Slam, bam, camber ma'am...
 

Eh guys!

Okay so as many of you know I'm on BC coilovers and dropped about 2 inches- maybe a sliver less. Fender's ride at wheel height if not a tiny bit less.

I went in for an alignment today because it looked like my fronts were leaning against the engine block for a rest. And according to the guys doing my alignment... they were doing just that. Or at least they might as well have been.

I have so much camber from the drop that their machines can't even line up- they're not using the Hunters- it's more of a radio frequency one from the 40's I guess.

They asked me to lift the car an inch (at least)... so I went to do that. Downloaded the wrong instructions- lowered the car another inch a la 4DGS... figured out my error- raised it an inch and a half... figured- okay- that'll do it. I thought they just needed to make room to pull out some of the negative. Or positive... frick, I'm so confused.

Sadly, no. They needed me to lift the car to naturally take some of the lean out so that their machine could even read... My argument was "Okay, I'll let it ride like a motorboat on the way over here to allow you to do the alignment- but what's going to happen when I drop it right back down again?"

The eventual answer was "might as well not even do an alignment."

So I didn't. They were very good about it- don't get me wrong... but where do I go from here? I saw a shim kit available in the marketplace... is that what I need? For you guys who are in the trenches... do you just go with the camber and replace your tires every 3 weeks or do you have some other trick up your sleeve? (freetires.ca?)

Thanks.

Get a camber kit..

That like a shim kit? Already got camber arms... apparently they're no help. Sorry man, I'm really quite daft.

Anybody make drop spindles for these cars? That would be the best solution.

find a new alignment shop

Yeah, if you have camber arms (aka camber kit) the shop should be able to get it at/near spec, right coil guys?

the shim's would allow more positive camber. But what ^ said

shims will give you +2 degrees of camber i believe. btw,camber is not what eats your tires up even though it may seem that way. toe is the main rubber killer.

Sorry I may have missed it but what are you using to adjust camber? SPC front a-arms or another kit? I installed the SPC front a- arms with shims and it barley got back to zero. Make sure they get your caster right as well.

Pansies.

http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p...X/IMGP2768.jpg
http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p...X/IMGP2790.jpg

These are the only pictures I have that sort of depict the negative camber the front of this car retains. Rear is > -2. Front is about -5 or -6. Aligned via eyeballs / tape measure / level. Drove a season on one set of fronts and an undisclosed amount of rears.

you can try SPL A-Arms... they are better than SPC A-ARMs i have read

I'm on SPC's... I saw a set of shims in the marketplace... so I'm thinking that may be the answer.

And yes, they had also recommended another alignment ship with the Hunters machine. I'll go see what good news they have for me!

Thanks again guys.

K I should probably add something useful now.

It really is all in the shop, their willingness and their equiptment. I've been to some of the best outfitted shops around here, and they either refuse to work on a lower car, cause fuss and do it anyways, and usually don't do it properly. I'd advise making nice with a few mechanics in the area, to try to get your ear to the ground to find whom would do the best work.
Another thing is if your camber levels aren't super negative (say moreso than -2), tire wear shouldn't be effected as adversely as one would think. So long as the tires were flipped and rotated rather religiously. It is always a good thing to get the cars alignment sorted out as best as possible, but as long as toe angles are within spec I wouldn't be running to put out any fires.

I hear the OP does that quite a lot, actually. :bowrofl:

Booo.

lol :)