Home Camber Adjustment

[PatientZero]

It really isn't practical to adjust toe while the car is on the ground

I've done it for years without issue. If you makes you feel better you can make some "turntables" out of a couple piece of tile or similiar.

 

[LS291]

This forum has helped me learn to do my own home alignments. I was wasting both time and money sending my cars to shops with expensive alignment machines and supposed "experts" with lots of experience only to get home and be able to physically see that the tires were not right (positive camber on one size and negative excessive street camber on the other).

I have the Longacre toe plates (great little kit by the way) and a magnetic digital angle finder found on Amazon. I made my own camber plates for each wheel size by using a few pieces of angle iron cut to length from Lowes and stainless steel bolts/nuts where they would touch the flat of the wheel lip. I just set the angle finder in the center of the camber plate. I don't fuss over a tenth difference from side to side. At first I did but quickly found I was chasing my tail.

My first home alignment was on my 03 Cobra IRS swapped 95 GT (not the most ideal car to start since there are a lot of adjustments). I did all four wheels using string on jack stands and the before mentioned tools. My Boss was the same only I didn't have to mess with camber and toe in the rear. I did ensure that the panhard bar was keeping the axle centered side to side with string and jack stands as well.

One tip that I picked up on TMO (I think Norm mentioned this in a post) was to make gauge blocks for your street camber setting. That way when you go back and forth from track to street you just have to bump up the caster camber plate strut bearing against the gauge block and lock them down. It's fairly repeatable by my measurements even with using wood gauge blocks (labeled for the side they go on).

Having a two post lift and flat concrete floors (no shims needed) is huge and a big time saver.

Don't be afraid to tackle this job on your own. You will learn a lot and be glad you did it!

 

[byronj]

I know this will be an obvious and "dumb" question for many of you but hey, I gotta learn somewhere...

I've read through all the above posts and there is tons of great info but for those of you doing home/track alignments, how do you keep track of different toe positions? I understand changing camber will change toe and I understand how to mark different settings for camber but how do you mark different settings for toe? Count number of turns or mark with paint?

The simple tool I have will be what you need. I am doing two alignments at once and with that you will have the information you want. The tool will be set to your specs. For example: I am going with OEM street / track setting on the front and that will be specific for MM plates. My buddy has Vorschlag CC plates and we are going to do the same on his car. If you require another setting thats not going to be a problem, we will just need to know what CC plates youre using and what setting you want. Then we can have it dialed in specifically for you.

More to come after I get the car to the alignment shop after Labor Day

 

[JAJ]

I've done it for years without issue. If you makes you feel better you can make some "turntables" out of a couple piece of tile or similiar.

A GT350 with it's front splitter and underbody aero simply doesn't have enough ground clearance to allow adjusting the adjustments when the car is at static ride height on the ground. They're just plain out of reach.

 

[xr7]

I bought the Smart String set up for doing my car a few years ago. Only alignment experience was with medium & heavy duty trucks. Did those with string, jack stands and a tape measure. Anyway I swapped on lower springs front and rear, new sway bars, watts linkage, rear axle adjustable LCA's, ARP studs, GT500 rear rotors, new front hubs with ARP studs, 20mm spacers on the front with Apex 18x11 wheels sporting 295/40-18's Falken 615+. Spent a day setting it all up and took it out for the first time and it tracked straight down the road, no preference to head left or right, sporting 1/8" toe out. Car turns into corners very crisply. I've run this set up for three years now. You get a lot of satisfaction out of doing it yourself and it turns out right. A big piece of my success is do to help from the TMO gang and the guys I run with here in Minnesota. Planning next project now but I am suffering from "Scope Creep". Started with the purchase of an aluminum driveshaft, but as long as it is up in the air and I have to remove the exhaust anyway? Headers, clutch, resonator delete, side dump exhaust, 302S front lower control arms, bump steer, 6 pot Brembos, brake ducts, aero, tiger hood. You know this is alot more expensive when you spend you own money vs OPM.

 

[Norm Peterson]

For camber


For toe (parallel strings). Measure to the wheel flange at the front and rear of each wheel and convert to an angle.



Turns out my driveway is, or at least was, level to within about 1/16" side to side over the track width in my setup area (as determined with a tripod-mounted laser level).

I haven't bothered to swap between settings on the Mustang (it runs at about -2.0°), but if I was going to do so, I'd make up some gauge blocks for positively locating where the adjustments needed to be for both street and track.


Norm

 

[PatientZero]

I just did the alignment on the Track Beater so here is some video if you want to see how this is done. Don't mind my rambling.

 

[Jet One]

How does the electric steering play into it when dialing in toe and having a steering wheel perfectly straight when complete? Thanks

 

[PatientZero]

I don't think it would matter. It's just electric assisted, you still have a steering shaft and steering rack like normal.

 

[Norm Peterson]

How does the electric steering play into it when dialing in toe and having a steering wheel perfectly straight when complete? Thanks

Only thing I can think of would be resetting the steering angle sensor, particularly if the toe on one side needed more adjustment than the toe on the other side.

You *may* be able to get away without resetting the SAS if the toe corrections are small and close to equal, though Ford's system might be a bit fussier than others due to the fact that Ford baked pull-drift and active nibble compensations into most of their EPAS configurations (and I'm assuming that that is still the case).


Norm

 

[bob]

Right now I have camber bolts and am limited to camber adjustments at a shop.
What is the best way to do camber adjustments at home/trackside that are accurate?
Are caster/camber plates enough?
If I get caster/camber plates should I restore the camber bolts to factory bolts?
What do you all use to determine the degrees of camber when you do adjustments?

Cut a cheap harbor freight L-square to length for your wheel face then simple laser level to read the camber angle on a flat floor. Use the water bucket and aquarium tubing method to setup flat floor and 1/8" home depot flooring tiles. Total cost about 20 bucks.

Sounds like you are asking about front adjusting? Best trackside adjustment for front is camber plate like vorschlag that has lines on it. Then you can set to different lines and see the result camber and know if you move 2 lines that -1 degree or whatever. Camber bolts I don't like because they change the scrub radius so use those for extra camber judiciously.

 

[Stangra]

Use the water bucket and aquarium tubing method to setup flat floor and 1/8" home depot flooring tiles.

Care to elaborate on this?

 

[bob]

Care to elaborate on this?

Easiest way to ensure flat floor. Difficult to explain. Bucket water 1/2 full with aquarium tubing in it. run water to the other end of tube. tape this end on ruler. Put ruler on ground at LF, RF, LR, RR take readings. The water level denotes level. The numbers are what you need to add or subract in 1/8" tiles to get the 4 pads level.

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Are you wondering how to make a homemade water level? This DIY guide walks you through the process step-by-step and provides useful tips.

todayshomeowner.com

 

[byronj]

I have made my home alignment tool for street and track settings on my GT350. It works with MM camber plates. I’m going to check it on Vorschlag plates to see if it will work with the same settings.