I've been reading that folks are getting some good alignments done at home these days. String is not the method anymore

Anyone using lasers, and getting good results?

I just found these:

http://www.advancedracing.com/index1.php

http://www.tru-line.net/


For toe:

http://www.jcwhitney.com/webapp/wcs/...Id=-1&TID=1544

For restoration:

http://www.etoolcart.com/index.asp?P...OD&ProdID=2185

Not a laser, but fairly accurate (1/8 degree), and does camber & caster:

http://www.toyheadauto.com/CasterCamberGauge.html

I found others, but you get the idea. Curious to know what success any of you have had; ideally, going to the shop afterwards to have your work checked by the experts...

 

Thats the camber/caster tool that was used at the shop I went to. For toe, just get 2 flat pieces of metal and a tape measurer or 2.

 

Thanks Jason for chiming-in. When you say that was the tool the shop used on your MCS, what tool? I provided a few links... Thanks again.

 

Sorry, I was referring to this:

http://www.toyheadauto.com/CasterCamberGauge.html

The guy sets up race cars so I trust him and anything he uses completely

 

Interesting! :smile: but my challenge is to first find a perfectly level ground...

 

Indeed... level ground. But, not all require that because they can be adjusted to what you've got. Fast Trax does so, but as Randy Webb just shared with me, he's not particularly happy with it...

He recommended Smart Products Racing - Porsche guys, and they are here in the Bay Area, and on my way home (Campbell)

http://www.europeancarweb.com/auto_tools/0212ec_tool/

I think I will get one!!!

http://www.paragon-products.com/prod...martcamber.htm

 

nice!

 

Besides being able to work on not so ideal surfaces, I like the idea that it's constructed well enough to get reproducible readings.

The price seems to be 200 bucks, or 240 with the hands-free. If anyone else is interested, I'll approach them about a discounted group purchase...

I'm looking to make the buy sometime this month (Jan).

 

Possible GB? Let me know.....

 

here's a handy digital level. if you do some searching, you might it for about $70-$80 on sale. i believe you'll also find that it's used by some race teams.

http://www.speedpartz.com/smarttool.htm

but you can measure a lot with just a carpenters square, some stiff flat pieces that nest flush against ther face of the wheel, a tape measure, and a regular laser pointer. i'll send you some pictures of how i measured camber, toe, and rear wheel thrust angle with just the above.... but you'll have to dust off your trig., since you'll be measuring stuff to get the arc tan of angles

flyboy 2160

 

Sounds like fun to go with flyboy's OG route. Trigonometry can be fun!

 

I use that smartlevel in a 24" frame to measure camber directly in degrees; works great as long as your rig is on a level surface. I use a self-leveling laser swung over the about-to-be tire contact patches with suitable ply shims to level out the pads, add driver weight to the driver's seat and roll the car onto the pads. When you make and adjustment, roll the car off the pads, jack it up, adjsut, lower the car, bounce the suspension a few times and roll it back on the pads. Same basic technique when corner weighting.

fyi: one inch out of level over seven feet is about a degree


Toe is always the hardest; I've been jacking up the wheel, spinning it against a scribe to mark a line on the tread pattern, lowering the car, rolling it back and forth to settle the suspension, then with trammels, measuring the scribe line separation from a point at the front compared to a point at the rear of the pair of wheels. since a horizontal plane through axle centerline gets interrupted by the chassis, tape measures don't cut it...but the extended trammels points do.

For even more, you can measure between symmetrical chassis points at the front and at the rear (like a subframe bolt), and set up a car center line, then measure your half-toe points to the centerline. that way your toe adjustments will be symmetrical to the car centerline.

 

I believe that SmartTool (flyboy's link) is part of the SmartCamber that can be removed for other inclination measurements. For 120 bucks more (without discount), the SmartCamber can be had... But, I do have a large square, and a laser... I really like the hands-free...

 

jlm, I love the tow ideas!!! Is there a recommended game plan for tackling alignment, like first do camber, then caster, and lastly toe?

MINIMotor - yes, possible GB. I will approach these guys on the possibility. It might be late this week, but possibly next...

 

Keep us posted us posted i would like to try purchase one if the opportunity arises.

Motor ON!
Mike

 

here is what I have been doing: assuming you have coilovers so you can adjust ride height and corner weight:

#1: Rough height:
set ride height by measuring from a symmetrical chassis point to the ground at the four corners (adjust the lower spring perches up or down);
#2: Accurate height:
car on scales, each wheel, level surface, 1/2 tank, rider weight in seat, loaded as for the track, one side of each sway bar disconnected; set corner weights so the diagonal sums are equal by fine adjusting the spring perches. hook up sway bar link (adjustable length) so no pre-.load is added

#3 set camber:
same conditions as #2 (sway bar can be hooked up). remember you have to bounce the suspension and roll the car back and forth to get rid of tire scrub between adjustments.

#4 set toe

the mini fortunately has almost zero bump steer, so suspension travel does not affect toe.

Front camber and toe are coupled, however (thanks, Minuhune), so as you make the front camber more negative, you will make more negative toe. I have opted to set the front camber to -2.5, front toe to zero and leave it that way for the street and track. (were I to re-adjust my camber plates back out to stock 1 degree neg, that would make the toe go positive, for me a no-no that would require another toe adjustment.)

 

let's see...

left click, drag, right click, copy, open Word, right click, paste, save "jlm's suspension alignment"

thank you kind sir!

EDIT: I just noticed, when do you do caster?

 

uh, tony, watch out for those checkout stand impulse buys

i also considered this, but if you look carefully at the pictures, you'll realiaze that you can't really use it on all wheel styles. the manufacturer confirmed this. thus, for camber on my s lites, i ended up with the just smart module placed against a 1 1/2" x 1 1/2" x 17" piece of abs that sits flush on the face of the wheel. save the $110 for something else. i'll post photos of this setup for those who can't picture it.

a handy feature of the smart level is that you can zero it on the ground and then measure the camber from that zero.

 

I didn't pull the trigger yet! They do state that it doesn't work with all rims. I'll be going by their place, probably next week to try one out...

While I think I have a solid visualization, if you can share a photo, or two, please do. Thanks.

 

tony, these photos are not on the level concrete where i usually do the alignment. i also use elastic cord instead of the duct tape shown. the flatness of the plastic bar and the particle boards are easily checked against a "real" level. before i started my mods, i checked the car using these methods; everything was about right in the middle of the factory specs.

it's crucial to check the rear wheel thrust angle before starting anything to make sure the target setup you use is repeatable and accurate.

here's the paper camber method:
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...cat=500&page=1
the plastic bar is flush on the wheel. the paper is flush against the plastic and is marked at the square. the tangent of the camber angle is the meaured gap divided by the wheel diameter. on a 17" length, 0.1 degree is .030," so i think this is accurate to .1 degree.

smart tool camber:
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...cat=500&page=1
an alternative is to use short equal height pieces to space off the wheel a 24" level with the smart tool in it. another is to just cut down a 24" level to fit on the face of the wheel. this way usually is within .1 degree of the paper method. (the smart tool reads in .1 degree,)

toe setup:
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...cat=500&page=1
the rectangular piece is 24". i just mark the floor on each side and measure with a tape measure


laser pointer on the plastic bar:
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...cat=500&page=1

laser target example NOT my real one:
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...cat=500&page=1

the thrust angle is the trickiest one. you have to use the same target setup on each side. the pictures above show conceptually how i use the floorpan seam lip right next to the lift blocks (i forgot my real rigid target to which i tape the quad ruled paper). but you can use some other feature as long as the initial check seems ok by the factory specs.

have fun with this tony!

 

Very helpful photos flyboy! Thank you for following through :smile:

Can you please define for me thrust angle? Heck, I might take you up on your offer .

