Anybody used this guy before? Had a friend who tracks his S2000 recommend this shop in the South Bay and it is close to me. Curious if you folks had any experiences, his yelp page seems to have a lot of different opinions.

 

They're ALL about this place on trackhq but i can't justify the price when we do it ourselves to our own specs with my miata group. want to put in new bushings before i do my FD.



Yes, those are also scales...we corner balanced with me inside after the alignment.

 

Hey Fisa, I had these guys do my FD. You drive straight onto their lift and they work underground. The owners know about performance cars as they use to race Porches(don't know if they still do or not) but you'll see them at the shop when you go. It's local too.

http://johnsonsalignment.com/

 

good luck getting an appointment.

 

hey dino, i DID get an appointment for the 28th. :p

dvo I need to take this car to someone who knows track cars in general since these coilovers I have, have no specs this is a special case.

I think since that track forum and my buddy who tracks regularly at buttonwillow recommended this guy i should see him for now.

They seemed pretty cool on the phone. My car should be ready for the Segalla cruise. yay

 

wow thats dedication. thats cool your miata buddies do this all as a group, makes sense.

 

yeah supposedly the NA miata and FD have very VERY similar suspension so once i get those bushings in, my FD will be up on those scales. part that sux is zeroing it all out on your own. raise, align, drop, test drive, raise, align, drop, test drive...you get the picture. when i'm at that part, that's when i WISH i paid someone else to do it.

 

How much does it cost to acquire all of the necessary equipment?

 

You could try Evasive in City of Industry. The guys there are cool and they track their own cars.


http://www.evasivemotorsports.com/

 

Just wanted to say in advance: Sorry for the thread jack Fisa.
Dwarf- couldn't really tell you, it was a group effort. one of the mods for clubroadster.net is local, has a HUGE garage and opens his place up at least 4 times a year for what we call "Tech Days @ Garage Woolery" where we do pretty much anything you can think of. he put together a fund we all pitch in for to buy specialty tools. With the amount of track days we do as a whole, this was the most logical next thing to buy. pyrometers, camber gauges, scales with the turning plates, toe plates, 2 tape measures, etc. the scales come in foam lined hard cases you can take with you to the track for on the fly alignment adjustments depending on your tire temps. we haven't done it yet, but we talked about it for our next trip to Laguna Seca. Here's the link for the company we bought it from but was 2 yrs ago, prices might have changed: http://www.longacreracing.com/catalog/index.asp

BTW- Tech days @ Garage Woolery is open to ANYONE but it does get pretty crowded. i'll post the next one on here whenever the next one is planned. anyone local to Whittier come check it out. Mazdaspeed R&D guys gonna be there. Mazda NA is amazed the size of enthusiasts all in one spot and how we do as a community. i want them to see the rotary side of enthusiasts too that ISN'T just SevenStock.

 

darwin is the ****. he corner balanced my zeals now my car feels like it has a cherry on top of it. hes really friendly too!

 

I recently purchased an 93 FD with mild mod on it so I can't speak to how's the alignment on this particular vehicle but for Darin I known him for a while. I had my 95 Supercharged Miata and 97 M3 alignment done there for AutoX and I would say it's worth every penny. The amount of time and knowledge Darin has is amazing, tons of road / autox racers get their alignment done there.

 

Darin is Highly Recommended. A+. He aligned my rx7 back in the day. Great to work with too. Dedicated. You'll be happy with the results.

 

i drive 40 miles just to get my car corner balance and alignment at this place. Just be sure not to miss your appointment cause i've heard they will get mad and probably not accommodate you cause you messed up their schedule. this place is highly recommended

 

my friend got his nsx corner balance there and alignment, it handles awsome. Im taking my FD there soon.

 

An alignment is an alignment, plain and simple. As long as the person that does it is competent, it doesn't matter who does it. The settings are what makes the difference.

With that said, I get my car done at the local Goodyear. Unlimited lifetime alignments, any settings I want, 4x a year, forever, for ~$170, IIRC. That means I can drive my setup for 3 months, track it, see how I like it, make changes, etc. until it's perfect.

Cornerbalancing is something that should be done with scales, or you can do it with rulers/tape measures if you really want to be cheap about it. I've done it that way and any time I've put my car on the scales, I'm off by a near-negligible difference.

 

werd to big burd. those are longacre scales in my pix.

 

I've done coilover installation, corner balance and alignment @ Evasive in early 2009.

I totally love their services and they are super cool people that spend a lot of time at the track.

Two things though.... =/

It took them much longer than I expected.

I forget exactly how many hours but I went in just before noon, came out at about 7PM.

Also, the guy forgot to tighten my lug nuts.

Took my car to the track the next day and if I didn't double check, I would have lost my wheels @ 80+mph.

(Fortunately it was a 350z I had back then.. heh...)

This COULD be, however, just one time mistake that doesn't happen usually.



Regarding Darin @ West End, he's THE suspension guy I've always trusted 100%.

I have about 10+ track addicted friends and they all go to him as well.

You just have to give a call a couple weeks in advance...

Which was why I had to go to Evasive for it that one time.



Just my $0.02...

 

2 close friends that drive in RTA recommended West End. *thumbs up*