Topic: Camaro Alignment
We got the Intervention Motorsports Camaro aligned today. We found an old time alignment shop in Ft. Myers where the guys know how to actually align a car. No laser machines - they just have lots of skill.
Re: Camaro Alignment
Well done, you are lucky!
In Houston we took our E30 to a place and the guys were totally lost! They wanted to put weights in the passenger and rear seats - we pointed out that we had none.....and we were asked to fill up the fuel tank!
We gave up in the end and measured tyre to tyre dimensions and decided we woudl only make it worse!!!
Is it because I is an E30 owner???
Re: Camaro Alignment
Markdas wrote:
Well done, you are lucky!
In Houston we took our E30 to a place and the guys were totally lost! They wanted to put weights in the passenger and rear seats - we pointed out that we had none.....and we were asked to fill up the fuel tank!
We gave up in the end and measured tyre to tyre dimensions and decided we woudl only make it worse!!!
Would you like me to walk you through a racing alignment for your car?
It will require a tape measure and string plus a flat level spot to work on..
IT works because that's basically how I align all my cars and I've been racing since the early 70's
It's also used by a lot of racers including one who lead the Indy 500 for a while in a 3 year old chassis..
- EriktheAwful
- Lemons Staff Stalker
- Offline
Re: Camaro Alignment
We did an alignment on Mulry's Toxic Assets Racing Program MR2 at Eagle Canyon Raceway in about an hour with two pieces of angle aluminum and some string. It made a night and day difference in the handling - turned it from a psychotic forklift into a big go-kart.
Re: Camaro Alignment
I like the aluminum angle iron better than string but the aluminum takes up more storage space. Essentially you're creating a box around the car. You have to be very careful that it's a really square box. Then you take measurements from the edge of the box to your wheels. Essentially you square the car up using the box as a reference point.
btw- to be totally correct you have to set tire pressures and have a given amount of gas in the tank when you align a car. A full tank of gas in our Camaro is about 125 lbs. It's all hung out behind the rear axle. That can raise havoc on your alignment. I like half a tank when I do an alignment.
What really makes a huge difference in a car is corner balancing. We didn't do it but you better believe a few of the Lemons cars are corner balanced. They just aren't going to tell us about it.
Richard Newton
Intervention Motorsports
Re: Camaro Alignment
OMGuar wrote:
Markdas wrote:Well done, you are lucky!
In Houston we took our E30 to a place and the guys were totally lost! They wanted to put weights in the passenger and rear seats - we pointed out that we had none.....and we were asked to fill up the fuel tank!
We gave up in the end and measured tyre to tyre dimensions and decided we woudl only make it worse!!!
Would you like me to walk you through a racing alignment for your car?
It will require a tape measure and string plus a flat level spot to work on..
IT works because that's basically how I align all my cars and I've been racing since the early 70's
It's also used by a lot of racers including one who lead the Indy 500 for a while in a 3 year old chassis..
Any advice is never turned down by any Pulp Friction team members!!!
Is it because I is an E30 owner???
Re: Camaro Alignment
I use a 4' level I put some screws in as stand-offs
Hold the level up to the rim and touching the ground - the screws touch the rim, mark where the tip of the level touches the ground both fore and aft - I use weights that have a good tape-measure hold/mark/spot on them
Measure distance across car and compare.
math is easy - my tire diameter is close to 1/2 the distance apart the marks are so all I need to do is double the "std" toe number (most manuals quote 1/16ths of inch rather than degrees)
You'll need to figure your own math -
Re: Camaro Alignment
The trailer store that set up our GMC trailer hitch sucks - big time. We found a store in Ocala Floridathat's fixing things. Right now we hope to make it to Pensacola Florida by tonight.
Intervention Motorsports
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Re: Camaro Alignment
Richardnew wrote:
I like the aluminum angle iron better than string but the aluminum takes up more storage space. Essentially you're creating a box around the car. You have to be very careful that it's a really square box. Then you take measurements from the edge of the box to your wheels. Essentially you square the car up using the box as a reference point.
btw- to be totally correct you have to set tire pressures and have a given amount of gas in the tank when you align a car. A full tank of gas in our Camaro is about 125 lbs. It's all hung out behind the rear axle. That can raise havoc on your alignment. I like half a tank when I do an alignment.
What really makes a huge difference in a car is corner balancing. We didn't do it but you better believe a few of the Lemons cars are corner balanced. They just aren't going to tell us about it.
Richard Newton
Intervention Motorsports
You do know that you can corner balance with 4 swap meet bathroom scales that cost about $5 each don't you?
Use a lever arm to lower the weight to what the scales can handle. for example 300 pound scales can handle 3000 pounds with a 10-1 lever. That means 4 of them could handle 12,000 pounds..
a 5 -1 lever on a 300 pound scale = 1500 pounds or a total weight of 6000 pounds.. And so on..
The lever arm doesn't have to be anything more elaborate than whatever will carry the weight.. could be a strong pieces of steel channel or a stout wooden beams etc..
You can use something heavy to make sure all the scales are the same, engine block, fat guy sacks of cement etc..
Who cares if it's exactly correct.. what you are going for is percentage of weight..
make sure the tires aren't in bind on the levers.. (bounce the car to ensure)
and when you scale it have it in race trim.. driver, fuel, etc. etc..
Make sure you know the tire pressures and the diameter of the tire.
Measure around the tread of any 4 same sized new tires and you will find 4 differant diameters at the same tire pressure..
moving tires around is the first step you take . put the tall tire in the lightest corner and put the shortest tire in the heaviest corner..
Now once you scale the car the issue is how to adjust..
Cut coils, shim coils,, it's straight forward.. Shims can be a bunch of things. from aluminum/steel plates of various sizes slipped under the spring to rubber wedges or even aluminum twist in wedges.. leaf springs may require adding or subtracting a leaf or dearching the spring, (ask me how that's done) Torsion bars usually have a adjuster at one end or the other.. Worst case you may need to reindex the bar..
Now once everything is perfect (dream on) you may want to modify it for various tracks.. easiset way is with tire pressures.. So do it on the scales to watch what happens