Rear alignment problems
Driver
Joined: May 2013
Posts: 97
Likes: 15
From: al
If you did have your car LOWERED then you are dead meat unless you buy adjustable aftermarket LCA and most likely UCA too. I paid good money to replace the old stock 22 year old springs and shocks on all 4 corners with new stock springs and shocks. And that was to RAISE the car back to where it started 22 years ago. And that didn't help me at all. That was my starting point. It was from there that I added the SPC kit, toe-in arms, and ULA.
Good luck
Ken
Good luck
Ken
Instructor
Joined: Jul 2021
Posts: 796
Likes: 351
From: VA
If you did have your car LOWERED then you are dead meat unless you buy adjustable aftermarket LCA and most likely UCA too. I paid good money to replace the old stock 22 year old springs and shocks on all 4 corners with new stock springs and shocks. And that was to RAISE the car back to where it started 22 years ago. And that didn't help me at all. That was my starting point. It was from there that I added the SPC kit, toe-in arms, and ULA.
Good luck
Ken
Good luck
Ken
I set the car about 3/8" lower than what it was on the original shock/springs.
Don't know how much the car had settled since it was built. I'm not home at present and can't check. It's on my fun list of things to do when I get home.
My feelings are it's appreciably lower than when new. Just a gut feel, no more, no less.
I've got 45 series tire on the car, and right now there is about 1" of gap between the top of the tire and the wheel well. I would like to keep that as it is, it's a nice look. Don't like cars with a lot of gap.
So, we will see how it goes once on the alignment stand. Hopefully this company will let me go out in the garage and interact with the tech.
I'll post back once I know more.
cheers
Instructor
Joined: Jul 2021
Posts: 796
Likes: 351
From: VA
Well therein lies the rub.
I set the car about 3/8" lower than what it was on the original shock/springs.
Don't know how much the car had settled since it was built. I'm not home at present and can't check. It's on my fun list of things to do when I get home.
My feelings are it's appreciably lower than when new. Just a gut feel, no more, no less.
I've got 45 series tire on the car, and right now there is about 1" of gap between the top of the tire and the wheel well. I would like to keep that as it is, it's a nice look. Don't like cars with a lot of gap.
So, we will see how it goes once on the alignment stand. Hopefully this company will let me go out in the garage and interact with the tech.
I'll post back once I know more.
cheers
I set the car about 3/8" lower than what it was on the original shock/springs.
Don't know how much the car had settled since it was built. I'm not home at present and can't check. It's on my fun list of things to do when I get home.
My feelings are it's appreciably lower than when new. Just a gut feel, no more, no less.
I've got 45 series tire on the car, and right now there is about 1" of gap between the top of the tire and the wheel well. I would like to keep that as it is, it's a nice look. Don't like cars with a lot of gap.
So, we will see how it goes once on the alignment stand. Hopefully this company will let me go out in the garage and interact with the tech.
I'll post back once I know more.
cheers
With 45 series tires, I'm measuring 7 1/2" on the rears. That means it would be 7" with 40 series tires, which is some 1 1/4" lower than original.
That's interesting as before I changed the tires the car was 3/8" lower than before the coil overs. I'm guessing that 18 years caused the original springs to sag.
So, I'm not holding much hope that the tech will be able to get the alignment anywhere close to where I want it.
I'll know on Monday.
Thanks all.
Instructor
Joined: Jul 2021
Posts: 796
Likes: 351
From: VA
Kinda reiterating what I said here, but I'm trying to migrate the best path.
The shop on Monday said it was a waste of time, made an offhand remark about adjustable upper camber arms and made it clear they wanted no involvement in any of this....
The UCA you referenced are from Godspeed, which is not particularly highly regarded in terms of quality. What was your experience with the parts?
As said in the referenced thread, I'm going to raise the car a bit to see what the change in camber is.
At that point, I'll decide what I'm going to do.
cheers,
The shop on Monday said it was a waste of time, made an offhand remark about adjustable upper camber arms and made it clear they wanted no involvement in any of this....
The UCA you referenced are from Godspeed, which is not particularly highly regarded in terms of quality. What was your experience with the parts?
As said in the referenced thread, I'm going to raise the car a bit to see what the change in camber is.
At that point, I'll decide what I'm going to do.
cheers,
Instructor
Joined: Jul 2021
Posts: 796
Likes: 351
From: VA
So, I raised the car to it's "correct" position with a jack under the rear.
Camber changed only slightly. Maybe 0.2 degree. Not nearly enough to get me to the "acceptable" zone.
Methinks it's been like this since the beginning and nobody cared enough to dig into it.
I'm going to let the dust settle a bit, but am planning on installing a set of Megan Racing LCA's.
They seem to be fairly robust and are well thought of.
Then the next challenge of finding someone to align it like I want.
cheers
Camber changed only slightly. Maybe 0.2 degree. Not nearly enough to get me to the "acceptable" zone.
Methinks it's been like this since the beginning and nobody cared enough to dig into it.
I'm going to let the dust settle a bit, but am planning on installing a set of Megan Racing LCA's.
They seem to be fairly robust and are well thought of.
Then the next challenge of finding someone to align it like I want.
cheers
Driver
Joined: May 2013
Posts: 97
Likes: 15
From: al
I have been to all 3 firestone locations in my town. They are all USELESS. Getting them to adjusting the upper control arms is a bit of work. That in of itself makes "The shop on Monday said it was a waste of time, made an offhand remark about adjustable upper camber arms and made it clear they wanted no involvement in any of this" God forbid they have to do any work. I have only owned the Godspeed equipment for a couple of months so I can't speak to its longevity. It did fit perfectly. I spoke to another shop way out of town about my problem with firestone and he told me to bring it to him. He said that If he couldn't get it to my specifications he wouldn't charge me. I'm flying out of town next week so I'll update you in 2 weeks. By the way let me tell you the way I want the alignment done. Without any concern to the final camber numbers move the bottoms(LCA) to dead center of their adjustment range. Then adjust the uppers(UCA) to get the camber as perfect as possible. Then move back to the bottoms to fine tune any remaining camber. This way most of the correction is done by the UCA and therefore should never have to be messed with again.
Driver
Joined: May 2013
Posts: 97
Likes: 15
From: al
I finally got my tire alignment done. The kid doing the work forgot I wanted pics of the finished results. However I was at the alignment machine the whole time during the work so I can tell you the results of the alignment. The rear tires are both -.3 camber and .05 toe-in. The fronts are -.3 on one side and -.9 on the other side. Toe is -.03. It’s very strange that the -.9 couldn’t be brought down to -.3 too, just ran out of adjustment on the UCA.
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