Phil C
04-08-2002, 06:53 AM
For the first time Saturday I went and had a good "race" alignment done. Previous to this I had only had the car aligned to factory specs at the dealership under the premise that the part of the car that needed the most improvement was behind the wheel.
I bought the crash bolts, two of each, and brought them along and explained that yes I really did want -2 degrees of camber in the front. After telling me I'd tear up my street tires, especially the snows which are still mounted (we got two inches Friday night again) they set to work.
Preliminary report shows that the right front was actually .1 degree positive camber when they started. Setting it as far as he could get it negative with the factory bolts gave him only about .3 degree negative. So using a three dot bolt in both top and bottom he was able to push it to -2 degrees but no further. I provided the shop manual and watched as far as I was able to and everything seemed to be done correctly and as specified in the manual. On the left using two dot bolts in both top and bottom he was able to push to -1.9 degrees and no further. With my fat butt in the drivers seat it evens out to -2, -2.
Why is it that others seem to be able to easily reach -2 with a single three dot and my car couldn't go past 2 degrees on the right even if I wanted it to? Is there something else I should be checking to see if I have any problems or is this just the natural variance between cars?
As a follow up question, would it make a difference to the alignment that it was done with the snow tires on the car which are taller than my race tires? I had the race tires along (they were being taken off my 15x7" wheels and remounted on my new 15x6.5" wheels) but the shop said it should not change toe or camber to put on shorter tires so they didn't switch over to the race tires to do the alignment. Is this accurate or should I be looking for a new alignment shop?
The car has stock struts, shocks and springs and the suspension has never been apart until they took it partially apart to put in the crash bolts. The car is a 2000 GT-S with 28,000 miles and is starting it's third season of autocross. Visibly the only thing I can see is that the rubber piece between the spring and the spring perch on the right side strut seems to have worn through and will need replaced when/if I do the swap to Konis. The car has never been wrecked or driven over a curb or anything like that.
I bought the crash bolts, two of each, and brought them along and explained that yes I really did want -2 degrees of camber in the front. After telling me I'd tear up my street tires, especially the snows which are still mounted (we got two inches Friday night again) they set to work.
Preliminary report shows that the right front was actually .1 degree positive camber when they started. Setting it as far as he could get it negative with the factory bolts gave him only about .3 degree negative. So using a three dot bolt in both top and bottom he was able to push it to -2 degrees but no further. I provided the shop manual and watched as far as I was able to and everything seemed to be done correctly and as specified in the manual. On the left using two dot bolts in both top and bottom he was able to push to -1.9 degrees and no further. With my fat butt in the drivers seat it evens out to -2, -2.
Why is it that others seem to be able to easily reach -2 with a single three dot and my car couldn't go past 2 degrees on the right even if I wanted it to? Is there something else I should be checking to see if I have any problems or is this just the natural variance between cars?
As a follow up question, would it make a difference to the alignment that it was done with the snow tires on the car which are taller than my race tires? I had the race tires along (they were being taken off my 15x7" wheels and remounted on my new 15x6.5" wheels) but the shop said it should not change toe or camber to put on shorter tires so they didn't switch over to the race tires to do the alignment. Is this accurate or should I be looking for a new alignment shop?
The car has stock struts, shocks and springs and the suspension has never been apart until they took it partially apart to put in the crash bolts. The car is a 2000 GT-S with 28,000 miles and is starting it's third season of autocross. Visibly the only thing I can see is that the rubber piece between the spring and the spring perch on the right side strut seems to have worn through and will need replaced when/if I do the swap to Konis. The car has never been wrecked or driven over a curb or anything like that.