Best time during build to do professional Alignment?

[JMan]

So, I'm about to start body work. I've been go-carting for the past few months. I'm about ready to put the body on and get busy. When is the suggested time to get a pro alignment performed? I've gotten it pretty "close" so it drives fine and goes straight, but I don'w want to fool myself while mounting the body and looking to the tires for eyeball alignment, if ya know what I mean.
So, from the experts, when is best?

TIA!
JMan

[GoDadGo]

I had mine aligned before the body went on.
You just need to keep the ride height consistent as things settle or as you add weight.
I'm going to re-align the car when I peal the body off to have it painted.
It will be interesting to see if anything shifted since the original alignment.

[FLPBFoot]

Like GoDad, I did mine before the body went on. Makes it really easy to get to the upper control arms to tune in the camber and caster. I set my ride height to 4 in the front and 4.5 in the back. After the body and all the roll bars, windshield, etc went on the ride height went down to less than 3 and 3.5. Cranked it back up to 4 and 4.5 and all is good. I did have to add in a bit more as the springs broke in and settled....about another 1/2 inch. I've put on 1900 miles in gel coat so far and handles great.

[NAZ]

As stated above, it's easier to adjust the suspension when there is more access (body off). Set the ride height to whatever you have decided as your standard and the setting will still be valid no matter what weight you place on the car as long as the ride height is at your standard.

But the more appropriate question is what is the correct ride height and why. When the ride height changes it affects the suspension geometry which affects handling. Set your ride height indiscriminately and you will very likely be building in adverse handling issues. So when you set ride height based on someone else's spec, why is that the correct setting? What affect does it have on handling?

[j.miller]

When it comes to IRS my alignment guy kisses my butt without the body on......I still pay full price....but I get my butt kissed!

[Richard Oben]

We always do it body off, during the go cart stage, usually as we are bringing the car to have the body put on. We set (final) ride height and double check it on the alignment rack. They all complain 'we can't guarantee this without blah, blah'. We just say do it and we will figure it out later. We then reset the ride height (back to final) after the car is final assembled. No issues ever. Again JMHO, Richard.