alignment after drop?

[jankaroni]

so i dropped my car a while back and havent done the alignment til now, after it shredded my front tires haha, so I work at a body shop and me and the mechanic tried to aligment, from what we understand there is no aligment for the camber other than shifting the subframe from side to side. if anyone knows of a way to take care of this please share your knowledge.


otherwise this is my plan... the front struts bolt to a plate which bolts to the actual strut tower. after taking one of the bolts to the strut bracket out you can see there is actually adjustment in the holes on the strut tower but the strut plate is collared as to not allow any adjustment, i am going to take out the strut plates and grind off all of the collars as to allow me to adjust the top of the strut out and fix my camber , has anyone done this or have any other reccomendations?

[boostedup]

there is no camber adjustment, you have to shift the subframe. I think 034 or someone else is in the works of making some camber kits for our cars.

[jankaroni]

so i guess i am gonna be getting out the grinder and going to town, cause i dont really feel like chewing up another set of $550 tires, anyone see any problem with what I am planning on doing?

[llewop_211]

i though there was a chamber kit, its just adjustable links.
http://www.kompressorkanada.ca/pages...pcrtl-audi.htm

[djwimbo]

so i guess i am gonna be getting out the grinder and going to town, cause i dont really feel like chewing up another set of $550 tires, anyone see any problem with what I am planning on doing?

Yes, there's no need for a grinder. What exactly do you plan on doing with said grinder? What you need to do is equalize the camber on both sides so there's no more than 0.1 degrees difference. Worse case scenario you can get adjustable control arms or the K-Mac kit.

There's 3 bolts at all corners, and you should only need to loosen 1 at each corner of the subframe. In the front you only need to loosen the ones that go through the rubber bushings, same in the rear. They're both 18mm head bolts.

See bolt #'s 5,6,7,and 8 in this illustration.

[jankaroni]

Yes, there's no need for a grinder. What exactly do you plan on doing with said grinder? What you need to do is equalize the camber on both sides so there's no more than 0.1 degrees difference. Worse case scenario you can get adjustable control arms or the K-Mac kit.

at the current time i have -1.9 degrees on each side (tolerance suggests -1.3 MAX), being equal at that hard of a degree is tearing apart tires, the adjustable links is an option but they are like 700 dollars and from what I understand they are not good for everyday use, i have heard they wear out rather quickly.....i know all about shifting the subframe and what not but that isnt gonna help me in this case.......



- djwimbo if you read my original post you will see what I was planning on doing, im not grinding anything on the subframe side, i am grinding the collars off of the strut plate at the top that the links connect to so there is adjustment for the camber in and out as there should be as is with any other car

[djwimbo]

- djwimbo if you read my original post you will see what I was planning on doing,

I didn't read the whole thing. My bad.

The adjustable control arms have been used by a handful of people. As far as wear goes, keep 'em lubed and get the boots for them. That'll make them last as long as possible.

The K-Mac kit could make a big difference as well. I can't find the link right now for the site that had them. I'll see if I can't find it.

-1.9* would be a bunch of fun for a track car. How low is this beast, pics? I'm currently at approx -1.0* on the fronts and a tidbit less negative in the rear on stock sport suspension. I'd shoot for a happy medium of -1.3 to -1.5 degrees for the front.

[jankaroni]

i mean i dont think it is that low really, but then again i am used to driving a truck that lays the frame on the ground at the flick of the switch haha, but i would be completely happy with -1.3 if i could get that anything is an improvement over -1.9, if you can find that link it would be greatly appreciated....but heres a couple of pics though, nothing really recent...

BEFORE:Sport suspension



AFTER: Koni Adjustables and H&R racing springs





since then the front has settled some and isn't quite as noticeably different in height

[jankaroni]

P.S. i hate the headlights but dont feel like dishing out the money for E-codes haha

[Poopie]

its the toe in or toe out that really kills tires though. -1.9 is a bit much, but the tow in or toe out destroys tires much faster then bad camber. its also responsible for bad gas mileage

i don't track my car or anything so i just toe in to as close to 0* as possible.

[jankaroni]

yeah the toe in is damn near perfect, it is like within .01 or .02 of 0 so that isnt so much the problem......it didnt really kill the tires that fast it did take about 10,000 miles off of them prob though

[Nebone]

I have the same springs and it only chewed up tires until I got the toe corrected. I did not have the need to shift my subframe as it was almost even after the drop so I was happy about that. You're chewing up tires because the tires are fighting one another due to uneven toe. Correct that and check how close the camber is. The rear camber is adjustable to an extent so correct that.

[jankaroni]

the rear camber we got adjusted and that is fine, the toe is perfect in the front like i mentioned before, within .01-.02 of 0*. It is only chewing up the insides on the tires, its not like it is tearing up the whole tire, it is just wearing off the insides of the tires.

all of my specs are in line and within tolerance except for the front camber

[onemoremile]

Rather than trash another set of $550 tires you can have them flipped for about 15 bucks each. They pull the tire off, flip it over, and reinstall it. Now the outside is on the inside and the wear surfaces are thicker. Switch sides too so the tires are still rotating the same direction.

Camber doesn't really trash tires that much. It does a little bit and also reduces brake effectiveness.

Part of the problem is that we can only take static measurements. As you drive the suspension is constantly moving and that toe value is always changing. This is because the car is lowered more than the engineers expected and the geometry is where it would be if the car was bottoming out. The four link front suspension does not like to be lowered very far.

[jankaroni]

yeah i mean i could even flip the tires myself i am just lazy haha, i mean we have all the tire changing equipment and everything, but mounting low profile tires is a pain in the ass

[onemoremile]

I ran this low for too long and didn't have wear issues. Went through a lot of grease fittings though.