Wheel alignments...

[JustaxPHX@aol.com]

>So a little while back a lister whose name I forgot unloaded a good one
>on us - to set up the camber on the 4k etc, max out both ball joints,
>loosen the subframe bolts, and adjust the subframe position to equalise
>the camber L-R.  I bet one could at the same time maximise/equalise the
>caster, no?

I don't know if the person referenced is me or not but I've done exactly what
Huw suggests ... if you want to get the most negative camber possible out of a
4k-based chassis, then you will want to use the early-style control arms with
late-style balljoints.  On the early cars, the balljoint mounting holes on the
control arm are slotted; on the later cars, the balljoints are slotted and the
control arms are not ... put them both together and -- voila! -- you end up
with 2.5 degrees of negative camber (or slightly more!) on each side.

Better still, thanks to the offset balljoint, you also get about .6 degrees of
extra caster but because you'll have taken the plunge out of the inner CV
joints, you'll pop the left one if you don't make sure the motor mounts are in
good shape.  We went through four or five of them (perhaps even six?) before
figuring out the problem and even then, we had to fill them up with Bondo (an
old racer's trick; painted black, you will never see it) to make them stiff
enough to prevent the motor from rocking under acceleration.

>This really caught my eye because since putting lowering springs on my
>coupe aligning it has resulted in one ball joint having to be all the
>way out, and not being quite far enough out.

This is because the 4k based suspsension doesn't have any camber gain; as the
strut compresses, negative camber is decreasing.  This is why a stiff a/r bar
on these cars will decrease understeer even though all the suspension books
will tell you differently.  When the geometry sucks, sometimes the best thing
you can do is to keep the wheel from moving too much, if at all...

>I will be hassling the shop that does my next alignment into trying this...

I've never heard of an alignment shop that would do this ... generally, you'll
have to do it yourself (or if you have a friend that owns one, a bodyshop,
since they have the tools required to push/pull things around).

JG