[s-cars] 2B/ECS plates alignment done

[Fred Munro]

Neil;

I got the same driveability results on my '94 S4 by using the 2B plates to
set the camber at -0.5 both sides. The caster ended up 0.96 on the left and
0.25 on the right. The car tracked true over heavily rutted roads and the
steering picked up a nice weight - it became a joy to drive. It's been over
a month now and I notice a bit of tramlining creeping back in but I suspect
the rear suspension may be slipping out of alignment - probably need new
bushings after 220k.
I tried the 2B plates in the configuration you mention and it did indeed
give good caster adjustment but the camber was not on spec and the inside
edges of the tires were wearing at -1.00.
Interesting I got good results with camber changes and you got similar
results with caster changes. Looks like there are at least two ways to fix
the problem!

Fred Munro
'94 S4


-----Original Message-----
From: s-car-list-bounces at audifans.com
[mailto:s-car-list-bounces at audifans.com]On Behalf Of Neil Swanson
Sent: July 19, 2004 6:07 PM
To: s-car list
Subject: [s-cars] 2B/ECS plates alignment done


Well I did the alignment on saturday after work.
Here is what I started with.  Remember I said it
looked like I had near zero on teh left and some neg
on the right? Well..........  I have good eyes.

On the right I am at   -1.1 camber and I can't get
less.  I used to be able to get -.75 so I gained about
1/4 of a degree neg camber.  I could have less neg
camber if I gave up some caster  but I am enjoying the
caster so much that for now I'm going with this.  It
is just on teh edge of allowable camber.

On the left I was at .6 neg camber, near zero as I
thought.  I adjusted this to -1 neg camber to get  it
near the right side.

As for caster which was the whole point of all this I
have  +2.5 on the left and +2.1 on the right.   I used
to have +.5 and +.8 caster so I gained an awful ot of
caster.  All worth it.    I could have set the caster
to +1.5 which is max for the cars' specs but I stayed
with what I had.  I could have matched caster side to
side but for now I am driving it.

On the very worst of the rutted I-95 truck tracks the
car does still react a very little bit.   It used to
try to change lanes.
  Some of that may be my tires.  I have Conti Sport
Contact 2's.  They were free and they came off a
friends '03 sport package A4.   He also said that the
A4 reacted to the truck ruts and the newest Audis are
near immune to those in my experience driving them.

So all in all I am really pleased.  I'll go with the
specs I have for now and maybe I'll tweek them a bit.
I know that if I went with the spec of +1.5 caster I
could match both sides and reduce neg camber a bit if
I wanted to.

Curious to see what others end up with.

Neil
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