pianiy

iTrader: (2)

Now that I'm doing my own front suspension swap, I'm learning about all the adjustments and how they're performed. I see that adjusting camber is simply done by loosening the three bolts that hold the upper strut mount and sliding it one way or another.

If I got some kind of guage that read degrees of inclination, could I simply put it up against the strut (or would it have to be perpendicular to the rim beads?) and set the camber on my own? It seems simple enough...

Jza

Right, you have to measure it from the hub (perpendicular to the rim bead like you said). For preliminary alignments I use this magnetic bubble level that's made for aligning.

Anyway, you can see how to do it, but you'll need this one tool that's basically two hooks threaded into a sleeve that you turn to pull the strut tower where you want it to go.

pianiy

iTrader: (2)

Any special place I should go to get these tools you speak of? Do they have names? (I'll check out my local parts store, just asking)

82camaro

Camber guage, or magnetic camber guage. Alignment tool for 82-92 camaro/firebird. You can use a tape measure to adjust the toe. The alignment will be good enough to get it to an alignment shop. Do you plan on trying to adjust the caster?

pianiy

iTrader: (2)

I really have no idea how to adjust the caster... thats the one thing I don't see. The upper mount doesn't appear to be able to move forward or backward. It should have been set correctly from the last alignment (which was only a few months ago) and I don't think I altered it. How would it be adjusted?

Eightyninef

loosen the mounts and slid them all the IN and BACK. done !!!! it's free and no alignment shop will get you better camber or caster.

pianiy

iTrader: (2)

Dude, that would give you like -3* camber.... the car would probably UNSTABLE at that point. I can't imagine what kind of tire wear you'd get either. I don't want my car to look like a *****'s with their cut springs and way too negative camber...

Norm Peterson

Here's a few notes for one of my approaches to "alignment in the comfort of your own driveway".

You can measure camber with a carpenter's combination square that has a bubble level in it and a scale that reads to 1/32" or finer. Set the square against the wheel rim with the bubble centered and measure the gap at the other end. Each 1/32" of gap equals about 0.15 degree of camber.

Caster can be indirectly determined from two camber measurements. Steer the wheels 15 degrees to the right, measure camber, steer them 15 degrees left and measure again. Caster will equal 2 times the algebraic difference in the camber readings. Make a jig from strips of wood or sheet metal with the 15 degree angles set to make turning to these angles more accurate. You can also make some cheapie turning plates to make steering when stopped easier from squares of sheet metal. One pair of plates per front wheel, with a little grease smeared between the plates. A word about those angles - the mathematically correct value is actually 14.5 degrees, but using 15 is close enough for most situations.

Toe can also be measured and set by reference to a pair of parallel strings, one along each side of the car.


A few other important things, in no particular order.

Take your time. It will take you longer than it does for a shop, but by the time you add the time it takes to drive to the shop and wait for an alignment bay to become available it might not be THAT much longer overall. Plus, you have your own interest in being fussy about it and you don't have to argue with anybody to get the settings you want. And if you find you want to change the settings later, the price will still be the same.

If you're not quite sure what you measured or forgot what it was, measure it again. This happens. Take my word for it.

Write things down, since trying to keep it all in your head is a recipe for getting bogged down with numbers.

Inflate your tires to the pressures that you will be using.

Find as flat and level place to do this as you can (or else you'll have to deal with the slope of the pavement in your calculations). Your driveway may not be as level as mine (I tend to ignore my 1/16 degree side to side and 3/8 degree front to back slopes)

And you might consider weighting the driver's seat to simulate the effect of your own body weight so that what you end up setting is what you get when you're actually driving it.

Norm

Eightyninef

Dude, you'll never get -3 degrees camber on our cars. no matter how hard you try. I have -0.8 on one side, and +0.1 on the other side. That is maxed out, I can go no further negative without cutting the towers or the mounts.

The car is plently stable, street tires don't wear at all. I need more negative camber, but I can't get it running F-stock.

if you get -3 let me know.

82camaro

The camber need to be equal. Maxing it out on both side won't necessarily give you the same camber on each side--that cand result in a pull. Same with caster, to the max positive caster won't probably be the same on both sides. Toe is the big tire killer, just a little bit off and the tires will wear much faster.

DAVECS1

iTrader: (2)

I just had a custom alignment done at the local Chevy Dealer, Uftring Washington, IL,. (Excuse the plug, but they have been a cool shop.) They let me help with alignment. We set it to the following parameters.
Camber L -.08 R-0.8
Caster L 5.0 R 5.3
Toe IN 1/8"- 0"
As you can see there machine did not have enough precision to give me the 3/32 of toe in I was looking for, so it is somewhere in that range. As for what was said earlier about pushing the strut mounts back and to the inside all the way, that is about were mine ended up to my suprise. The mechanic said that was suprising due to the fact the for both the strut mounts to line up in almost identical places, my frame and rear suspension must be very square with the car. I have gone to great lengths to make things right when I installed my subframe connectors, rear trailing arms, and panhard bar.
To the gentlemen who said he needed mor adjustment. It isn't out of the norm to lengthen the slots on the mount and the tower with a die grinder or dremel. Especiallyu for the half degree your looking for.

