New aligment specs.. still feels vague

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the car tracks straight and drives ok but just not as planted as it could be. Before my engine change it was really stable and heavier feeling.

As for the camber I was thinking we had -.5... I see now its a +.5... My bad.
I will try for -.5 or more and maybe 3.0 caster and see how it drives.
 
All we are trying to do is guess what size or if you have roll bars ?, shock types, rear springs, oe ? rear sway bars ? Engine size/type ? Right off your tires are too big and overinflated. Here is an article on alignments. Good read for everyone. By the way, the alignment specs that every says may be good ASSUME that the front end components are tight and in excellent condition. Otherwise you will get tolerance stack. That means that if you have a little play in the idler arm, draglink, inner and outer tire rod ends, upper and lower ball joints etc... A 1/16" here and there can add up to an inch or more total. So before you blame alignment, get your front end in shape. Some cars like some M.B. and B.M.W require a full tank of gas, preloading the suspension to compensate for driver and the use of a "toe" bar to set the toe. This is a spring loaded rod that puts pressure on the front edge of the tire to simulate the tires trying to toe out when moving. Alignments on street cars are "static" which just means the car is not moving.
https://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=4
 
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mbaird said:
I used the Skosh chart Street Performance specs..
I will try the Max Perf. specs and see what that gets me.
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Well, no you didn't exactly. What the guys are telling you is that camber should be NEGATIVE as in this chart, that is with the tops of the tires tilted in. I would want more caster if you can get it.
 
front and rear Hellwig sway bars , std munroe gas shocks , new XHD springs, tire clearance issue is due to the offset of the rims ...tire pressure may have been too high but Chris may have set them before aligning.I will check...

No blame being assessed... just trying different settings to get desired results. Advise is welcome because I know a lot of you guys ( blunblu) have been thru the trial and error
 
The guys who went through the most, were the engineers who designed the car. The farther away from stock specs that you get, the more guessing is involved. The most important component in the suspension is the tire/wheel combination. GO back to a more positive offset wheel and a smaller tire. The 215/70-14 tire is about the tallest tire available in a 14" and was last used on the Ford Ranger Pick-ups. A good size for an E-body but too large on a pre-70 A-body.
 
they may be 205s. ... I will check. working off my poor and getting worse memory...
25" tall...
The car handles way better then factory .
 
MoparLeo said:
The guys who went through the most, were the engineers who designed the car. The farther away from stock specs that you get, the more guessing is involved. The most important component in the suspension is the tire/wheel combination. GO back to a more positive offset wheel and a smaller tire. The 215/70-14 tire is about the tallest tire available in a 14" and was last used on the Ford Ranger Pick-ups. A good size for an E-body but too large on a pre-70 A-body.
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There’s nothing wrong with running a 215/60/14, it’s not “too big”. I usually shoot for a 25.5” to 26” tall tire in the front, and a 215/70/14 fits that bill (~25.9”). Now those slots probably don’t have the right backspace, but that’s a different issue.

As for the factory specs, pretty much everything goes right out the window the moment you bolt on a set of radial tires. The factory alignment specs are wrong for radials, the factory ride height specs no longer give the best suspension geometry, the torsion bars aren’t stiff enough to deal with the additional suspension loads that are imparted by the radials having better traction, etc. The factory specs were ALL for bias ply’s, and the fact that the factory changed all that stuff with later models of cars designed for radials tells you the factory engineers would have done the same thing if they’d designed for radials instead.

It’s not “guessing” either. All of the changes can be predicted by looking at the suspension geometry and accounting for the performance of radial tires.
 
You say it drives and steers well, but doesn't feel as planted as it should. What does that mean?
How do you know what it should feel like?
The very first thing the alignment guy shouldda done was air-up/even-up the tire pressure, and the second would be to assess the ride height.
But what both he and you mighta missed was the incorrect scrub radius with the non stock offset wheels, with the tall tires. That usually conspires to make the car hunt for a line, twitching from side to side, requiring constant steering corrections. My guess is the positive camber is transferring weight off the outside of the tire and easing the hunting.
Wait to get a proper alignment until after you have the correct offset wheels on there,maybe a little lower tire height, and the car a little higher in the rear than the front with the front rideheight reasonably close to the factory height.
I shoot for .5*negative camber, and as much caster as I can get which usually ain't much on a stock A. With modern equipment,and working cams, getting the camber balanced is relatively easy.
Sometimes, depending on application, it is better to sacrifice a little camber to get a little caster. But in your case the tech went to +.5 to get 2.7, and IMO that ain't right, and once you get the car leveled front to rear, that 2.7 is gonna shrink. So I highly recommend the Moog problem-solver bushings.
 
I have problem solvers and adjustablr strut rods... We can get less/more castor and camber . I was hoping for advice as to which way to go to get that heavier feel.
 
mbaird said:
I have problem solvers and adjustablr strut rods... We can get less/more castor and camber . I was hoping for advice as to which way to go to get that heavier feel.
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More positive caster and more negative camber should give a heavier feel. That’s mostly the caster. The negative camber will help the car feel more planted though.

If you lower the front you’ll gain some negative camber with the lowered suspension geometry. As AJ pointed out you’ll lose some positive caster. But if you have the offset bushings you should be able to get +3 to +3.5 for caster. Some people have gotten more, but it depends on ride height and other factors too.
 
mbaird said:
I have problem solvers and adjustablr strut rods... We can get less/more castor and camber . I was hoping for advice as to which way to go to get that heavier feel.
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Oh well in that case, Got power-steering?
Take a trip over to the Mopar dealer and get a package of reaction springs. I think they cost me about $10 in 2002.Take your box apart and add at least two or three of them in the appropriate spot. Shazzam!
 
72bluNblu said:
Here's a calculator that can be used to convert from degrees to inches of toe. Just needs the tire height and the angle for one tire. It assumes they're both the same angle, so in this case I entered .125* because one side was .12* and the other was .13*.
Convert Toe Degrees to Inches
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Thanks for that Blu! That's handy. I did mine the hard way!:lol: I went into my Solidworks CAD software and modeled up my tires, then rotated them to simulate 1/16 per side toe-in, then measured the angle of the modeled tires. I came up with .14 degrees per side, which according to your calculator should give me .060" per side and .120" total toe in. Pretty much right where I wanted to be.
 
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