DIY alignments

[pothiawala786]

I'm looking into doing my own alignment this week. Looking to add some more negative camber up front and change front toe.

I've seen quite a few different methods, and they're all pretty similar, but what methods have you tried and have good success with?

What have you adjusted? and have you ever re-checked somewhere else to see how accurate it was?

Obviously a level ground is needed, but how do you match front and rear toe? Do you guys find the centerline and just measure from the hubs?

I have seen all of the DIY alignment tools, but I would rather do without the use of special tools.

[Gairloch]

Props to you!

If you need more negative camber than your hardware will allow then the best/cheapest
way to increase it is to use crash bolts.

What are you planning to set it to?

[mr2tim]

Adding more Negative camber, looking for more speed in/thru the corners?

Jerking the toe-in for a more/quicker turn in? Go by 1/8" increments

Yer talkin' race right?, cause this will murder those expensive street feet.

Front axle specs are BGB'd for a base line.
Notice this spreadsheet is based on 30psi? (filled w rice?)

[pothiawala786]

Havent really figured out what I'm setting it to, which is one reason why I want to do it myself. I'm the type that likes to mess with it my settings quite a bit. I'll probably make the front camber around -2 to -2.2, and make the rear around -1.5 to -1.7. Toe settings will probably be kept the same as now.

Current setup:

Front camber: -1.4
Front toe: zero
rear camber: -1.1
rear toe: toe in 1/25"(?)

Suspension setup:
Stock 91 suspension, new strut assemblies
Poly bushings all around
ST front sway bar
93+ wheels with 205/225 Hankook RS2's
Tire pressure that I liked was 32 front/34 rear. I also marked the tires with chalk.

This past weekend with that setup, the car felt like it understeered a little too much for my liking. I had to lift on the throttle quite a bit to make it rotate. I want to set it up to oversteer a little more. With the bigger front bar and the larger stagger, and running stock front camber, probably causes the understeer.

There are quite a few reasons I want to do the alignment myself. For one thing, I dont trust shops enough to do an alignment to my settings. I've done alignments before on my other cars myself with a machine and to do it to my settings, it usually takes alot longer than most techs want to spend on a car. It doesnt have to be SUPER accurate, but I'm fine with a .2 variation in camber, and a little for toe as well. Just need to see how you guys do your own alignments, and to see what works and what doesnt.

The car is DD about 6-8k a year, so I cant go too crazy with the alignment settings, but I've run -2.5 front/-1.5 rear before on a double wishbone car, and with good toe settings, there wasnt much camber wear.

[pothiawala786]

I do plan on ordering several medium and small crash bolts/nuts, and I'll be using that for now until I can afford some camber plates. Not sure if I'll really need the small ones, since I'm not going with a ton of negative camber, but I'll see what happens.

[HeartbreakMR2]

Originally Posted by pothiawala786

What have you adjusted? and have you ever re-checked somewhere else to see how accurate it was?

A while back I worked at Sears. There people would request an Alignment ck but no adjustment without them looking at the results and approving. If no adjustment was done the service was free. P*ssed off the techs all that work and no pay. But if you can find the same deal it make help you check w/o big money.

[pothiawala786]

There are a few local small shops that have free alignment check ups, so I could always check it up over there.

I've worked at a shop before that had an alignment machine, and to tell you the truth, if I could find a shop that would let me use their alignment machine for 30 mins, I wouldnt mind paying them at all, and it would sure beat doing it in my garage.

I do plan on driving the car onto blocks, so that I can do the toe adjustments without lifting the car up. I will have to somehow shim/level all 4 corners of the car to make it as accurate as possible. Not sure if front to back level will make a huge difference. And if I go and add negative camber all around, that'll make me toe-out all around, so I'll have to adjust that as well all around.

Not sure if I should mess with the rear. Thinking of messing with only the front for the next event and change my settings accordingly.

[pothiawala786]

I'm assumming not many people have tried their own alignments on here?

I cant justify spending $80-$130 for an alignment specially if I'll go changing it within a few weeks. Those lifetime alignments sound good too, but they're usually at places I wouldnt trust with my car.

Just trying to see what methods people have attempted, and have they had real good success or it ended up being a nightmare for them.

[pothiawala786]

Been pretty busy so I havent had a chance to some of the items I needed and find some time.

I have an autocross this Saturday so I'm going to try squeezing in a DIY alignment sometime during the week. Previous alignments settings were aimed at alot more higher speed highway driving. Now that I work alot closer and use city streets, they can be a bit more aggressive.

Current settings: (Just checked the alignment sheet)

~.05*(1/16) toe in front
~.25* (1/4) toe in rear

Camber is at -1.5* front and -1.1* rear, but I'm going to mess with that after I get the toe part down and accurate.

Plan:

~.05*(1/16) toe out front
~.12* (1/8)toe in rear

How have you guys leveled the car? I've bought enough cheap floor tiles to shim the floor. The garage floor has gutters so its unlevel to direct water flow. Only issue is how to do make sure its level.

Does front to rear level matter? or only side to side(same axle)? What methods have you used to make sure its level?

