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Old 07-31-2010, 10:12 PM
Cobra #3170 Cobra #3170 is offline
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Default Alingnment

The debate on corner weights, ride height and suspension alignment and what to do first is somewhat confusing because they all interact with each other.
I usually start with ride height and corner weights as suggested by Rick and then have to go through the whole process about 3-4 times before everything is correct. small changes in camber can effect corner weights and changes in ride height will effect camber, camber changes effect toe settings ect ect. Getting the bump steer right also effects rear caster, and rear toe. I think the best advice is from ERAChas, if the car is just being driven on the street and maybe an occasional track day basic settings will work fine, no need to go nuts on the details because you won't notice the difference. The main thing is to make sure nothing is way off left to right, camber and caster should be close to equal, ride heights left to right equal with a forward rake angle and corner weight should be fairly close side to side, since it isn't a formula car it will always be heavy on the drivers side but that's OK as long as there are not huge differences IE more than 75-100 pounds. If you scale the car the scales have to be perfectly level side to side or you will get bogus readings for weights and camber if you measure alignment on the scales. Tire pressure and tire diameter differences can also adversely effect your setup and throw off the settings. I just spent the last two days chasing an alignment problem that was related to my garage floor being off side to side and front to rear. I shimmed the platforms and checked them with a really long bubble level and also a digital level but neither was good enough to catch the problem, I finally used a surveyors laser transit and got the right heights for each scale pad then all the corner weights and camber settings came in as expected. Settings are usually dictated by the chassis design and tires, radials like negative camber, toe in gives stability both front and rear, the basic settings mentioned elsewhere in this thread would probably work very well for you.


Quote:
Originally Posted by ng8264723 View Post
Any recomendations on settings? I know the owner of the shop and can tyell him what to dial in. By the way the car is running very well. Boy does it ever attrack attention. A few young girls stopped today to take pics
chris
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