optimal suspension geometry

Sorry but what makes you think the same bickering will not present its self in this thread? (oops, seems like it has).

You will have to be the judge of which members have the most experience in those areas.

It seems like the loudest and most opinionated don't have much direct experience in more than one, if any, of those areas.

I don't think you are going to get a real/clear answer, just opinions.

My setup could do all 3, but would require different wheel and tire for grip racin'. I have a lot of anti-squat in my S-chassis rear subframe that isn't ideal for it, but again, wheels and tires. I would say S-chassis rear would be needed to do all 3 well, as it still rides comfortably with a track setup. Then you run into the problem of being classed in autox, which makes you leave autox forever.

Yea… I'm not a suspension guru or anything, but I'm pretty sure that it's pretty much an individual basis as far as setups go. I could copy Butter's setup to a tee, but if he dialed his in during the winter and I try to run Sebring in the summer, I'm not really going to be dialed in.

Honestly, the best answer I can think to give you is, seek adjustability. Coilovers, S13 rear swap, tension rods, etc. Start with stock specs, then take it to a track and play with the settings. If you want to go that far, keep a logbook and annotate your adjustments and impressions of how it affected the car. Have a setup for the street that won't kill your tires and a setting for the track even. Or, since you're building 3 vehicles, ditch the Zs in favor of some S13s and save yourself the headache. Hate to say it, but truth hurts sometimes.

My experience has been that different driving styles will be complemented by slightly different suspension settings. So far I have come to the conclusion that small changes to a good balanced setup will allow you to do any type of racing or driving that you want and do it quite well. I would suggest starting with a good street/track setting and don't go too low with ride height or you won't have enough stroke in your struts/dampers.

From there you can either start going for more drift friendly setup or a more track oriented one. My optimal balanced (base) settings would start something like -2.5 camber up front and as close as you can get to -1 degree camber in the rear (not easy to do with lowered trailing arm rear). I prefer slight toe out in front like -.05 per side -.1 total and more toe in for the rear something like .12 per side .25 total. With adjustable tie rods you could try putting in more caster angle and bring the static camber in front down to -2 degrees.

Currently I can't get my rear camber under 3 degrees with my low ride height and 38mm spacers; so I'm going with a z32 rearend cause I want super wide track width and my rear fenders have a generous pull and roll which will just barely fit 10" wide wheels et 25 with 285 tires (higher offset runs into clearance issues with rear calipers). I have driven with both sway bars which resulted in good balance with slight oversteer tendency and quick turn in. Also have driven with the front swaybar off and it was very drift happy and fun (and very quick easy change to setup not requiring alignment).

Auto-x I have experienced that a quicker turning rack (e.i. shortened knuckles) is very much in order if you want to perform with quicker turning cars. On a racetrack i think good suspension setting can aid quick turn in and a quick steering rack would not benefit greatly. Oh and going with S13 instead of Z31 is easy but boring and less rewarding. Good luck! Trial and error is the best way to get your optimal suspension settings for any given goal.

You should set it up as neutral as possible(0 toe, 0 camber), then run it, tweak one thing, run it, tweak something else. I run 1.7% camber in the back with 1.5% in the front. with a slight 1/16 toe-out in the back, 1/8 toe-in in the front.

But in my experience with both real cars, and go-karts. never change more then one setting at a time. So if it sucks, you can go back. Also your car shouldn't ever be more setup then you are. So you don't need a 500 hp monster to start drifting.

Just my 2c.

A tiny bit of camber is desireable. A optimally set up drift car becomes a grip monster with the right tire/wheel combo, as Butter said.