Please help! coilover allignment issue!

Serper3 · Mar 12, 2007

hey guys i have been having some problems getting my car alligned and i would appreciate any help or suggestings as to what i could do... basically my right side camber is maxed out at .6 degrees and on their sheet, they say the specified range is -1.4 to .2 degrees. my left side is fine.... i have the mm coilover kit with mm caster camber plates and on the right side they maxed the camber out ofcourse and its still not in the range... also looking down on the wheel directly over the fender, on the right side u can see a little bit of tire sticking out from the fender with the tires positioned straight.... on the left side where the allignment is ok... u cant see any tire at all... i am not really sure as to how this happened, but i am pretty sure that on the right side... the tire has been sticking out a little bit from the fender well for as long as i had my coilovers, unfortunately i dont have my other allignment sheets and neither does the allignment shop.... i am really confused as to what this could be and any help would be greatly appreciated! thanks guys!!

squares98 · Mar 12, 2007

You need to have the car corner weighted and aligned by a shop that specializes in doing race cars. They are around, just gotta get to work in the yellow pages

BennyBlown2v · Mar 12, 2007

Wtf does corner weighting have to do with this lol If you need more negative camber flip the top plates (put the right one on the left side and left one on the right side). If you still can't get it into spec, go to a frame and alignment specialty shop that can tell you if your frame is bent, or if your K-member is out of alignment.

Serper3 · Mar 12, 2007

BennyBlown2v said:
Wtf does corner weighting have to do with this lol If you need more negative camber flip the top plates (put the right one on the left side and left one on the right side). If you still can't get it into spec, go to a frame and alignment specialty shop that can tell you if your frame is bent, or if your K-member is out of alignment.

i thought about doing this... but... wont that then mean that i will have too much negative camber on the left side? wont that also affect tire wear severly? i am pretty sure the caster camber plates are on "correctly" as in they are put on as to how mm recommends them to go on... if i do have the cc plates reversed though... and i can get more negative camber with the top plates reversed... are their any other possible issues that might come up? thanks alot bennyblown2v for the quick reply!
:SNSign:

oh btw... bennyblown2v: ur car is awesome! what other mm stuff do u have? panhard bar? lca's? torque arm? i have aloott more stuff to do to my car..

Kilgore Trout · Mar 12, 2007

Who performed the f'ked up azz install of the MM coilovers? That is who you need to talk to IMHO...

And personally I would not be so quick to discount the expert advice of Squares98...

Serper3 · Mar 12, 2007

Kilgore Trout said:
Who performed the f'ked up azz install of the MM coilovers? That is who you need to talk to IMHO...

And personally I would not be so quick to discount the expert advice of Squares98...

well... lol i did the install myself... but after the install and getting it alligned... the car didnt pull to the right and now it does... so i am kind of doubting that it was install error... the guys at the allignment shop btw also mentioned that it might be that i have a bent strut or the car hit a curb.. etc.. i really dont believe it did, however my car did have to be pulled onto a flat bed tow truck and i am thinking that might have cause something? maybe? i looked though and didnt see anything obviously wrong, obviously bent etc.. any other suggestions would be most appreciated!! also, how bad would it be if i flipped the c/c top plates around? thanks guys!!

BennyBlown2v · Mar 12, 2007

Kilgore Trout said:
And personally I would not be so quick to discount the expert advice of Squares98...

Oh I agree with the taking it to a proper race prep/frame alignment place - just don't see what corner weighting would have to do with the problem.

Serper3: If you had to you could file a groove in the top hole of the lower strut mounting tab, that way you can adjust in extra camber (this is done as a sort of "cheap fix" or last ditch effort sorta thing). Also, make sure your right height is adjusted evenly - the best thing to do is measure from a frame reference point, NOT the fender well. Body panels do not offer an accurate measurement of the true ride height of the car due to manf.&assembly tolerances. The seam where the rocker and floor pan meet is a good spot as there is one per side, and it runs the whole length of floor.

