Hey everyone,
new guy from Alaska. My wife and I have been autocrossing our 2022 GTI for nearly three years now. Any recommendations on alignment specs for a GS car? Our car is DCC/DSG, and has neuspeed 25mm RSB and RE71RS for autocross. We had a rough winter, so I'd say it's about due for an alignment. Our car is our daily (we take turns haha) and suprisingly this car handles Alaskan winters pretty well, as long as there isn't three feet of snow!
I have our GTI packed up for an event about three hours away (It's on a high school parking lot). Hoping it's a a course where the Gti can do well.
Some of alignment is preference and it usually takes an entire season to find your sweet spot.
I just bought and I'm not autocrossing my mk8 this year, but I previously ran two different mk7.5's in GS and they were competitive locally. I'll go setting by setting.
Front camber - not technically adjustable, but there is wiggle room. Most cars stock are -0.8 to -.09. If you loosen the top hat bolts and the ball joint nuts, you can get -0.9 to -1. Will it matter? Probably not, but this is Street, you've got to take advantage of every legal advantage.
Front toe. Everyone runs zero, because that's what VW did with the Mk7 CSS. Cool, but that car was setup for track, not autocross. I found .10 toe out each side to be better on turn in, but not so much front toe out that it caused mid corner issues or excessive wear for daily driving.
Rear negative camber - again, my recommendation is a little different than most people's. Most people are going with -1.5, but I ran the H&R 26mm bar and zero toe rear, with toe out at the front, and I found -1.5 was undriveable in slaloms. I found -1.8 to be the perfect balance of rotation and driveability with my setup.
Rear toe. I ended up zero toe in the rear. The -1.8 camber allowed me to be aggressive in the transitions and zero toe allowed progressive rotation in sweepers.
All that being said, mk7.5 and mk8 have different spring rates, you have a different rear sway than i used and the aluminum front subframe has slightly moved the weight balance favorably for the mk8, so no matter what worked for me or someone else, your cars specs, driving style, tire choice and choice in sway bar will impact what works best for you.
TLDR - Front zero - .10 toe out. Rear -1.5 to -1.8 camber and zero to .10 toe in, but you'll need to start somewhere in those ranges and adjust to suit you.
Also, good choice of tire for GS. The lack of negative camber makes the stones a winner, but I will say, never start your alignment journey on new or worn tires. Should be a fresh set that have one or two good heat cycles. New tires have always been looser for me. Once they have a couple heat cycles and have full grip, the car will tighten up, that's when your want to really fine tune. Once the tires get too many heat cycles they tend to tighten up on turn in, and get looser in slaloms, so it's hard to tell what you need to adjust. Once tires start to wear, I use tire pressure to adjust handling and will be less aggressive on turn in. DON'T CHASE ALIGNMENT ON WORN TIRES. Ask me how I know it's futile.
