Don't align your car without an alignment machine...
 

This is more of a post related to frustration and physical torture, not so technical.

The tow on my front passenger wheel has been off for a while and I came up with this great idea today... "Hey! I'll align my front toe!".

Don't do it.

Just don't.

I made all the marks on the floor, nice and level, measured everything, had it all down per what I have read and how to do it on your own. I even watched a youtube video! I am already an expert! I know how to use an alignement machine, as I had an entire class in college devoted to suspension, but alas, DON'T DO IT!

After breaking loose the lock nuts on the rack and busting my knuckles at the same time...twice....on both wheels, I aligned the baby up.

Woot! I have set the toe correctly...wait...what?

My car now seems floppy in the steering and unstable. I jack the front BACK up and check. Now I have gone somehow from 1/16th toe in to 1/8 toe out. Not sure how in the hell that happened. Readjust, and back on the road...

No dice.

Come back, jack it back up and measure. I now have no toe in nor toe out. To make a long story short, I spent 6 hours jacking with this and came to a point to where I was just "close enough". If I let go of my wheel I slowly pull to the passenger side, but slowly now instead of abruptly. It is nice to spend time with the car and feel some sense of accomplishment, but for god sake, I need to just spend $50 and get to front end aligned on the machine.

Its like that.

For stuff like Alignment, I rather just pay up and let the machine to do it. Its just not worth the headache

It is best to make these adjustments with the car sitting on a flat surface and the wheels not jacked up as when you lower the car, the weight will throw off your alignment (not to mention the difference in camber from both wheels). You also need to throw in a person into the drivers seat to compensate for the weight shift when you sit in the seat, which in turn changes your alignment slightly. (Yes on an alignment rack you can get away with raising the front due to the computer compensating the changes).

However, I am sure me or anyone else will tell you it is much quicker to do this with a alignment machine. Doing it the old fashion way is satisfying and once you have a method that works for you you can make it go quicker, however, for a once in a while thing it would be best to go the the machine.

If you plan on making changes every week then invest in some camber gauges and proper toe plates... (the amount of alignments you will save will pay itself off in the right tools), this is something I am planning on doing (already two trips to the alignment shop in one month).

there's a technique to it for sure. you also need flat ground, most concrete isn't flat.

we use toe plates on the race car, although it does go to a real alignment machine once a year

i spent a lot of time setting my FC up, the rear in particular is tricky, as it changes toe if you look at the thing funny

also after you change something, the car needs to roll back and forth, WITHOUT going up and down, toe and camber changes with the suspension movement, so it needs to be reset after you turn the wheel to move the tie rod. the alignment rack does this for you

I see where I screwed it up....I took pressure off of the front wheels. I didn't crank the front wheels totally off of the ground, but just enough to make it easier to turn the tie rods. Live and learn.

I can say though, that my garage floor is completely level. I checked it with a 4 foot level.

Anyway, I'll keep the advice in mind. I didn't use plates, I just marked the floor with chalk. :rolleyes:

Like I said, live and learn. For now though, I am going to nurse my right shoulder and the abrasions on both hands. :)

use string.... its super easy to do....just go from back to front and front to back. to align the front simply have one man at the back tire hold the string aginst the rear rim. you take string and go to front of car. pull string tight aginst the body of the car. asuming your door has not been dented by another car hitting it you should have a space between front tire and where your string in (about 1/8) it sounds kinda ghetto but i did this and then went into work and got my suspension mechanic to look at it. i was off by .02 so it was within spec. its lame but works better then marking the floor. if your smaller you do not need to lift the car as the tie rods are right out front.

String aligned to the body will not work. Bodywork isn't straight.

I do string alignments all the time. Pretty easy to do and doesn't require expensive equipment.

For all of this, your car needs to be on slip plates. I use cheap vinyl floor tiles, the smoother the better, with soap between them. Works great! Roll the car onto them.

For camber, I have a long 2x4 that I lay on the hood (or hatch) of the car. On each end is a piece of monofilament hanging down with a weight on the end. I align the 2x4 so the monofilament is hanging down the centerline of the wheel. Using a small level taped to a metal ruler calibrated to 32nds of an inch, measure from the wheel lip (NOT the tire) to the monofilament, making sure your ruler is level. Repeat this measurement at the top of the wheel and at the bottom of the wheel. The sine of the camber is equal to the difference between the upper and lower measurement divided by the top-to-bottom distance. My garage is very flat side to side - I've done this with the car facing in and facing out and measured camber that agrees within a tenth of a degree.

For toe, I either use strings or lasers. For toe with thrust angle, get two long 2x4s, longer than the width of the car by several inches. Set them in front of and in back of the car, raised up on something so the top is level with the centerline of the wheel. I use an old set of wheels for this. Using more monofilament, start with the front 2x4 and make two marks that are about 70" apart (this is a good start for a second gen). Repeat on the other 2x4 at the rear of the car. Stretch the monofilament from the front to the back, lining up the marks and secure it. I use tape. You now have two parallel strings but they are not centered on the car - i.e. you have a parallellogram.

To center them on the car, measure from the center of the wheel (in the rear, using the end of the axle is OK, in the front you can use the dust cap if it's not dented to shit or you can do what I do and use the wheel face immediately aft of the dust cap) to the string. Adjust the 2x4s side to side until the two front measurements are equal and the two rear measurements are equal. It is an iterative process. You have to do this at the front and the rear, double checking each end after you make a change. Now you have two parallel strings centered on the car - a rectangle.

