Recent alignment
 

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I just got my car aligned. Sorry if this is a stupid topic but looking at the right rear. Is that off by a lot or is it something that isn't that bad


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Not unusual for stock, 0.7 is a bit larger than usual though, most are 0.5 or less.

http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showp...89&postcount=2
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=97321

And while googling for this, Dezoris thread on alignment is worth a read given all the alignment questions flying around this month.
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25001

I just thought of something I forgot to mention in your other thread. Consider all the rubber bushings that are used in the suspension. None of those pivot. They flex, and when they do, they load up just like springs.

It's important to settle the car at it's neutral resting position before torquing down those joints.

I bet your right rear is lifted ever so slightly higher than your left. That will affect negative camber exactly as shown in your print.

At least the front end is pretty even. lol

That was a funny article (the part where he mentioned how they never get alignment right). Thanks for your post!

I went back to him and we argued back and fourth and he won't even look at my car saying how "it's in the green, I did my job".

I'm talking to someone else who might do it for super cheap for just that rear tire.

In your opinion do you think it's worth me going thru with aligning it? I'm paranoid about tire ware and overall performance


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Camber you won't likely notice a difference, that rear toe looks pretty uneven though...

No, I do not think you will get any significant improvement over the posted numbers without installing aftermarket lower control arms in the rear.

Your toe looks good to me, you probably wouldn't notice the 0.01 degree of difference to get it 'perfect'

Well everything looks fine except the rear right camber which is what I went to get the alignment for.

I do 90 degree corners at 40 km an hour (if that makes any difference...yea stupid I know)

Thanks all for your posts


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Sorry regarding toe - read it wrong. Your settings are fine except you need camber bolts in the front :D

Do you mean the rear haha?


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Front. It badly needs negative camber for better cornering. Won't be in the green though.

C

It is fine. If you saw my after sheet with all the red and my rear 3.5 camber you would shit yourself. Still on my original summer tires after 50K miles and no bad wear though.

Nope, add SPC cam bolts in the upper holes, maxed out, with a little shoving you can get them a little beyond -1.5 in the front. You'll be really surprised how it improves the responsiveness of the front end. One of the biggest bang for the buck mods for this car IMHO.

Hey thanks for your post! Ok do I need 4 bolts or 2? I'm reading up on how I should either have 4 or switch the bottom bolt for the top one or something along those lines.


Also, is there a tool you can buy that isn't super expensive (like the actual hoist with the laser thing) that does alignment accurately?? I can't seem to find something digital that's accurate.. I figured if I want something done right, I have to do it myself. That's literally always been the case for every car I've ever owned.


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You can buy "crash bolts", i.e. smaller diameter bolts like the lowers on the knuckle, but i prefer spending a couple extra bucks on the spc cam bolts (search forum for part number, dont have it handy). they are easily adjustable, easy to install. technically you should do another alignment, not easy at all to align yourself. if you dont want to spend for that, you can probably install them, max them out, and be ok. l/r camber should be close enough and toe shouldnt change too much on the front. if you use camber bolts, make sure the plate is installed the right way, bolts are pointed the right way, and shove hard at the top of the hub/brake disc while tightening it down (tighten the nut, not bolt head).

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This explaines the camber bolt options here depending how much you are looking for. I liked the SPC/Crash bolt combo myself until getting camber plates


http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=103609

Thanks for your post! Yea I'm looking to go for max camber... apparently it's not adjustable with stock arms according to that article. Does that mean my control arm is bent ?

Also, any self alignment tools out there?


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Correct, rear camber isnt adjustable stock. And from factory it can be off from side to side in just how things shift a bit when torqued down. Mine was off about the same amount from side to side with nothing bent. That doesnt mean you dont have a bent part but it isnt a certain jist from the difference.

I know nothing about at home alignments unfortunately. There is a thread in the FIY section of the forum iirc but i just find a trusted performance alignement shop and call it a day. Try your regional forum for suggestions

I'm about 4.5hrs into an alignment and corner balance, which started after a couple hours setting up everything so it was perfectly level. At this point I have ride height, front camber close, balance close, and am about to dive in on rear camber/toe... i.e. just getting to the fine tuning details. Since every change affects everything else, it's... interesting.

If you're not starting out with a coilover install as I did, you may be starting from a slightly better place...

I'd estimate I'll need to do this 5-6 times to break even on what I'd have paid a shop to do the work... ignoring the time investment. I won't have to re-level everything again, and future work will be all about tweaking numbers based on tire temp data, so it should not take me quite this long again. Till I swap springs...

Still, it's a lot of time, and the tools to do it 100% right aren't cheap at the entry level side of things... and they go up in cost from there.

What tool r u using? I'm seriously interested in getting something that I can use that's accurate! Even if it's a bit expensive.


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For the alignment itself, a camber gauge with digital level, a custom string rig, and greased plexiglass turn plates. That's a few hundred, and works well enough for rough work... Street driven, a little difference in camber from measuring on a surface that's not perfectly level is probably OK. Real turn plates are for another day...

I also am using corner scales and pad levelers with roll-off, which leaves me on a perfectly level surface, critical for weighting and an exact alignment. If you were to buy, you're looking at a lot more... Cheap scales just aren't worth it. Local clubs sometimes have them available to rent.

You can get close to the same height with careful stacking of MDF or similar and a long level... That's not perfect though. Each of the pads I have are at a different rise front and back (less side to side).

I got stuck last night unable to loosen the rear LCA nuts... I left it at 49.8% cross weight, about 25.5" ride height, -3.5 front camber and -2.3/-1.9 rear, with toe off all around.

Might be easier to win the lotto to be honest lmao!


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It might. I'm having serious second thoughts about doing this. I think I need better than 1/64" accuracy for toe... :( I definitely need better light.