Hey, I see that I'm not the only Solstice fan around here! The Fiero, finally done right, at least so it seems. The chassis appears to be very impressive, RWD, with nearly a perfect 50/50 weight distrubtion... The 2.2 Ecotec engine should make her very mod friendly also. I really want a RWD covertible roadster to compliment my MINI; and I've been following this car for nearly 2 years. Hmm, how to make it lighter

Thanks again!

 

you're welcome! that's what these forums are for.

i'm using the wrong term.

properly, you should be aligning all four wheels with some alignment jig butted up against the wheels. but until i buy long rails to do that, i'm stuck with aligning the theoretical centerline of the rear wheels to the chassis as a reference.

what i'm calling the rear wheel thrust angle is the alignment of a theoretical centerline of the 2 rear wheels to the centerline of the chassis. doing it this way, you have measure to the chassis BEFORE you start messing with the suspension and then just keep whatever the factory measurement was.

[edit] IF you are really careful and IF the bolts are a good fit in all the holes, you could replace the rear control arms with adjustable ones that are set to start at exactly the same length as the stock ones, then adjust each arm on each side EXACTLY the same. theoretically, you'd be at the same centerline alignment as when you started.....but i think you should check this alignment anyway to be safe. i used 4 h sport arms to control camber, toe, and thrust angle. NO WAY did i want to play with the trailing arm adjuster bolt...[edit]

i left the fronts alone (just lowered), so i assume they are still also at the same relative alignment to the chassis. thus, the backs and fronts should still be aligned properly to each other.

(OT i too have been following the solstice. scope out the latest engine news over there from a dealer: baseline a 10.5 cr 2.4L, bumming out those who were hoping for a boostable engine right from the start...i'll pm you about what i want to do to lighten it instead of going more OT here)

 

That actually makes a lot of sense. I'm pretty excited about experimenting with this!

As far as the trailing arms are concerned, I guess there are different opinions on touching those. If I can adjust what I need via control arms, I would rather go that route... I have thought about addressing compliance there though (a la a discussion a while ago, jlm and John Petrich, I believe). I currently have H-Sport lower control arms (the "older" ones), and I kept the lengths stock, at least the best I could tell. I will get uppers, but I'm not sure if I should go with something less compliant, like the Altas. I would like to, but I guess what I really like about he H-Sports is the ease of adjustment, as the nuts are not at the extremes of the arms. But then considering that I won't be dorking-around with the settings, once set, maybe that is not a big issue...

Indeed, the Solstice will get the 2.4 Ecotec. I'm slipping in my later years! It would take some funds to change things around (lower the compression), but those engines are putting-out over 1,000 hp at the Salt Flats. I was a little bummed when I heard the weight though, and have since shifted my focus to building yet another kit (Caterham, with Ford/Mazda 2.3). I've started mingling with the CA Caterham guys already, and they are great group; and I feel very much at home with them given my propensity with weight concerns . We can continue this portion of the discussion via PM, or OT Autos Forum... Sorry guys.

 

the concern when setting toe is that you do it symmetrically about the chassis centerline. you could do all the adjustment on just one side and get the correct toe, but the rear wheels would try to send the car down the road a bit sideways. the fronts would just turn the steering a bit. the best way is to run a string down the car center line about 4" off the ground and set each side evenly from that. this works great for the rear. for the front, you set toe by adjusting the tie rod ends, so you also want to make sure the wheels are pointed straight ahead with the steering wheel at neutral...best done by measuring off the centerline string.

I'm a bit skeptical of flyboy's method (sorry, fly) of starting with the rear and the ;laser pointer, but maybe I don't understand his method.

as mentioned before, I find a pair of symmetrical chassis bolts front and rear, drop plumb lines down to the pavement and do the layout.

 

The steering rack on some cars (other than MINIs) have an indexing or
centering hole; you insert a pin into the hole and turn the steering
wheel until the pin goes into the index hole in the rack. Then you align
the steering wheel and the front wheels. My Jaguar has that set-up.

Anyone know if the MINI rack has this feature?