CSM Performance alignment set up

[byronj]

Has anyone here used these and is it worth the investment? If I order one I get a $600 discount.

CSM Performance LLC | Setup Wheels / Precision Hub Stands

csmperformance.com

TIA

 

[JAJ]

Has anyone here used these and is it worth the investment? If I order one I get a $600 discount.

CSM Performance LLC | Setup Wheels / Precision Hub Stands

csmperformance.com

TIA

I have not used their product, but I put together a DIY version of it using ball bearing assemblies and steel plates. I used it to set up my rear suspension this spring and it was a dismal failure. The problem I found was that the OEM GT350 rear suspension is so bound up by bushings that if you adjust it to get the exact toe and camber you need, as soon as you drive it, the bushings relax and you've massively overshot your goals. It was a complete fiasco. The front end is better but the rear end is a complex web of parts held together by rubber bushings, and when you adjust the adjusters, nothing moves - the bushing soak up the movement and the indicators and measuring tools say nothing has changed. By the time it does move, you've put so much adjustment in that it's way off after a test drive.

So, unless you're replacing all the bushings with spherical bearings, I fear it will be a crashing disappointment.

 

[byronj]

W

I have not used their product, but I put together a DIY version of it using ball bearing assemblies and steel plates. I used it to set up my rear suspension this spring and it was a dismal failure. The problem I found was that the OEM GT350 rear suspension is so bound up by bushings that if you adjust it to get the exact toe and camber you need, as soon as you drive it, the bushings relax and you've massively overshot your goals. It was a complete fiasco. The front end is better but the rear end is a complex web of parts held together by rubber bushings, and when you adjust the adjusters, nothing moves - the bushing soak up the movement and the indicators and measuring tools say nothing has changed. By the time it does move, you've put so much adjustment in that it's way off after a test drive.

So, unless you're replacing all the bushings with spherical bearings, I fear it will be a crashing disappointment.

Thanks for that info. Every time I’m under the rear end I look at it and wonder how it works out.

 

[JAJ]

The rear suspension is surprisingly tricky to adjust. I'm amazed (now that I've done it using adjustable arms) that anyone can get the camber set correctly with the factory bolt-in-a-slot setup and the car on an alignment rack. Not only do the bushings absorb the changes as you make them, the rear knuckle moves in a mysterious way. If you adjust the top of the wheel out to reduce camber, the toe link holds the bottom in place, which gives you an increase in toe-in as camber becomes more positive. That means that you can't adjust one to get it right, then adjust the other - if one's off, you have to adjust both to fix it. I spent most of three days working on it to figure out how the adjustments interacted and then adjusting it, test driving it and adjusting it again. I've got the settings I wanted +/- 0.05 degrees and it drives fine, but it was a bit of a chore getting there.

As for the parts I used, I actually bought two different sets of adjustable upper camber arms - BMR and SPC. Between the two of them I had exactly what I needed - the SPC parts come with a brilliant little lockout plate that's really easy to use, and the BMR arms are easy to adjust from above or below, so long as you have two 1-1/4" open end wrenches on hand. To avoid having to torque everything up at ride height every time I adjusted it, I installed the BMR toe links as well. Torque it all up once at ride height and you can adjust from there without having to redo the torque-at-ride-height torque routine.

 

[byronj]

oh man, sounds like a real PITA, maybe I’ll do more research on the rear before I invest in that tool. Thanks again for sharing your info.

 

[JAJ]

oh man, sounds like a real PITA, maybe I’ll do more research on the rear before I invest in that tool. Thanks again for sharing your info.

The hub stand tools would be great for the front end, but the rear end is a challenge.

However, without those tools, you can adjust it it with the car in the air and the suspension hanging. It goes like this:

With the BMR adjusters, one flat on the toe adjuster gives you about 1mm on the toe, if I remember correctly, and every two flats on the camber adjuster needs one flat on the toe adjuster in the same direction to keep the toe setting from changing. Once you have that figured out it's not too bad.

You change out the arms (don't get me started on torquing the inner camber arm bolt on the driver's side - that's another epic challenge), get the wheels close to where they were when you started and go for a test drive. Then, correct the toe and thrust angle. Once that's done, start getting the camber to where you want it using the two-flats to one-flat approach. Once I gave up on measuring the settings as I did the adjustments and just started counting flats, it was three tries to get it exactly where I wanted it. Just because it's tedious doesn't mean it's hard.

Tools - I bought a pair of the SPC "SPS-91010" toe and camber tools (with the toe arm add-on and the special wheel hooks) and a pair of Starrett metric measuring tapes and they saved me a huge amount of time on the measurements. I also bought a Longacre digital camber guage because the SPC piece is a bubble level and it's not as precise as I wanted, although it is surprisingly good. Thing is, like string, bubble levels never lie, although they can be challenging to read down to 0.1 degree. Between all those pieces, measuring the camber and toe was simple, quick and very accurate. Once it was all done, I confirmed the alignment with my trusty strings and it was dead on.