Whats wrong with my Dusters front end?

In my experience, the issue of a car not returning to straight when turned is a lack of toe in. 0º toe in will reduce tire wear and initial steering effort to turn. It's a question of what you're willing to trade off.

Factory settings for the 71 Duster are:
Toe in 3/32 - 5/32 inch
Camber LH 0º 15' - 0º 45' positive
RH 0º 0' - 0º 30' positive
Caster 0º 15' to 1º 15" positive

Bear in mind these cars were originally built with bias ply tires. Radial tires respond a bit differently. Here are the settings I use on the Darts.

Toe in 1/16"
Camber 1º 30' both sides
Caster 2.5º positive (all that either chassis would allow)

Both cars have 60 series radial tires on 7" rims and power steering. Steering effort is slightly higher, turn-in much sharper than the older settings. Recommend setting ride height before adjusting suspension.


A static setting of 0 toe in will give you toe out while in motion. The rolling wheels tend to pull all of the slack out of the steering components, so while the car is rolling the wheels will tend to toe out slightly. A small amount of toe in corrects this, the end goal of a little toe in is 0 toe while the car is motion.

Positive camber is for bias plys. Period. If you're running radials with positive camber you're not doing yourself or your tires any favors. And 1* of camber in either direction is pretty close to causing premature wear on the edges of your tires. I know this because I've run up to -1.5* camber on the street, on both modern and classic mopars.

Look at the alignment specs for modern cars. All run negative camber. It has nothing to do with the suspension, the suspension doesn't care. Its all about tire wear and traction. If you run modern tires, you should use modern alignment specifications. The Skosh chart below is an excellent reference. It's a little conservative on caster, it was probably intended for manual steering cars. With power steering +4* caster isn't an issue, although on a manual car that much will make the steering effort a bit higher. You'll need offset bushings or tubular arms to get that much caster though.