Rear Alignment change for 1st gen
 

What are the ways to change rear camber and toe in a first gen RX-7 (Any other ways beside welding the diff housing at an angle)??

The only way I know of is to slide your car sideways into a curb. It's not adjustable.

MIke

i figured. Now i have an extra housing sitting here. What else has to be worked on beside the housing to get camber?? do axles need to be bent or re-welded as well??

What kind of shop should I look for to do this kind of job? I just want -1 camber in the back.

Usually the ends of the housing are cut off, the entire housing placed in a jig to align it and the ends welded on at the angle you want. Most hot rod/street rod shops do this kind of thing for narrowing rear, but most don't know how to add -camber. You may want to find a local circle track shop - they do this to the Ford rears.

BTW - the GSL-SE rear will accept Mustang jigs and pucks - tell the shop this and they may give it a second look. Most won't touch a "ferin" rear.

While I know it is not close but Rohan Ambrose in Melbourne from Guru Racing has made a press specifclaly for 'bending' the rearend setup to an appropriate camber level. Also with his floating hub and axle kits these are made speciclaly for the adjusted rearend!

I would suggest you drop him an e-mail he may be prepared to 'share' some secrets as you are not direct competition as such :-) And seriously think about buying his floating hub kit, a front runner in Texas and also Trinidad has recently started to run them and appear to be doing very well!

Cheers.

Torches :)

If you heat metal and allow it to air-cool, it shrinks a little.

Want negative camber? Heat the top of the axle tube.

Want toe-in? Heat the front of the axle tube.

I haven't done this myself (I figure as long as the housing doesn't have toe-out I really don't care) but I'd imagine for best results, do this as close to the middle as possible, for minimal binding.

Re-he-heally?

What do you mean by "Mustang"? Mustangs have had Ford 8", 9", 7.5", and 8.8" rears from the factory. Also probably the 6.75" rear during the dark days of the Mustang II.

Thanks guys for the help. I will look around and ask shop shops about it.

it's better to bend, the rear end is really flexible

mike

In Jim Susko's set up manual for first gens he states that the stock side bearings in the LSD unit can take 1 degree of negative camber. When you have the housing bent you want the bend to be as close to the center as possible, since it is the diff side bearing that will take the brunt of the wear from the change.

I have a couple housings to play with and I plan on making a jig and trying this myself, when the weather gets rainy. I fell ok about putting the housing in a jig and heating it with a torch to make the bends, but I am unsure if the heated metal should then be quenched. If you make the metal hard it can break, left if soft and it will bend. This is the next thing that I am researching in this process.

Keep in mind the axle ends, you will be stressing them out! Think about going for aftermarket axels that have a 'bullet' end then you can go more than 1 degree of negative. Approx 2 degrees makes a huge difference, 1 I have found is minimal impact.

Great, who makes the axles with the bullet ends?

As per my note above, Rohan Ambrose from Guru Racing in Melbourne Australia, the floating hub kit are about $1300 I think which includes the hubs and the billet axles. Postage is SFA from what he tells me.

I use them on my Gen 1 racer and would never look back now. The difference is fantastic.

I think finding a local shop that knows what they are doing on the bending and purchasing the floating hubs is the ticket. I found a circle track shop here in Dallas that is very good at bending rear ends. This is probably the way I am going to go on my F prepared Solo car.

http://members.cardomain.com/7heaven

Sounds good, give them the info on the floating hubs from Guru, I reakon they will love them!