Alignment

[Walt]

So if you change the ride height on the front does it affect the alignment?
Thanks

[JohnK]

Yes

[rich grsc]

Depends: how big of a change, a small change, no don't worry about it. If you're making a large change then maybe.

[MB750]

If you think about the mechanics of a 4-link mechanism (like control arms and a spindle), yes you should at least check alignment. Your camber is definitely different, although possibly not by much and may still be in spec.

[john42]

speaking of alignment.. I recently got an alignment and we played around a bit with finding what type of car to use for their alignment computer. We started with a 90's era fox body Mustang. Thankfully the guy working on it was a classic muscle car restorer and had experience with other custom built hotrods that the computer didn't have any entry for. He took his time and at least to me did a good job with him rechecking and taking the car around the block several times and then checking again. What are others experience with this?

[MB750]

speaking of alignment.. I recently got an alignment and we played around a bit with finding what type of car to use for their alignment computer. We started with a 90's era fox body Mustang. Thankfully the guy working on it was a classic muscle car restorer and had experience with other custom built hotrods that the computer didn't have any entry for. He took his time and at least to me did a good job with him rechecking and taking the car around the block several times and then checking again. What are others experience with this?

Per the manual:

https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=166650&d=1652459632

Nothing about caster tho... :confused:

[BradCraig]

Per the manual:

https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=166650&d=1652459632

Nothing about caster tho... :confused:

That's for IRS alignment

[Walt]

I had mine done first of this week and they went with 65 to 68 mustang for some reason.

[Derald Rice]

Any car can be used to fill in the blank on the alignment program

If you provide the specs that you want, those are the numbers that any qualified
tech should use instead of the preset numbers for the car selected.

[MB750]

That's for IRS alignment

Sure enough, my mistake, sorry about that. That's from my Mk4 manual but I didn't think about IRS. Here's the better specs:

https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=166663&d=1652484416

[tonywy]

Somewhere on here someone once said " if you can build the car yourself you can do wheel alignment yourself". This is true. Get yourself some turn plates , an alignment gauge, string, a toe bar and jack stands. Do it yourself even if you have to do it twice to get it right. The cool thing about it is that you can play with the settings and see the changes instead of leaving an alignment shop and hoping it's correct.

[MB750]

Somewhere on here someone once said " if you can build the car yourself you can do wheel alignment yourself". This is true. Get yourself some turn plates , an alignment gauge, string, a toe bar and jack stands. Do it yourself even if you have to do it twice to get it right. The cool thing about it is that you can play with the settings and see the changes instead of leaving an alignment shop and hoping it's correct.

That's exactly correct. I haven't done a Cobra yet (it delivers in December) but I did just do my 2020 F150. I did a mild drop kit which kicked the negative camber up to about 2 degrees, so I put the Moog alignment cam nuts on the lower control arm mounts and went to town. I ended up having to notch the frame to get the mount locations 1/2" toward centerline of the truck, but in the end I'm back to spec just measuring with an angle finder and a piece of straight aluminum vertically on the wheels. I also used a fishing line on jack stands to get my toe-in. Fishing line pulls night and straight with zero ambiguity on the ruler. Just make the line parallel to the rear wheel and set your toe-in on the front, but keep in mind not all vehicles have the front wheels perfectly in front of the rear. My truck has about an inch of "crab walk" for some reason where the front wheels are both about an inch to the left of the corresponding side's rear wheel so factor that into your math.

[CraigS]

The MkIVs w/ the FFR spindles have very close to zero bump steer. So toe-in change because of ride height change is minimal. Camber may change very slightly. I would say that making a >1/2inch height change would be where I would want to check alignment afterwards.