EDIT: click the link in my signature for my CarDomain, I have a complete mod list there! I have had many other MM products I used when I had an 03/04 cobra IRS setup, also.

bdcardinal · Mar 12, 2007

your ride height is probably not even side to side. definately get the car cornerweighted, it will help your handling out a ton. i actually had MM do mine at a track day.

to measure ride height correctly measure from the bottom of the rim to the bottom of the fender. you want side to side to be as close as possible and rear to be .5" higher than the front.

to properly corner weight you need a setup like this one: http://www.intercomp-racing.com/detail.cfm?ItemID=235
its about 5 grand but its the most accurate on the market. this is the same setup that almost every NASCAR, F1, Champ Car team uses.

Serper3 · Mar 13, 2007

bdcardinal said:
your ride height is probably not even side to side. definately get the car cornerweighted, it will help your handling out a ton. i actually had MM do mine at a track day.

to measure ride height correctly measure from the bottom of the rim to the bottom of the fender. you want side to side to be as close as possible and rear to be .5" higher than the front.

to properly corner weight you need a setup like this one: http://www.intercomp-racing.com/detail.cfm?ItemID=235
its about 5 grand but its the most accurate on the market. this is the same setup that almost every NASCAR, F1, Champ Car team uses.

but is it likely that the reason my allignment is messed up to the point that it pulls to the right because the ride hight might be a little bit off? i am pretty sure if it is off it is within 1/4 of an inch or less and it kinda doesnt make sense for this to be the problem.... so if my camber is off on the right side that means that the right side is too low?
and corner weighting i am assuming means making sure the ride height is equal front and rear by seeing how much weight each tire is supporting?
also, maybe someone else can chime in about cutting the cc plate to allow more travel... say i do verify that the ride height is the same in the front, how safe is it to enlarge the whole by about an 1/8? has anyone actually also had to do this?
thanks alot guys!

also, it would be nice to get this fixed as cheaply as possible my tires in the front are really pretty bad so i am going to have to get new ones and at 500+ for two tires... it would be awesome if i could find a cheap fix for this..
i would defntly get my car cornerweighted in the future to improve handling... how much does this usually run?
thanks again guys!

bdcardinal · Mar 13, 2007

how far did you lower your car? i have mine lowered about 2" and can can camber and caster absolutely perfect. i run about -.5 degrees of camber purely for tire wear considerations.

ride height has a massive effect on alignment, just a case in point i had a E150 that i aligned last week dead nuts perfect. the van came back in and the alignment was completely out, camber was about 2 degrees off. the difference? when it came in the first time it was loaded down with equipment and about 2" lower, this time it was empty.

EDIT: wait wait, are you running .6 degrees positive camber?????? wtf thats your problem, crank in the negative camber. cars will pull to the side with more positive camber and least positive caster.

Serper3 · Mar 13, 2007

bdcardinal said:
how far did you lower your car? i have mine lowered about 2" and can can camber and caster absolutely perfect. i run about -.5 degrees of camber purely for tire wear considerations.

ride height has a massive effect on alignment, just a case in point i had a E150 that i aligned last week dead nuts perfect. the van came back in and the alignment was completely out, camber was about 2 degrees off. the difference? when it came in the first time it was loaded down with equipment and about 2" lower, this time it was empty.

EDIT: wait wait, are you running .6 degrees positive camber?????? wtf thats your problem, crank in the negative camber. cars will pull to the side with more positive camber and least positive caster.

i have no idea how low it is... when i first lowered it... on the freeway a little bump would cause the inner fender well to rub on the tire... so i raised it about 1/4 of an inch... its pretty damn low..
its wierd though because the drivers side is fine... so i dont think its a too low ride height issue...
i am not sure if its negative caster because i dont have the allignment sheet now... but if ur looking at the front of the car, and on the passenger side wheel is on ur left, the cc plate is pulled as far right as possible... and they are saying its still not enough.. the driver side cc plate is in the middle of the range and its fine.. i can go right now and measure how high it is if that helps? in this situation should i measure from the ground?

bdcardinal · Mar 13, 2007

well how much gap is there? i have about a 1.5 finger gap in the front and 2 finger gap in the rear. i set mine up for street,and can go over speed bumps. get teh alignment printout and see what it says. i do alignments all day. also is everything else in the suspension good? no bad ball joints or tie rods?