Good enough for a bit of driving to let things settle, then back up it goes for a fine tune. The driving will have to wait for another day.

somewhere i think in the diy section someone documented a diy alignment procedure. only for the precision minded, not for the faint of heart. a good performance alignment should be under 200, especially if it's a stock suspension with just camber bolts.

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If you can pull it off you'll be more accurate than just about any shop. I think you'd be beating the laser machines at that point.

1/64" is 0.015" which is the thickness of three sheets of paper. What are you shooting for two sheets of paper accuracy?

The garage solution would be massive toe plates, maybe 3ft long at each wheel could get you the accuracy you want.

Aaaaand I thought about it too much, assuming you're measuring at the edge of the (17") wheel, 1/64" is 0.05 degrees of toe, if you expand that out to 36" and you can measure 1/32" accurately you'll be just as accurate as measuring in 1/64ths at the wheel, a 5ft bar would be almost twice as accurate even if you can only measure 1/32" accurately but then you've got the straightness of the bar to keep track of, not impossible with a laser but yeah.

Just bought a second laser and tripod last night, going to nix the strings I've been using for a box. Once you get your car squared up you can use more ghetto methods to adjust (toe plates) and only square it up every few months or when you've been monkeying around a lot.

:threadjacked:

I just found out I STILL had toe out on my rear yesterday, I think that explains why I can't put power down confidently. Jacked in a bunch just to do it and will try and even it up later this week.

If that isn't painfully obvious after this post then nothing will stop the determined.

Yes, it's that 0.05° wiggle room on 17" wheels. I was actually fudging up or down a little based on whether it was on the mark or between, but... I suppose I could do longer plates for more accuracy - hadn't considered that. Would be really tough in the (very minimal) working space I have though. I gave it up for the night at ~0.13°/0.16° toe-in on the rear (l/r) which was up from when I called "done" on it (was at ~0.04°/0.06° before I worked on the front...) - that'll be plenty good for a warm-up "settle the suspension" run. I learned I need to roll the car just a bit more than I was, even with the hacked turn plates. Also kept having the front wander and was pulling my hair out (what's left of it) till I realized I grabbed the steering wheel every time I got in the car, and the fronts were wandering *together* even though I made sure it was always centered... cross balance was only 49.7%... Final measurements saw a decrease in camber on the LF too, not sure I understand that but I was way too tired to care... 0.2° off. Not as far off as when I put the car up before I did any work though. :) I'll go back in and check things after I've driven it a bit, see if the coilovers settle in a little or not.

Did I mention I'm a perfectionist? My string box is attached to the car, but I kept bumping it... not enough room. :/ At least I found an nifty website that doesn't need it to be perfectly even relative to the car.

I sure wish I could use turnbuckles for the rear toe though. Yay rules.

Between learning how everything works, getting it all set up, and actually doing the alignment it was... a LOT of time. As you say - from here on out, hopefully it will be less work because everything is now in the ballpark.

I don't mind the work, but I can't just leave the car up overnight often - not much room in the alley, and it's not fair to my wife to make her park on the street.

C

At this point, I just go for a drive around the block, maybe overkill but it's a nice little breather that reduces hair loss.

The thing I'm realizing is that I might have to spring for a more accurate camber gauge, my wallet hurts because of all this money I'm saving.

:bonk:

If I value my time at $10/hour, tally up money spent on materials, we could have probably gotten >5x alignments at a pro shop. But it's the perfectionist part of you, I'm the kind of guy who wants to move it 1/10th of a degree for the next event, as I'm sure you are as well. Being confined to 2x alignments per year because of budget would be agonizing.

Edit: Yes, life would be so much easier if we could use aftermarket toe links. C'est la vie.

Hey, maybe it's worth running for locals just to find your settings, switch back to OE for when it matters.

Recent alignment
 

Alignment number 2.... how hard is it to get the numbers right. This is another shop and they're answer is "oh that's the best we can do" https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...5207fb0329.jpg
I told them to leave the front... but nope


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Don't go to a regular alignment shop, go somewhere that specializes in performance alignments. If you want a really good place, look up can-alignment. It'll be about $150, but Scott knows his stuff and has setup many many race cars.

You should also go with about 1/2 a tank of gas (unless it's a race car and you know how much fuel weight you'll ideally have for competition), and be sitting in the drivers seat during the alignment.

That said, camber isn't adjustable at all without buying aftermarket hardware, so all they can adjust is toe.

Wow thank you! I'm thinking about buying a camber kit and spc bolts but from what I've read, I'm Guna need to adjust everything when I put my car on coilovers so I should just wait. Thanks for the shop name


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I would suggest you wait until you get the coilovers that you want. When you have all of the parts installed, as advised above, go to a "performance" alignment shop that will dial in the settings that you want and not just settle for "it's in the green, it's good enough."

• Some coilover systems have adjustable top mounts (aka camber plates) that you can adjust, without needing to use camber bolts.
  • http://i65.tinypic.com/2q8vaec.jpg
• Other coilover systems may have a slotted bolt hole for camber adjustments.
  • http://www.ft86club.com/forums/attac...1&d=1388818189
• If you opt to go with a coilover that has neither of the above, you can purchase the SPC camber bolts to use in the lower bolt hole. You can move the lower bolt to the upper bolt hole (lower bolt is smaller). With this setup you should be able to achieve -2 without much issue.

For the rear, unless you are planning to lower your car extremely low, you are probably fine with the factory rear control arms. The less 'adjustable' parts you have, the less likely something can break :) If you end up getting a rear lower control arm anyway, please search on the forums about different brands and their pros and cons (SPL, Velox, RSR, SPC).

Happy tuning :burnrubber: