TReX7

Is there a way to do a quick..."home" alignment. My RX is pulling to the right.

nevarmore

Cheap, Quick, Done Right. Pick two. It takes a long time for someone without experience to align a car properly, it also requires some special tools.

The best advice I can offer is to find a real alignment/chassis shop. There is one here in NE Ohio in Tallmadge, they ONLY do suspension, chassis, and alignment. These shops also do this thing every day all day, they are good at it. Unlike goodyear/tire kingdom/bobs wheel hut where some goon just puts in on the rack and listens to the computer.

Rx-7Doctor

iTrader: (13)

Before you go and have an alignment done, swap tires front to back and see if it goes away
could be that the tire cord has seperated. rx7doctor, also is it pulling when you apply brakes
or only when just driving down the road?

TReX7

It's only when I'm drivin' calipers seem to hold good no pulling.

Kweasi

If you've got a pull when you let go of the wheel on a flat peice of road then you've got a camber or caster pull. If it pulls because the steering wheel is off and you're trying to hold it straight you've got a toe pull.

To correct a camber pull you need a camber/caster guage; any real racing supply place will have them available. Read the instuctions to see how to use it. Camber is adjusted by moving the strut top. We have four possitions to choose and if they are not sufficeintly close you can slot the bolt holes for fine adjustment.

To correct a caster pull you shorten or lengthen the tension rod from underneith.

To correct a toe pull you need to set up a datum. Take two jackstands and string a peice of fishing line between them at wheel hub level. Then space the line away from the wheels about 15cm. You need to include a correction for track width variation front to back. Ie if the front is 3mm wider than the rear then you space the front string out 1.5mm less that the back. Once this is done take a ruler and measure the distance from the string to the front of the wheel and likewise for the back (with the steering wheel straight). The difference will represent toe. Convert it to degrees with some trig. Toe is adjusted by changing the tie-rod length at the coupler.

Bear in mind: any change to one parameter will effect the others in order of severity from Caster-camber-toe. (Caster will throw off both, camber wil throw of toe...).

For a street/track car I would recommend:
0 toe
1.5-2 deg. neg. camber
4 deg. caster

Hope that helps,
-Kwe

anthrax

If you have seperated tires you best be replacing them before they blow.

BTW steer belted Radial tires have belts not cords.

Old Bias ply tires have cords...

TReX7

Thanks for the info......sounds like a trip to the shop is in order....hahahaha

1stgen_tn

Hey, I was told when I had mine aligned a few years back that the struts have to be unbolted from the top, turned, and then repositioned as part of the alignment process.

Maybe this is not the correct way to do it, but it was a professional mechanic reading a Mazda manual that told me that...

grantmac

Can you really get 2 deg negative camber with the stock strut tops?

Kweasi

1st gen;
yes it's true, you do have to turn the strut tops- they are eccentric; but it's not hard at all. You just remove the nuts, then jack up the frame till they slip out of the holes, turn it, then drop the car back down.

Grantmac;
I got 1.5deg out of mine without slotting the holes; with some light slotting I'm sure you could acheive 2deg.

Also be aware that the more caster you feed in, the more camber you get when the wheel turns. I was getting 3deg+ with the wheel at lock. It's a bit of a balancing act: More caster = more dynamic camber but increases steering effort. I took an educated guess at 4deg caster and it worked out great. Car sticks read good on the track and I don't get arm pump after 10 laps. If you have forearms like a gorilla you could go more; we have TONS of caster adjustment available. One more thing to consider is tire wear. I don't know about you guys but I don't want to eat up my Proxes RA1 on the track nor my cheapo street tires. If you drive around on 4deg negative camber the insides of your tires will wipe out pretty fast; super fast if you're also running toe-out.

One last thing to keep in mind; when doing an alignment tune it to your body weight; sit in the car or place a weight in the driver's seat. It makes a pretty considerable difference. I know my car only really tracks right when I drive alone. Another person in the pass. seat throws of my alignment tuning quite noticably.

-Kwe

Rx-7Doctor

iTrader: (13)

So i blew the nomenclature on cord/belt, what are you the tire police? lol. Point is that everyone is so fast to believe that its an alignment problem, point is #1 check tire pressure and tires. #2 inspect complete front end for worn/loose components. If swapping tires does nothing, then alignment time. Also is there any abnormal tire wear? Did this just start?
But before an alignment is performed make sure any worn steering/suspension components
are replaced, especially the struts. rx7doctor

anthrax

Not the tire police nope

Just trying to keep the information sound thats all

But I used to bust tires...

I saw some very scarry things. People neglect tires, which are probably one of the single most important safety features of the vehicale.

A tire failure on a small car has the potential to be fatal. Seperated tires are about ready to fail, and that is a frightening thing.

But you do make a great point about checking the whole front end over and making sure every thing is intacked is great advice.

Just because the car drifts when you let go of the steering wheel it does not mean that your alignment is out.

Check the tires for uneven ware if the sholders of the tires are worne out there is potentially an alignment problem.

Most shops that do alignments can do an alignment check for Much less then an actual alignment. That is great if the alignment checks out ok, but it will cost more if the you need an alignment.

TReX7

My alignment must be REALLY bad, cuz I fight to keep it straight...and steering is actually harder than it should be, even with MS.

T

TReX7

First off...lmao @ Rx7Doc
I gotta do a complete check of my system...but this damn rain and hurricane is not helpin that process..

T

Pele

iTrader: (28)

What exactly is wrong with some "goon" (IE Me...) using a computer based alignment machine? Is there any other way to do such alignments?

There'd be plenty of times ricers would come in and want a Camber kit installed on the side... I'd make a killing saying nah man, I canget you lots of negative camber without that. Return it and gimmie $50 and I'll get you a couple of degrees...

It's not about reading whether it's in spec or not. It's about reading the number that the computer spits out.

On a side note, when Tire Kingdom bought out the chain store that I worked at, they laid me off... ********.

anthrax

I never knew that Excalibur was a 7/8 wrench

Apparently you can do alignments with mirrors and stuff, but I worked with a guy that was trained in the old school and says the computer is much more accuate.

So um ya sum goon that does alignments all day says the computer is much better, I would listen to him...

Pele

iTrader: (28)

Well, a 10/12 mm open ended wrench would look kinda puny... But I know for sure that wrench ain't SAE...

FB II

i used to do alignments all the time using one of those damn computer machines. lol, it is actually pretty damn accurate. i would get in cars that had come out of the body shop getting the frame straightened and i was able to completely realign them just by setting the degrees the computer told me. i would say 98% of the time it was right on the first test drive. every now and then the steering wheel might be off, but that would be because of operator error. i agree with rx7doctor though, check all those components if you can.

anthrax

Fine M18

Mr BiG G

How do u adjust castor on our cars? and how would u adjust camber without the camber adjustment plates or adjustible control arms?

Pele

iTrader: (28)

I believe it's adjusted with the tension rods. The nuts for them are just behind the bumper. They connect to the control arms.