Eightyninef

You can't slot nothing run stock class in auto-x. otherwise I would

How much did you pay for that alignment? You could have slammed your mounts in and back for free in your driveway then just get the tow setup at a shop, or do it by eye.

urbman

As far as adjusting "camber" goes...
provided you come up with a way to get the adjustability...
(lowering is a good way)

A good way is to use a skid pad and a temperature gauge.

The idea is to use a skid pad or slalom course to generate
cornering forces on your tires then measure the temperature
of the inner and outer sections of the tires.

Adjust camber until you get a both the inner and outer
temps the same.

Of course you do this after you set the corner weights :-)

pianiy

iTrader: (2)

The last time I had an alignment done, the shop charged me $42 for it (which isn't that bad IMHO) and I gave them the specs I wanted it aligned to and they didn't do a bad job. Unless the toe is wrong, because I know for sure I'm getting uneven tire wear (insides wearing faster than the outsides).

The specs I went along with is what I got from Guldstrand Motorsports who are experts when it comes to suspension components, particularly on F-bodies.

This is what they suggest:

For RACING:
Camber: 1* to 1.5* NEG
Castor: 4* to 5.5* POS
Toe-In: 0" to 1/16" IN

For SLALOM:
Camber: 1/4* to 1/2* NEG
Castor: 3.25* to 3.75" POS
Toe-In: 0" to 1/16" IN

For TOURING:
Camber: 0* to 1/4* NEG
Castor: 3* to 4.25* POS
Toe-In: 0" to 1/16" IN

I gave them the slalom specs for the alignment because I'm not auto-xing the car but I wanted a somewhat aggressive stance and handling. Its a daily driver.

Davecs1: Your specs are a bit too aggressive for me. They're more geared for auto-xing IMHO.

Larry Burd: I don't really know what you'll get when you slam the struts in and back as far as they'll go... it was just a guess, but still it seems like it'd be alot since I have plenty of space to move mine.

Norm Peterson: What you're saying is the adjustments you make to camber will affect the castor?

Norm Peterson

No. Not with a strut suspension anyway, assuming that you move the tops of the struts in the purely lateral direction.

In a SLA suspension there will be slight effects on caster due to resetting camber as a consequence of the adjustable control arm's pivot axis not being parallel to the car's centerline.

The methodology of determining caster gives the appearance of linking caster to camber. But since you can't conveniently measure caster directly, you end up taking camber measurements at equal right and left steer angles. Then the geometric relations among caster, camber, steering axis inclination and steer angle can be used to compute caster from those measurements.

Norm

Eightyninef

you could give them any specs you want. I doubt anyone with a stock F-body is getting beyond -1.0 camber. There is just no adjustment for it without sloting the mount or the tower. GM just didn't make allowances for those kind of specs.

unless the alignment shop gave you the computer printout of before and after, you really don't know what specs you have, or if they even put it on the rack.

most shops do a toe and go, $60 please, good bye.

now if you car is lowered, then maybe you'll get more neg camber. But don't count on it if you have GM stock springs.

KeithO

I personally use the "Larry Burd" method.

I know alot of guys who have alot of autocross/track runs on their 3rd gens. They all told me one thing consistently - just slam 'em to max. Getting caught up in 0.1* isn't worth the work nor difference in handling on the car.

Also, be careful of the skidpad method described above. This is exactly how you determine proper air pressures. You can change the temperature across the face of the tire by simply adjusting air pressure. I would say that the method described above would be good for figuring the best tire pressure AFTER you've done your camber adjustment.

urbman

As far as adjusting tire pressure, you use the
"chalk" method....
The idea is to arrive at a pressure that will allow
you to scrub a line chalk off of the tires evenly.

In this case you are comparing the center of the
tire to the edges....

You are "good" when the center scrubs off at the same
rate as either edge.

You don't need to "turn" to do this...

As far as camber goes you are measuring
the far left versus the far right after generating
some significant "leaning" action...

And yeah you can do this with a temp gauge as well...

Justins86bird

I have mine set up like Larry Burd said too. Car tracks straight, no pull what so ever. And still the outside edges of my tires wear more do to fast turns. But I am running 15" rims, so there is alot of sidewall flex.

ME Leigh

I have lowered the front of my car 3/4" with coil spring adjusters, if i used this method what do you guys think the suspension alignment specs would be? Would they be good or bad? I am trying to get a good "street carver" slalom setup. Also how do you actually acomplish this method? Do you jackup a wheel loosen all the bolts and move it by hand? I'll also go check the Chilton's.

Thanks,
Leigh

KeithO

I am not really qualified to anser your first question regarding the specs, including lowering.

However, as far as the technique is concerned to adjust the camber, I can answer that one.

1) Jack up the front of the car.
2) Loosen the three bolts on the strut tower.
3) Push the strut tower cover towards the engine, all the way.
4) Tighten the strut tower bolts.
5) Lower the car.
6) Repeat for the other side.

Since I have done this so many times, I have learned that adding maximum camber really doesn't even require jacking the car up. If you loosen the bolts without jacking the car, the camber plate will naturally slam to maximum negative camber. However, going back to your previous camber setting does require you to jack up the car (you should mark your current setting before going to max. in case you want to undo this.)

BretD 88GTA

In stock trim you'll never achieve -3, but lower the car and you can. Since you're autocrossing though, lowering springs would probably be a no-no. :nono: