Wheel alignment help and advice please

[James777]

Gents

Looking for some help please with regards to the wheel alignment on my B6 S4. I had an alignment check carried out last February and was told that there was a issue with the N/S/F camber:



The tester said that I needed to start somewhere and was best starting with the hub carrier. I have always gone with the factory sets, rightly or wrongly, and hadn't really had a good look on here for information. Replaced the hub carrier, at great expense as it's an Audi only part, and it didn't make a blind bit of difference to the camber. Having done a fair bit of research on here since, I which I had gone for a set of adjustable upper control arms (AUCA) instead of the hub carrier.

My next step is to have a set of AUCA's fitted and my questions are:

1. Is a set of AUCA's going to solve this N/S/F camber issue?
2. When the garage is doing this, is it a good time to replace the OEM springs with a set of lowering springs?
3. What is the best alignment set up taking into account that my car won't be tracked and is only for road use?
4. From the research I've found on here, people have said to have zero toe all around. Is this zero toe on each side or zero total toe? Also someone said have as much camber up front for traction and around -1.5 deg on the rear and to dial in as much caster up front as the AUCA's would let.

I going to be honest in the fact that I'm not that really clued up on wheel alignment. Therefore any help, advice and comments would be very much appreciated from those of you who are more knowledgeable than me.

Many thanks

James

[924Carrera]

The tester obviously didn't know what he was talking about...those heavy cast hub carriers are extremely unlikely to fail. The procedure for correcting front camber without adjustable UCA's is to remove the subframe bolts and shift the subframe over. That's right out of Audi's manuals. It makes sense, since there is no adjustment otherwise. The fact that the tech didn't even suggest this is indicative of a lack of experience.

However, adjustable upper arms will give you the ability to dial in your front camber to whatever you want.

0 toe is a decent option for snappy turn-in without the car being too dodgy on the road. Most cars have toe-in from the factory because it helps the vehicle keep going in a straight line even when you take your hand off the wheel. 0 toe does make for more small steering corrections are you are driving, but is a decent performance setup. 0 toe on each side or 0 toe total is the same thing.

I personally run stock camber specs on my car, but anything between -0.5 and -2 degrees is going to be fine for street use, IMO.

You can install lowering springs if you want, and it definitely should be done before the alignment is carried out, but I would personally recommend saving up and going with coilovers instead, which offer better adjustability.

[2004B6S4]

adjustable control arms can fix your camber but they shouldn't be required. There is a way to adjust the camber with the stock setup, but most non-dealership shops will say it's not possible. It involves loosening the subframe bolts and shifting the whole subframe over so that the camber equals out to the same on both sides

personally I think it's ridiculous that most people who claim to be knowledgeable about audi's will say it's not possible even though it's in the fucking manual. The last guy that did my alignment told me that he was the only "quattro certified" shop in town, but he also told me that adjustable uca's are the only way to adjust camber (luckily mine was pretty much dead center already, 1.3 on one side and 1.4 on the other).

edit - also looking at your sheet, I'm not sure they used the correct specifications. it says that sheet is for the b6 a4/s4/rs4 with standard suspension (as well as rough rode china suspension), but I'm pretty sure the a4 is the only one that came with the "standard" 1ba suspension. I'm not sure if there would be a different set of specifications for the a4 w/ sport suspension or for the s4. I can see your specs are different from what's listed on my alignment sheet, but my sheet says the specs are for a 2003 s4 so my alignment tech entered the wrong vehicle as well. you might want to look up the actual factory specifications to the car (but good luck, I didn't have much success finding definitive info) to compare them to your sheet, but be aware your sheet lists everything in degrees and minutes instead of fractional degrees, so you may have to convert the numbers. (your left front camber is written as -1 degree and 40 minutes, and since there are 60 minutes to a degree and 40/60 = 0.67, your camber could also be written as -1.67 degrees)

[James777]

924Carrera and 2004B6S4 - thanks guys for the prompt and informative responses.

I'll really annoyed that I hadn't posted up the results after having the alignment done, as I would have gone back and got him to adjust the subframe to sort the camber out. What also annoys me even more is that all this guy does is wheel alignment and he didn't even know it was in the Audi manuals!! Won't be going back to him again.

I thought about fitting coilovers but this is my second car and only does about 3k miles a year. Can't justify the cost of coilovers, yet!!, so will go probably go with either Koni's or Bilstein's when the Audi shockers go.

Another question for you gents - if I were to get lowering springs fitted and then got the alignment done with adjusting the subframe, would the camber be so much out that I would need to fit UCA's? I've read on here of guys that have lowered their cars without UCA's and said good alignment was all that was required. Don't want double handling and hence extra money being spent. Just being a typical tight Scot!!

Thanks

James

[924Carrera]

Here are the factory alignment specs out of the Bentley manual. 1BE "sport suspension" is what is fitted to the S4, so as 2004B6S4 stated, the tech used the wrong values. Remember these are in D/M/S, so conversion to decimal is required.





You can probably get away without installing UCA's on the front and lowering the car. The camber will be out of spec, but extra negative camber can actually be beneficial to handling, as long as you don't go to the ridiculous extreme you see on some modified cars. Bad toe specs are actually more detrimental to tire wear than camber. You'll probably be somewhere around -2 degrees of camber depending on the lowering springs, and I think that's fine. However, if you decide not to do UCA's, I would aim to get that camber centered side to side with the subframe method. Keep in mind that Audi recommends replacing those bolts during the process because they are a torque-to-yield style and not meant to be reused. I sometimes reuse bolts of that type on Audi because they use them all over the place and replacing them every time isn't cost-effective, but for a one time shift of the thing holding your engine in, I'd say better safe than sorry (the bolts aren't that expensive to replace once).

[Silver Streakin]

None of those specs matter...

it's about making it even side to side, front to rear. Move the sub frame when it's not equal. .1 or .2 diff doesn't matter.

-2 is fine.

Don't run a lot of toe in. Toe kills tires.

[James777]

Guys

Thanks for all your help with this issue. I'm either going to fit H&R springs or the springs sold by Rev Motorsport. I'll then get the alignment guys to adjust the subframe and see where we are. Thanks for mentioning about the bolts as I didn't realise that they shouldn't be used again. I'm on first name terms with the Audi parts guy which is a good and bad thing!! What should these bolts be torqued to?

James

[0396]

Excellent info on the factory options / advice on the adjustability on the camber.
Thanks for this education.