I just have a really quick question. How do you read or what's the measurements on the cam bolts?

 

Those marks or more for decoration than anything else.

You can't really use them to align your car - they are not accurate.

 

Okay, thanks. Just wondering because I'm gonna tweak my camber, caster and toe settings.

 

Unless you have aligned cars by hand SUCCESSFULLY in the past, you need to have your car aligned by a professional to the settings that you want.

 

No, I have not aligned cars by hand before, but I like learning how to do things myself. If I feel that its beyond my capabilities then yes, I'll usually have a shop do things for me. But I'm going to try and do this by myself first, thanks for the suggestion though.

 

Good luck!

ive always wanted to learn to do an alignment manually. they say it is a lot more accurate then any machine.

Also if you are going to adjust it by hand, but a weight in the drivers seat similar to your body weight to align the car to when you are driving in it.

 

+1

This is good advice!

 

That's a good idea, thankfully most of my brothers are bout the same weight as me. Thank you for the advice.

 

#1 tip:do not have nice new tires on your car when experimenting with this!!! i tried this when putting a kit car together,thought id drive it awhile until i could get it to an alignment shop,i chewed up new fronts in just a couple hundred miles,the rears still looked like new

 

the second picture is the one of most importance. you have to move both lower arms out equally when adjusting camber otherwise you are upsetting the caster.

and yes to the others, you need a machine to read the actual measurements. any stamps or hash marks on the subframe are just for a visual reference and do not give an accurate descriptor of how much you will actually be adjusting nor are the centers ever accurate. the numbered diagrams are just optimistic references.

 

Cool, I'm gonna go buy a camber/caster gauge and will slowly adjust. Figured this would be a great opportunity to learn about the FD's suspension since I bought the car with all the lca, toe links, etc loosened and off the car.

 

Personally, I would start with a proper alignment on a good state-of-the-art alignment machine. Have them set it to Pettit's long track or street alignment, within .1 degrees of each spec.

http://www.3rdgenrx7.com/images/pettit_alignment.jpg

Then take pics of the cam bolts as they left the alignment and put some marks or otherwise mark the tie rods so that you can get back to this base alignment. From here it should be a lot safer to work your own caster/camber settings and you'll save an immense amount of time doing it.

 

For the OP: making marks and taking pics will definitely help get back to a reference point, but even then the car will not necessarily be in alignment. It should be close, but there is a little play in those camber gauges.

 

Thanks for all the help guys. I'm going to have my brother do the alignment at his school first and then make my adjustments.

 

Alignments are only as accurate as the equipment used to measure the setting...

 

The problem with doing it by hand is resolution. Modern alignment machines set toe to 0.01*. How accurate is that? Look at an analog clock. Each click of the second hand is 6*. Divide that click by 6 in your head. That's 1*. Pretty small. Now divide that by 100. Now do you get the picture? String, bubbles, and trammel bars can get toe close enough for a track car that is going to have its tires burned off in a few hundred miles, but for a street car, you really need to have it done professionally for maximum tire life. An $89 alignment is MUCH cheaper than the $1500+ you just spent in tires. I assure you, they will last much longer.

On another note, altering caster and camber will always shift toe. The degree of toe shift is determined by the amount of change and the geometry of the suspension system in question. That is why the front is aligned in this order, Caster, Camber, Toe. Toe is the biggest wear number.

My FD is aligned to aggressive specs that are right on the edge of factory tolerances. I understand that I am trading tire life for improved handling, but I KNOW where the numbers are, so I have an informed idea of how much compromise I'm making. Good luck.

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