set it in between, such as Acura's recommended 4 mm.

There is no one setting that is perfect for everyone. It depends on what you're looking for.

If I were you, assuming that the alignment settings were at the factory recommendations before you changed the suspension, I would leave them there for the life of your new Goodyear tires. This will let you see how their mileage compares with the stock Yokohama tires you had earlier. Once you go through a set, THEN consider a change to your alignment settings if you want to get more miles to your tires. (If, instead, you changed your settings now, you won't know whether any changes in treadlife miles are due to the different tires or the different alignment settings.)