Alignment, did i do it wrong?

[A1337STI]

Howdy !

so a few weeks ago i finally got some Rally coil overs. Installed them. drove around a lil and and holy crap was my alignment off.

So we put the car on jack stands , put some long tubes on jack stands next to the car. put the center of the front tire 10 inches away, put the rears 10.25 away (rear track width is 1/2 an inch shorter) measured rear and front toe. in the back one was toe out, one toe in.

adjusted rear toe to zero, put front at 1/16 toe out total. drop the car, drive around (feels much better) but I'm wondering if the toe changes through the travel, meaning that my rear toe isn't really zero right now (although its even on both sides)

[sperry]

You need to adjust the alignment with the car sitting at normal ride height or your results will never be totally true. It's a long, drawn out process to align a car properly by yourself, 'cause you're constantly having to raise and lower the car, and roll it around to settle the springs, then measure everything, then back up in the air to adjust it, and repeat ad nauseum.

It's really worth the $70 to get it aligned by a shop on their rack, at least for the initial alignment after having major work done.

[Dean]

Has to be on the ground...

You can do a pretty dang good job in your garage with the right tools and if you have the time.

Toe plates, a 4' level/straight edge and a 2' digital level are the easiest tools. Oh, and some plastic trash bags...

[A1337STI]

Whoops.

Yeah i was fearing the up in the air alignment would be wrong. thanks for the info. Guess i'll have to be bugging Cory Again (or their front desk person) .

My front struts are Way slotted. should i try and put some sort of clip / spacer/ bit of metal to help prevent the top camber bolt from sliding around in the slot? directly after install the top bolt was sliding in the slot, we tightened it a lot more . (not to spec but when i looked it up Ansel felt we were ~ there. and it hasn't slid at any since, i'm just wonder what's the best practice with a slotted strut. (top bolt hole in the front struts is almost 2X as wide as it is tall)

trash bags? how do i use those in my alignment ? i have a digital Level, numerous straight pipes (20 ' ) extra levels, a square level, tape measures, jack stands. need to make some toe / grease plates

[Dean]

Many layers of trash bags with or without silicone spray between them = frictionless turn plates.

Toe plates are placed on the outside of each wheel and tape measures are run through slots on each side... This gives you total toe. I made some out of sheet 5mm aluminum I had.



Digital level = camber gauge (Avoid tire bulge.)

4' Straight edge gives you chassis relative measurements, back to the neighborhood of the B pillar.

There are a ton of web sites that tell you how to do it, or we can talk about it some time...

[AtomicLabMonkey]

Originally Posted by A1337STI

adjusted rear toe to zero, put front at 1/16 toe out total. drop the car, drive around (feels much better) but I'm wondering if the toe changes through the travel, meaning that my rear toe isn't really zero right now (although its even on both sides)

Yes, toe angle changes with suspension travel. A lot.

[A1337STI]

aha, now that will make a cheap grease plate. sounds like the project for this weekend, hehehe