[kyngfish]

I wanted to post this on the forum, since during this whole thing I’ve had trouble finding this information all in one place – and hopefully this helps someone that’s relatively new to this stuff.

A few years ago I did a full suspension refresh. Since an engine rebuild was in the offing and my tires were worn and I wasn’t driving it much, I aligned it to a sort of “good enough” point and lived with it. But after getting new tires and a rebuild, I felt it was time.

I tried the jack stand and strings method a while but I kept getting messed up results, those results were actually caused by things I didn’t understand (yet), but when I get frustrated I dig my heels in. So I bought a string kit and caster and camber kit just to remove my jack stands as a possible variable.

Here’s some stuff I learned I wish I had known before:

-Correct steering wheel placement – 3 turns lock to lock meant 1.5 turns to center, but driving, the wheel wanted to be at 1.5 turns minus one hand on the clock counter clockwise. That means if at 1.5 turns the bottom of the momo steering wheel “Y” is at 6 o-clock, I needed to move it one spline to the left – moving the bottom of the “Y” to 5 o-clock.

-Bad placement lead to bad alignment – I would center the steering wheel (1.5 turns) to align, but if the rack wanted to turn slightly right from that, 1mm right toe out would turn into 4-5mm and a strong right hand drift

-Aligning when you’re mostly there is probably simple, aligning after a full change is Iterative. There were threads that said to use turn plates or grease-filled bags, or roll the car back and forth, but all those things would lead to incorrect adjustments and over-adjustments that would throw me off. I could NOT get a correct reading after adjusting without a shakeout drive.

-Take copious notes. Every time I adjusted, I would write down all my measurements, so it was easier to reset the strings for the next adjustment. Especially in the rear with the cam lobes, I would note the direction of turn, and how far I turned. Sometimes a slight turn would cause the wheel to totally loosen and droop and I’d have to start over.

-Camber readings (again) only show up after a shakeout drive. Even loosening the shock tower, I thought I was only adjusting my wheel 0.5 degrees, when really I was going a full degree

Anyone that knows better can correct me here. The wheel center thing is strange – I don’t know enough about the steering rack to know if it has some kind of “return” to a position or if it’s offset or an issue with my turbo tie rod install. All I know is that even if the alignment drift was opposite, there was definitely a place where it felt like the steering rack wanted to be. I’m reading where this might be related to caster angle. Which is one thing I haven’t checked (yet) because I need turn plates. So let’s see I guess.