alignment specs needed after tie rods installed

[24flys]

hey guy's

i installed turbo tie rods on my 72 this weekend and now it pulls to the right. does anyone know what wheel alignment specs to take to the alignment shop. i have to take it to an ordinary shop. we don't have any shops around here that know anything about 914's. thanks

scott

[Dave at Pelican Parts]

Front Caster: 6 degrees
Front Toe: About 1/16" toe-in
Rear Toe: About 1/8" toe-in

Camber will have a significant effect on your handling. What is "right" for you will depend on a whole lot of factors--how you drive, what kind of suspension you have, how much of the tire-life-vs.-grip tradeoff you can live with, and so on.

For a street 914 on stock suspension parts, I usually recommend 0 to 1/2 degree of negative camber in the front, and a half-degree more negative camber (further from zero) at the rear.

The lower end of that spec (0 and -1/2 deg) is the stock setting. The upper end of that spec (-1/2 and -1) should give decent tire life while offering more grip in the corners than the stock settings.

Note that the rear camber requires shims to change. A shop with little or no 914 experience probably will not have any, nor will they know where to get them. So you might have to simply get the front camber set to (about) 1/2 degree closer to 0 than the rear camber currently is.

--DD

[24flys]

thanks dave. i appreciate the help.

scott

[Dave at Pelican Parts]

...And the harder you drive, the more negative camber is appropriate... I ran around with -1 up front and -1.5 in the back for quite a while. Daily driving wore the inner shoulders, autoXing wore the outer shoulders... It came out just about even! Of course, I still had tread left in the center of the tire, but I wasn't willing to diddle the tire pressures to get that to wear out quickly, too...

--DD