Front end alignment recommendations?

Are you a DIY kind of guy? A couple simple tools, some shims, and lots of free time is all that's standing in your way. I aligned my 308 front and rear myself last week.

I find strange satisfaction in doing it myself.

Yes, I used the factory settings straight from the owner's manual. Seems there's some debate about how much negative camber if you read through old stuff here.

 

I can understand measuring 3mm of toe in and maybe 4° of caster but how do you measure 30 ±10 minutes of camber while in your garage?

 

Google Fastrax alignment machine.

Relatively inexpensive, and simple to operate.

You will need a couple teflon sheets per wheel or 1/4" steel plates with loose ball bearings under them for easy wheel turning.

Doug

 

http://www.smartracingproducts.com/pdfdocs/011073_smartcamber_manual.pdf

This is what I used. All you really need to do is get the front track level and measure the incline of the rim. You could do a pretty accurate job with a level, ruler, and calculator.


It's a little expensive but I've used it on enough cars to pay for it.

 

+1 on this tool , for caster I used 4 old 1 foot squares of floor vinyl. spread grease on the top side and slap 2 peices together. Makes a great pivot.

 

+1 for doing it yourself, I paid big dollars for an EXOTIC car alignment & the idiots used the a-arms to adjust caster instead of the balljoint shims. Ended up doing it myself with $200 worth of tools. Tracks better & no more shimmey.
Bill

 

To set the car up properly you really need to do a 4 wheel alignment. Handling problems can origninate from the rear of the car just as easily as from the front.

Over here the best shops use Hunter laser alignment equipment & as has been indicated, you also need a competent guy to drive it (+ a bag full of shims).

Its not that expensive to do & you will feel/renjoy the benefits of it every time you drive the car.

 

We always do a 4-wheel alignment, else it's impossible to know where and how much thrust line offset you have. With an offset of less than .1mm, these cars will track perfectly straight and turn-in equally.

 

+1 I've had buddies take their cars to shops with the latest $40K Badger wireless 4 wheel laser alignment racks and leave un-impressed. We spend an afternoon with string posts, scales, turn plates, toe plates and a caster/camber gauge and you'd think they drove home in a new car by all the gushing they do....

Rick

 

Yes, this is my point! I know my gear isn't as good, but I care. The guy at the shop simply doesn't care at all if my car is right or not.

I can think of three different times I've taken a car to get aligned with laser equipment, paid a bunch of money, and then had to redo it myself.

NASCAR teams still use string posts, gauges, and scales, I watched them do it this year at LVMS. Must be at least a decent idea.

 

Agreed.

I will add though that the simple techniques with simple tools are dependent on the suspension and steering pieces being in good shape. If anything is badly worn you can chase your tail for hours and get no where closer to a correct alignment or corner balance.

But I suppose the same is true even with an expensive rig.

Rick

 

If I lived even remotely close, this is where I'd go. No more worries. Somehow travelling across the country doesn't seem worth it for an alignment, but maybe....

 

Then you need to find a better shop & this is no different to anything else.

The guy doing the work/driving the technology is at least as important as the technology in use. If the guys you went to screwed it up with a laser system that does all the calculations for you, imagine what a mess they could have made it bits of string, a tape measure & a calculator ! (hope you got your money back from them).

OTOH a laser system used properly is about as accurate as it gets.

 

True, but:

These cars have live rear axles (typically non-independent suspension in the rear).
They know what they're doing.
The car is sitting on ultra high quality (expensive) slider plates.
These cars only turn in one direction.

Their alignment requirements are much different than what's needed on a road car. Granted when I got started, we used Dunlop Optical gauges to do 4-wheel alignments. The process was tedious, but extremely accurate. With the modern Hunter machines, a typically Ferrari can be done in 2-2.5 hours....

 

It was done the same way in TransAM (they turn both directions) and we won a GT1 title with string and tape measures.

I think it goes back to what someone said about "caring". The competent technician who cares will be able to do the alignment with either setup. Granted, the wireless/laser rig will probably allow him to do it quicker. Most (not all) alignment shops don't have competent, caring technicians.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that if you KNOW what you are doing and what you are trying to affect, you can do a very precise alignment with very simple tools (many race teams prove this). And, I'll submit that precise alignment on FAT STICKY tires at 150 mph is much more critical than on a road tire at freeway speeds. AND, those "live rear axles" have full floating hubs (stingers) that still have camber and toe adjustments.

Rick