Serper3 · Mar 13, 2007

bdcardinal said:
well how much gap is there? i have about a 1.5 finger gap in the front and 2 finger gap in the rear. i set mine up for street,and can go over speed bumps. get teh alignment printout and see what it says. i do alignments all day. also is everything else in the suspension good? no bad ball joints or tie rods?

it sounds like its about the same as urs in the front, mine might be a little more raked and higher in the back.... sorry for not being so familier with this.. but what would constitute a bad ball joint or tie rod? could that also cause this kind of an issue? also since u deal with this kinda stuff alot, have u ever seen a tow truck cause allignment damage when pulling a car up on its bed by not pulling it up by the correct part?
my car has a tough time going over speed bumps because of my x pipe....

Serper3 · Mar 13, 2007

i got the allignment print out, here is the info on the sheet... on the passenger side, camber is now .6 caster is now 5.0 but i am not sure if they tried to fix it or not because it was 5.0 previously as well but the range says its supposed to be 2.7 to 4.2 degrees. the tow is .14.
on the left side it looks like its actually also not in the "specifed range" and i am not sure why this is...
on the left the camber is 0 degrees, the caster is 4.6 and it was 4.6 degrees previously but the range is 2.7 to 4.2 and the toe is .1 degrees..
this is kinda wierd because on the left side their is rooms to adjust and i am not sure why they didnt make the left side corrections or corect the caster...
could this be why its pulling now to the right, but it wasnt pulling before?
thanks again guys!

bdcardinal · Mar 13, 2007

so it looks like this if i am reading it correctly

Left / Right
Caster +4.6 / +5.0
Camber +.6 / 0.0
Toe +.1 / +.14

looking at it that way, you willl have a slight pull to the right due to the greater positive camber on that side. honestly you need to run negative camber, and they were just being weak and scared of giving it. for toe, they were just sloppy, it needs to me .12 or .13 each side, if they cant get toe within .01 degrees of correct then they suck or your steering rack bushings are shot. more positive CASTER is a good thing, provides high speed stability, it jsut has to be as equal is possibe side to side.

edit, it didnt let teh graph look as spiffy when i made it, the slashes are seperating the left and right sides.

Serper3 · Mar 14, 2007

i c... my problem lies with running more negative camber on the right side.... my top cc plate is giving as much neg camber as possible, its all the way moved toward the drivers side... yet its still not enough negative camber... i guess i will adress the issues of correcting toe and caster when i go back to the place, but i need to first firgure out why i cant get enough neg camber on their... any ideas bdcardinal or anyone? anyone know in my situation how bad would switching the top plates be? filing the plate a little to get more negative movement? thanks guys!!

BennyBlown2v · Mar 14, 2007

Serper3 said:
i c... my problem lies with running more negative camber on the right side.... my top cc plate is giving as much neg camber as possible, its all the way moved toward the drivers side... yet its still not enough negative camber... i guess i will adress the issues of correcting toe and caster when i go back to the place, but i need to first firgure out why i cant get enough neg camber on their... any ideas bdcardinal or anyone? anyone know in my situation how bad would switching the top plates be? filing the plate a little to get more negative movement? thanks guys!!

Don't file the plate. It wouldn't be worth messing up your stuff if come find out that the strut dustguard/bumpstop was hitting the inside of the top of the strut tower or something like that. Just go to a different alignment place (frame and alignment shop specialist of some sort), have them check everything and see if they can get it into spec, then if they can't with that camber still, switch the plates.

Please help! coilover allignment issue!

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