Make measurements to the wheel and you will have a fairly accurate toe reading. Be sure to convert to a 26" measurement which is a standard alignment shop number (when you ask for 1/8" toe, they make a degree measurement and convert to a 26" triangle), or just use degrees instead of inches.

Once you're comfortable that your thrust angle is good, you can make more accurate overall toe changes using a laser level, a piece of aluminum bar stock and some spacers. But that's for another day...

I've used toe plates with decent success (gotta love advice from race shops)

I fabbed up a set for about $10 @ harbor freight. Just get 2 red handled straight edges ( in the pain section) and a bucket of bungie cords.

The straight edges already have a hole in one side, so I drilled another hold in the same place on the opposite end. Then just line it up flush w/ the sidewall of the tire and hook a bungie cord into one of the holes on the end. throw the cord around the inside of the tire and hook the opposite end in the other hole so the straight edge is held firmly against the tire. (It takes a couple tries to figure out the right length bungie cord). Do the same thing for the other side.

Now take a tape measure and measure the distance between the front tips of the straight edges [now affixed to your wheels/tires] and write it down. Measure the distance between the rear tips of the straight edges. It the number in the ......
Front > Rear = toe out
Rear > Front = toe in

Simply lengthen or shorten the tire rod to correct the inequity, striving to have the distance equal between the front and rear tips of the straight edges. It doesn't have to be perfect, I am usuaully and satisfied +/- .25"

I've done this on a couple friend's cars after doing front end work or suspension and some never ended up getting a real alignment (not that I recommend that). I did this about 6 months ago on my FC after replacing the P/S rack and it will drive straight 300+ yds on the interstate.

I plan to get a real alignment (interested to see how much I was off) as soon as I get some dtss eliminators installed.

Toe plates are great - but you can't use them to measure thrust angle. If you don't want your car crabbing down the road, you need to measure that.

i use my iphone for camber :)

at the track we have an actual camber gauge

Now THAT is a damn good idea, I'll have to try that next time.

I drove into the garage and made sure the floor was level, which it was. I then made a chalk line with a straight edge against each tire to measure. Once I had made my adjustment, I made another line with chalk and measured. It may have worked satisfactory if I had not jack the car up a tad to relieve pressure from the front end, which obviously screws it all up (I wasn't obviously thinking about that).

Your method sounds quite a bit more efficient than having to redraw line after line after line for every adjustment.



So to deviate a bit off topic, I am running now +.25 toe in the front. I think it is a tad bit excessive and have been wondering is +.125 would be better of even -.125? I drive mostly city and turn frequently. I don't do much straight line driving and besides, I don't think -.125 would make my steering twitchy.

Chime in, I may make another go of this on my next weekend off.

Touche' - that you cannot.

I haven't really done much performance driving, I was mostly concerned w/ staving off uneven tire wear which toe plates do rather well.

Is there an easy home method for addressing thrust angle?

Read my post above. It's extremely easy.

You don't have to keep jacking the car up if you have slip plates, which are easy to make yourself. And you don't even need to jack up the car to make the adjustments. The RX-7 is pretty easy to adjust on the ground - at least I've never had an issue and I've done six plus alignments in the past two months on my car.

+.25 what? Inches? Total or per side? 1/4" toe-in per side would be enormous. 1/4" toe in total is a lot too.

I mostly compete with my car but I do drive it on the street and I am running 1/8" total toe-out up front and 1/8" total toe-in in the rear.

I am taking a trip to Oklahoma in a week and a half and I figured it would help with tracking down the highway at 90mph easier. I can always go out there and dial it back out some. Its +.25 total

By the way, before I leave for work, any thought on toe in versus slight toe out?

Like I said before, it is a street only car, but I don't typically drive on the highway so I was thinking slight toe out might not be bad.

Toe out is used to make the car more lively on turn-in as well as to heat the contact patch for better initial grip. Very helpful for autocross.

I wouldn't run toe-out if you don't do anything other than street driving.

1/4" of total toe-in is a recipe for very rapid tire wear. If you have any camber, that will just make it worse. I'd fix it.

I'll pull it into the shop at work and dial it out. Suggest 1/8th total? 1/16th maybe? The camber in the front is stock, don't have camber adjusters.

here is where mine is at, drives great

front

0 toe. i find its fine on the freeway. if it was a highway only car, i might add a little toe in. i find stability didn't change much between stock and zero toe, but steering feel got WAY better.

-5 camber (strut top rotated, everything got loosened and retightened for max negative)

max castor

rear

i started at zero, which is great if you can be on the gas at turn in, but there are too many toyotas in the way, so you cant be on the gas, and it feels unstable. so i gave it a little toe in, and now its more stable turning without being on the gas

I assume there is a decimal point missing in that camber... -0.5?

My settings are autocross biased but I haven't had any problems on the street.

-3.5 Front camber
+8 caster
1/8" total toe-out
-2.1 rear camber
1/8" total toe-in

for a street car with no front camber zero toe in the front is a nice setting.

John

WRT to slip plates, heavy duty garbage bags folded over on themselves work surprisingly well and don't introduce another concern when trying to create a level setup platform.

lmao! yeah -.5....

lol, sounds more like it...

Had a friend w/ an S14, we went out "drifting" one night and he clipped a curb and busted his tire. Next day at work he put it on the alignment rack (we worked @ Sears) and he had -7.5* on the driver side :rofl:

let me know the next time you do an alignment, I'd to come over and learn how to do it. I'm much more of a learn by doing kind of guy :p:

This post is retarded, its like saying dont go to the bathroom without TP.

DUH