[mr2tim]

~.05*(1/16) toe in front
~.25* (1/4) toe in rear

Camber is at -1.5* front and -1.1* rear, but I'm going to mess with that after I get the toe part down and accurate.
----------------------------------------------------------

-Don't be afraid to go to as much as 1/4 " on the front for race day at the track. Make afew runs then dial in more camber at the rear as you feel comfortable with the results.

Make slow turn-ins to understand the feel of the car as it "sets" the suspension in the corners.

[pothiawala786]

Exactly. I want to adjust it according to my likings, and the best, most economical way of doing that is by myself. If I take it to a shop, at $80 an alignment, I'll be broke in a couple weeks. I also highly doubt 3 year alignments include custom settings that want to be changed every 2-3 weeks.

I checked my tires today, and the rear tires have VERY SLIGHT feathering, probably from the toe in. I definately want to toe it out a bit more from 1/4 to 1/8. The fronts definately need to be toe-ed out a bit as well. I'll have to tackle this sometime this week. Biggest issue right now is my unlevel garage floor.

I'm going to mess with toe first, then I'll start messing with camber. Camber is something that seems a bit harder to get accurate without an alignment rack.

[mopwer]

Originally Posted by pothiawala786

I'm going to mess with toe first, then I'll start messing with camber. Camber is something that seems a bit harder to get accurate without an alignment rack.

You'll probably want to adjust the camber first as when you increase camber, the toe goes out.

Greg

[pothiawala786]

Exactly. Issue is, I'd like to raise a bit of confidence by doing the front toe, then I'll take it for a test drive, if its fine, then I'll do rear toe, and redo front toe.

Camber is something I'll mess with a few weeks/few events after doing the DIY toe alignment. I'd like to try setting a bit less rear toe-in to help the car rotate. If it works well, I might not need as much negative camber.

I ended up buying everything I need for the alignment. I think total cost was:

12x12 Concrete blocks to drive the car onto. it'll allow for adjustments without lifting/lowering the car. Cost was $6 for 4 of them.

Brick layer/construction string. Needed something that was thinner than I had at home. $4 for 325 feet(all I need is 20 feet, but it'll come in handy sometime in the future).

Box of 20 floor tiles to shim the floor. I'll be making slip plates as well by using salt between two tiles. Some people have used grease, but I've heard salt works just as good without the mess. Total cost was around $16.

I've got a ruler that measures in 32nds of an inch.

Already got the jack stands to line up the string, and the tools needed to make the adjustments.

Total cost was right around $26. Not bad if this works out. Even if it doesnt, I really only lost money on the floor tiles, since I needed the concrete blocks to drive the car onto to get the floorjack underneath.

I'll be leveling the floor with just a long level/straight edge/straight piece of metal and a level. I'll make the sure its exactly level on the same axle, but I've read there isnt much change front to rear as long as its not a huge difference.

I'll try it out tommorow or thursday. Hard to get some energy to work on the car after a long day of work. I MIGHT make a write up.

Edit: I didnt end up using the concrete blocks since I could crawl underneath, and I also didnt use the floor tiles since the floor was already level when I checked it. Total cost was $4 (toe only) for the string, and thats 325 feet worth, plus a few other items I had beforehand (jackstands, tools, precision ruler).

[pothiawala786]

Tried it out today with the string. I lined up the string about 1" away in front, and 1.4"
in the rear since the track in the rear is different.

Up front, the toe is pretty accurate according to the tape measure. Zero total toe, but theres toe in on the driver side and toe out on the passenger side. I plan on fixing that tommorow. Thats the easy part.

For the rear, for some reason, its showing zero toe on each side according to the string. Last time I did the alignment on the alignment rack (I did it myself), I set it to .20-.25 degrees toe in on each side (which is about 1/4" toe in each side). I rolled the car back and forth several times and made sure everything was set up properly. I jounced the suspension as well a few times, no change. I did change the wheels/tires from 205/60/14 to 225/50/15, but would that have that big of an effect on it? The alignment was done last October and I've driven the car about 5k miles since then.

I am also getting some tire wear in the rear that's indicating toe in, but then again, I might be wrong. Its smooth in, but VERY slightly rough coming back.

I'm not really sure what I'm doing wrong. The floor is level. I am not using slip plates, but that shouldnt make a difference since I was just checking it and not making any adjustments.

Track width on 91 MR2's is 57.9 front, 57.1 rear, so .4 on each side extra in the rear to compensate for that difference.

I'm thinking I'll just adjust the rears a bit toe out equally, and see how it drives. I wont know the exact toe I'm setting it to, but I'll be able to set it equally on both sides. The fronts are working out fine, its the rear thats not lining up.

Any ideas?

[mr2tim]

I often get wear on the inside portion of the rear tires thru the 19 yrs I've owned it.

About every 2-3k miles I reverse the tires and do the side to side swap. I try to stay away from unidiectional tires as they tend not to recycle like I need my tires to.

Tim

[pothiawala786]

Did the alignment y'day (took about 1.5-2 hours the first time with the strings for just toe on all 4 wheels), and took it to an autox today. It was still reading zero toe in the rear, so I set it 6/32 (I was using a ruler with 32nd increments) toe out, so if I really do have 1/4 toe in from before, that would be 1/16 toe in total. Definately didnt feel like 6/32 toe out at the autox, so theres gotta be some toe in from before. Just by feel, it does kind feel like zero toe, stable at higher speeds, but easy to rotate. I basically used the strings just to make sure its even on both sides.

For the front, it was lining up fine, so I figured I might add a TON more toe out. I went from 2/32 toe in to 1/4 toe out on each side. I agree, thats a ton of toe out, but it was just for the day and to see how the car felt.

Comparing myself to an S2000 thats always there, with neither of us changing anything other than my alignment, I dropped about 2-2.5 seconds, but he got me on his last run by less than half a second.

Car definately felt much better, I dont plan on changing the rear toe at all. Car was a touch twitchy, but 100% controllable, and I could rotate the car easier. I do plan on adding a bit more toe in up front, go from 1/4 toe out now to about 4/32 toe out(which is .12", so cut it in half).

Plan on getting a feel of the car before even worrying about camber, so that wont be for a few more events. $15 well spent, specially if I dropped 2 seconds.

[sleepermr2]

here are my specs from when i aligned my car last month. 91 turbo, tein coilovers, poly bushings, toyota small crash bolts.

Front-
camber -2.5
caster +3.5
toe (per side) 1/8 out

Rear-
camber -1.7
toe (per side) 1/8" toe in

not so fast for the straits but who cares about that? it is amazing in the corners!!!!

[Gairloch]

Thank you very much for keeping us updated!

[mopwer]

Originally Posted by pothiawala786

Tried it out today with the string. I lined up the string about 1" away in front, and 1.4"
in the rear since the track in the rear is different.

Up front, the toe is pretty accurate according to the tape measure. Zero total toe, but theres toe in on the driver side and toe out on the passenger side. I plan on fixing that tommorow. Thats the easy part.

For the rear, for some reason, its showing zero toe on each side according to the string. Last time I did the alignment on the alignment rack (I did it myself), I set it to .20-.25 degrees toe in on each side (which is about 1/4" toe in each side). I rolled the car back and forth several times and made sure everything was set up properly. I jounced the suspension as well a few times, no change. I did change the wheels/tires from 205/60/14 to 225/50/15, but would that have that big of an effect on it? The alignment was done last October and I've driven the car about 5k miles since then.

I am also getting some tire wear in the rear that's indicating toe in, but then again, I might be wrong. Its smooth in, but VERY slightly rough coming back.

I'm not really sure what I'm doing wrong. The floor is level. I am not using slip plates, but that shouldnt make a difference since I was just checking it and not making any adjustments.

Track width on 91 MR2's is 57.9 front, 57.1 rear, so .4 on each side extra in the rear to compensate for that difference.

I'm thinking I'll just adjust the rears a bit toe out equally, and see how it drives. I wont know the exact toe I'm setting it to, but I'll be able to set it equally on both sides. The fronts are working out fine, its the rear thats not lining up.

Any ideas?

You can't just go by the track difference. Run the strings past the front and rear enough you can check the measurement between the two (across the front and rear). You should have the same measurement (strings are parallel. Then you can check the distance from the center of the wheels to the string. Both fronts should be the same and both rears should be the same. Or, as long as they have the same offset, you're good to go. Then you can check the toe with the strings.

Basically you have to make sure the strings are parallel as well as parallel to the car. You don't need the car to be on a level surface for toe checks, but it does need to be flat. I use wheel dolly's so I can get under it to make adjustments as well as the suspension being able to move with the adjustments. After any adjustments, you should recheck the above to make sure nothing moved that shouldn't have.

Greg

[pothiawala786]

Mopower, I went to a couple sites some of the members of the other board mentioned, one of them being a 240sx guy, and a 300zx guy.

The 300zx writeup is using the centerline of the car, while the 240sx just uses parallel strings but adjusts for the track difference by moving the rear farther away.

Heres the site:
Do It Yourself Alignment Tips

"Most DIY alignments recommend you find the centerline of the car. That's great, but is a pain in the backside. As an easier alternative, I use the hub centers as the point of reference for setting up the parallel string. It's best to have matching front/rear center caps here, and to also know your car's track front/rear."

Also, if you check this video I found on youtube from an EVO guy, he mentions the same thing.

DIY Alignment Check (VIDEO) - RacetrackDB.com

Its the second video, starts at 6 minutes and ends at 7 minutes. He mentions that if the track is the same front and rear, measure the same distance from the strings to the center of the wheels.

If the track is difference, like we have in the MR2, how else would we compensate for track?

But I can DEFINATELY see where you're coming from. My string is angled. The string is basically toed-in in the rear, so that would show zero toe when there could possibly be toe in.

When I play around with my front toe to get rid of the excessive toe out (which I'm loving though, but loving my tires just as equally), I'll put it at 2" all around. Right now, with the track difference being .4" of a difference on each side, I put the rear strings 13/32 farther away (so a total of 2 13/32 rear, 2 front).