Ride Height, Front and Rear Alignment, corner weighting Done Orange city Florida

[mcwho]

My Local shop here in Orange City Florida has a team of guys who spent 9 hours on my car yesterday. The setup the ride height, 4 corner weighting, Front alignment as well as the Independent Rear suspension yesterday. They took their time and did it right, and showed me what was going on all along the way. They spent about 9 hours on it.

So, Now I have both front and corner weighting with me in the car

the caster, camber and toe set as per the specs, and the rear is as well.

The rear IRS took more time because of the fact that you have to take the Heim joint undone and twist it in trial and error fashion. I could tell the difference on the drive home, the steering as right where they had set it and the car did not want to wander or steer itself. It feels mush better now.

I know I'm not supposed to promote shops that don't advertise here so if you need a shop around here, PM me and we will discus.

Bob

[AC Bill]

So now you just need to keep it off the curbs..:p

Nine hours and a team of tech's, must have made for a heck of an expensive alignment..
Someone should come up with a threaded sleeve idea for the IRS rears, so the heim joints don't have to be re & re'd for each adjustment. Something similar to the adjustment sleeve on a front tie rod on some vehicles. That could save a lot of time.

A great handling car is always a pleasure to drive..Enjoy !:)

[mcwho]

AC Bill,

Someone does have that its either Fortes, or Whitby. The thing with the IRS setup is they say that once it is set it should never have to be adjusted again. Hopefully that is so.

[CraigS]

Forte does the adjusters for the T-bird IRS. I am really glad the OP got this done so well by a dedicated team of guys. OTOH, this is why I always recommend learning to do it yourself. 9 hours doesn't surprise me at all for corner balance and F and R alignment.

[Melb-Mike]

It us time consuming. I just completed my front end alignment on my MK4 after replacing the spindles, lower control arms and steering rack. Ride height was correct so nothing devoted to that. I'm not racing this car so corner weighing not necessary. Toe in set at 1/16", caster set at 7.28 deg and camber at -0.5 deg. Time spent was 2 1/2 hours for alignment on my 4 post lift using my homemade laser jigs. I do have turn plates. I also have a digital 10" level to measure degrees. I made my own laser devices and steel wheel fixture. I've been doing my own alignments for the last 10 years after having bad results from the pros who claim such high accuracy. It is tine consuming but highly rewarding with incredible results...better ride, longer tire life, etc.

I can easily believe the crew spent 9 hours to do ride height, corner weighing, and 4 wheel alignment. I imagine a crew of two totaling 18 hours at a conservative $75/hour would add up to around $1350. A set of tires are expensive as well so a bad alignment could kill a set. I think this was money well spent.

[mcwho]

I agree, it is money well spent.

Interesting note, his alignment machine a Hunter gave me the readings before and after alignment. My eyeball toe in for the front and rear was pretty close, not so much with caster and camber.

[Melb-Mike]

I compute the caster angle by using David Farmer's computations. If a steering rack has a 16:1 ratio, which implies that 16 turns of the steering wheel will give a full 360 degree turn of the wheels, then 1 full turn of the steering wheel will give you 360/16 or 22.5 degrees of a circle. That being the case for Corvette C5 and C6 models, it also happens to be true of a quick ratio power steering rack for a Mustang rack. I verified that with the angle deflection on my turn plates. Furthermore, he computed that the difference in camber angle with 11.25 degrees to the right and 11.25 degrees to the left times 2.6 would yield the true caster angle. I then adjusted my upper control arms to give me 2.8 degrees camber deflection through the 22.5 degrees turn (1/2 turn right then 1 full turn left) with a -0.5 deg camber providing 7.28 degrees positive caster angle (factory advises 7 deg) to meet my needs. After repeated adjustments, I obtained exactly the same on both sides, -0.5 deg camber and 7.28 deg positive caster. Time consuming yes, but absolutely perfect. Afterwards I adjusted toe in and verified thrust angle. My lasers shot 75" width front at 15' distance and 76" width rear at 17' width. Very close to factory 1/16" toe in.