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Old 10-09-2004, 04:52 PM   #11
nhluhr
Scooby Guru
 
Member#: 7327
Join Date: Jun 2001
Chapter/Region: NWIC
Location: Seattle, WA
Vehicle:
2008 Mazdaspeed3
2006 Wrangler Sport

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Quote:
Originally Posted by evorev
okay, so camber then toe... got it.

right now my car pulls slightly to the right even on perfectly level ground. would this be adjusted by changing the toe?
If it's pulling slightly to the right, first verify that it's doing this on perfectly flat ground as well - most roads have a crown which will cause a perfectly aligned car to gently drift to the right.

If it's not the problems that 2Stroke mentioned, then it is most likely a difference in camber or caster. Generally, you will have slightly more positive caster on the right front wheel (to keep the car going straight on a crowned road) and the camber will be equal. You won't be able to adjust camber and caster very accurately without somewhat specialized tools but they are usually fairly affordable if you get modest ones.

Toe is easy to measure and easy to adjust. There are two very simple home-brew ways to measure it accurately. The first is a home-built trammel bar (Click Here) and the second is just a simple pair of flat 25" plywood squares and a tape measure:


Both of these techniques are very inexpensive and totally accurate. If you want to get a nicer tool prebuilt, you can spend about $90 on the Longacre Racing Toe Gauge from www.pegasusautoracing.com.

An inexpensive Camber gauge can be purchased (Click Here), but you can also use one of those 25" squares from your toe measurement to get a good camber measurement. All you need now is a ruler that has small divisions on it (1/16 or smaller would be nice) and a string and plumb-bob on it. Drape the string over the top edge of the board and let the plumbbob hit the ground at the base of the board... the distance between the center of the bob and the inside edge of the board can be used to calculate your camber angle with a little simple trigonometry:



If you want to buy a single tool to measure camber and caster, pegasusautoracing and summitracing sell a bubble-level based caster/camber gauge that magnets onto your lugnuts and is pretty easy to use.

Beyond simple camber and toe adjustments, you will also find another important adjustment in the rear thrust angle. If you can imagine that both rear wheels are turned 2 degrees to the right, the toe measurement will come out 0 (since it's the difference between front and rear distance on both wheels) but the wheels are pointing right, which will cause the rear end of your car to go to the right while driving.... the result is you will be going down the road sideways (with your wheel turned slightly to the right to compensate). This wears tires and is fairly easy to diagnose and adjust from the symptoms. If you camber, caster, and toe are all correct then it's probably thrust angle.

Also, you should be aware that toe is what causes MOST tire wear. Camber has a relatively small effect on tire wear especially on street-driven camber settings. Having toe is like dragging your tire sideways down the road as you drive which you can imagine is very high-wearing. Always adjust toe last because it changes significantly with just about every other adjustment you make. Also, if you measure pos or neg toe, make sure you adjust both wheels equally to prevent accumulating a thrust angle or off-center steering wheel.

If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask.


zomba_830: why are you even here? You clearly don't have any technical advice for the guy. He's asking for technique, willing to learn, and can probably be taught to do it right. Are you saying he's too dumb to learn how to do it correctly? If you don't want to post useful information then leave and never come back.
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