Daytona Alignment Questions

365 GTB/4 alignment specs are for “fully loaded” car, i.e. 2 passengers, all fluids, full tank(s), spare, tools and luggage (for 2) onboard.
Properly working “dynamic” alignment however, especially for the front suspension, can be difficult or likely impossible to achive with just OEM components used “as is” due to engineering flaws(?) they were originally produced with.
Variety of solutions are available, from aftermarket “conversions” to “adjustment service” accommodating the use of all OEM parts.

 

No, not on a “Daytona”.

 

Actually it does. As was explained to us by Ferrari the rather odd looking camber settings static would change considerably at speed. Built in camber change was indeed taken into consideration in establishing the specs.

 

brian, so the factory spec settings are correct and should be adhered to?

 

Interesting, thank you.
Both front & rear ? Approximately how much and/or proportionally at what speeds ?
This could have some effect on one of my pet peeves, inaccurate (front suspension) ride height specs provided by the factory, but which don’t appear nowhere near correct on any car I’ve ever seen/worked on with OEM suspension components, even if using new (NOS) springs and all new service/wear parts.

 

Brian: What is going to make the camber change when driving? I can understand camber change during corning, but just driving down the road?

 

Ride height changes it profoundly and it changes at speed due to the aerodynamics of the car.

Not saying it was a trick set up. It was pretty terrible camber change actually but Ferrari recognized it was there and took it into account. If you look at the static settings and look at the camber change in that chassis nothing else makes any sense.

I asked a lot of years ago and that was the response. Don't recall who but I was always careful about my sources of information. Too many with that company just make stuff up rather than tell you they don't know.

 

No luggage BTW.

 

Don't know and never pursued any of that. I have had a lot of misgivings with ride height after replacing springs. I'd hate to swear we are always getting the right stuff.

 

I asked that and evidently they are. Tires have changed a lot. I am also one who has nothing against experimentation with alignment set up. People have different tastes in set up. I knew one of the engineers who happened to be a liaison engineer with the tire companies among his various hats and they wrung cars out at Fiorano deciding on set ups in more recent years. Not sure they got that kind of attention in 1968.

Also frankly how many are ever going to be used for top gear speed runs with XWX's?

 

Yes, after double checking my notes, I stand corrected. Thank you.

After years of hearing and reading countless (Daytona) driver/owner complaints about the front tires rubbing (usually or more so during cornering) I've spent fair amount of time studying this and have now developed a ride height adjustment service & parts which allow retaining all OEM components, but ables the (static?) ride height setting to be at factory given spec, which to my (limited) understanding is one of the principal baselines needed for correct(?) steering & suspension alignment geometry.
Or perhaps I'm just looking at this wrong ?

So far, I've successfully introduced my "adjustment service" to few cars, but also always interested in learning more.

 

I suppose getting a bunch of pictures of the cars in period and jacking a car to look the same and measure it. I don't recall the 365's specifically but in many cases their method of measuring ride height leaves a lot to be desired. The other side is the suspension design of the period is pretty victorian. Just do what works. We are not going to make modern cars out of them no matter what.

 

^^^ These are some of many reasons I've always enjoyed/loved/preferred driving 45-50+ years old or older vintage cars.
To me, they offer such analog/raw/real feel no modern (less than 40 year old ?) car is able to.
But the again, I get my some of my "kicks" by driving an almost 90 year old open wheel Sport Roadster with 65+ year old chassis (talk about "Victorian") and drive train technology quite spiritedly on twisty SoCal mountain roads 2-3 days/times a month, often finding many late model cars not able to keep up.

 

Brian: Thank you for clarifying your comments. No question, if you plot camber curves on these cars, there is a lot of change. We generally pick a ride height we like and then set the static alignment and hope for the best. If you want the best for track use, we usually run more negative static camber as we don't care about the tire wear. I definitely agree that over the years, the factory would tend to tell you "anything" to just make you go away and not ask any more questions.

 

Can you please confirm you're not mixing concepts of "toe in/out" with "negative/positive camber" ?

Regardless of the answer to above, yes, excessive toe in/out and/or negative/positive cambers has been noticed/seen on Daytonas.

Yes, except the luggage.
I have and, depending on required amounts and locations, strategically place "portable" weights in the car to simulate "fully loaded" when preparing any and all suspension or steering adjustments/alignments.

 

When you say toe out, are you referring to the tires squatting? That is really called negative camber. If so, yes, it normal. Daytonas have a lot of negative camber in the rear.

If on the other hand it is toe out, meaning the rear tires are pointing outwards, like the left tire is pointing further left than the car, no, thats not normal and will have a very profoundly bad effect on the cars handling.

 

this is called in germany: negative chamber
also in germany we only know toe in positive and toe in negative, but not toe out. toe in positve means that in driving direction the wheels in the front are more together than in the back ( of course at the same axle ). if you have a toe in negative you have always problem to go straight with the carand you think there is much play in the steering

 

As Romano pointed out and I along with others suspected, your issue is called “negative camber”.
Not necessarily a “problem”, but can have considerable effect on handling and tire wear.

As for your initial enquiry of “alignment correcting itself with ... speed”, after further considering Brians (“Rifledriver”) comments about ride height changing at speed, Daytonas aerodynamic design features and what factory + Pininfarina had learned from short nose 275 GTB high speed “lift”, etc., I’d imagine negative camber would only be more pronounced (i.e. car will “squat” even more) at higher speeds.

 

you may have very weak springs.

 

From memory Daytonas start with 2+ degrees of rear negative camber. That is a significant amount and when compared with the front at 1 degree positive it looks even more extreme. If you have exceeded the load used for alignment it gets more extreme still. Without a more precise description like a picture or measurement it is impossible to comment on whether or not your car has an issue.

The easiest and best thing would be to get the alignment checked and get a judgement on the condition of the springs.

 

Yes, one of many commonly found possible causes/contributors.