stevef

iTrader: (4)

Hey guys, I just adjusted the ride height on my coilovers and when I went to do the alignment, my right rear couldn't go past -.6* of camber. The left rear will go all the way to -2.5* though. The car is only lowered a half inch from stock all around. Anybody have any thoughts as to why this is happening? I looked over all the suspension and nothing is very obviously bent or broken. i checked the bushing in the lower control arm and it is still good. Any input is appreciated. my car is an '05 btw.
thanks
-Len

porsherules911

iTrader: (82)

umm sounds like they don't know what they are doing.

stevef

iTrader: (4)

Like I said, I am doing the alignment. I work at a bmw dealership and I'm using the alignment rack there.

porsherules911

iTrader: (82)

gotcha. well since I don't do my own alignments I wouldn't know the exact process behind it but maybe your doing something wrong. Hopefully somebody can chime in and help u out.

fugiwara

iTrader: (124)

First of all you didn't state clearly you work at bmw dealer and you work on your own alignment, this is what you said "I just adjusted the ride height on my coilovers and when I went to do the alignment"

I can tell you that you Probably don't know what you are doing then if you are working on your own alignment.

I took my car to a so called "All about alignment" shop near me, all they do it alignment, and after they did my car (stock suspension) the guy told me my rear driver side is toe out and rear passenger side is toe in and he said he rain our of adjustment on my toe!

Another time, it was my first evo, I had lower spring and I took the car to STS and one side of my front strut has more camber than the other side and the mechanic told me it needs camber kit for just that one side, and I realized he didn't know what he was doing either, b/c all he had to do is turn the camber bolt, b/c evo's front camber bolt allow 2 setting.

Now I have robispec setup on my evo, and I told him about the alignment shop ran out of toe adjustment, when Robi looked at it, he told me there is still room for toe adjustment.

looks like your case is very similar to my previous experiences

a lot of alignment shop don't know what they are doing!

stevef

iTrader: (4)

Ummm... Wow, its pretty amazing how you're just psychic and can tell people exactly what is happening while not being any closer than 500 miles. And im talking about the rear btw. which is clearly stated in the first post. if you have nothing constructive to say, don't say anything at all.

Can someone with half a brain for actually working on these cars and enough taste to just make a polite suggestion please chime in if you have experienced something similar. This is why I am asking questions on a forum. If there is a camber adjustment to make other than the eccentric on the inside of the LCA, could somebody point it out?

chu

iTrader: (72)

Quit posting in a thread unless you have a good answer to help to the op. Blaming the guy for not knowing is pointless.

And stop comparing Robi, or whoever, to your local alignment shop. Robi is a specialist in his field, and know the Evo suspension like the back of his hand. Unless the local alignment shop is a specialty center, dont go throwing specs at them, and hope they figure it out. You also dont pay them "Robi" prices, do you?

Sorry for the rant, but I'm sick of useless posts with no definite answer...this one included. Let's offer some real help guys!

With that...how are you going about adjusting for rear camber? I'm not sure if there are essentric bolts in the rear suspension, but I do believe rear camber is adjust via the trailng arm bolt. Anyone want to chime in on that? Once the camber is set, make sure you zero out the toe so that its not all whacky.

xtnct

iTrader: (33)

The first time I had to mess with my rear alignment was in my garage using handheld camber gauge and toe plates. What a PITA!!!! I think I raised and lowerd the car about 50 times and it took 3 hours.

The thing I learned is that in the rear, if you change the camber the toe gets screwed up. If you change the toe, the camber gets screwed up. I forgot the details of the relationship, but I basically worked out how much change in one changed the other. This helped a lot.

If I set camber to what I wanted, I could not get the toe I needed. Anyway, here is what you need to do:

1) try to set bolts in rear to be the same - by that, just align the bolts & washers so they are mirror images of each other. Try to set it 0 camber and 0 toe but make sure to compare the camber and toe bolts from side to side to try and eyeball them to be about equal (ie, mirror images from side to side)

2) If you need to make 1/8 change in toe, don't do it on one side. Do 1/16 on one wheel, then 1/16 on the other. Then go back and fix camber on both wheels.

3) Repeat #2 in small increments. Don't go giving one wheel -1.5 chamber, then the other, and try to fix the toe. This may not work.

I think what happend in your case you set one wheel to what you wanted, fixed the toe using up all available movement of that one wheel, but needed more so you took some toe adjustment from the other wheel, and now you don't have enough play to fix the camber on the remaining wheel.

I assume you must of gone to -1.5 or so on that one wheel. Go back and set it to -1. fix the toe using the wheel that can't go past -.6, and watch the camber adjustment come back magically...

Let me know if this works for you... it did for me. I wanted -1.5 but ended up only getting about -1.2 on both rear wheels as the max.

stevef

iTrader: (4)

Ok, thanks. I'll try that. But just as an extra little note, I had the left side at - 1.5 when I tried to set the right side and maxed it out early. Then after tightening that, I was able to max out the left side at -2.6. so i set the left side to-.5(and re-adjusted toe) just so they were even to drive home on and the right side remained the same.

I'll let you know if it makes any difference to adjust them together, little by little.

griceiv

iTrader: (2)

do you have a bump steer correction kit installed?

and have you reset the toe to your target before taking the final camber measurement. the rear camber if very sensitive to toe angle.

stevef

iTrader: (4)

Nope, no bump steer correction kit. Would that help with the camber adjustment? I thought the bump steer correction kit replaces the toe adjustment bolt bushing. This is all voodoo to me, I have never experienced a car where toe angle affects camber. I have only seen camber affect toe. but I'll try resetting it all and starting over.

Can somebody explain why this happens? I have trouble visualizing why it would work that way in my head.

griceiv

iTrader: (2)

the rear suspension has TONS of caster.

stevef

iTrader: (4)

But caster isn't even a measurement or applicable to rear suspension

stevef

iTrader: (4)

So, as i suspected. Upon trying to realign the car, toe did NOT affect camber. As is on any and every car I've ever aligned. But what I did do, as nothing more than an arbitrary fix to an arbitrary problem, was swap the right and left lower control arms because they are the same. Upon doing this, the right side was able to crank out to -.8. Still not quite as much as I was hoping for, but I'll take it. Set the left side to match and aligned the rest of the car.

cfdfireman1

iTrader: (11)

Toe in the rear will change the camber some. Was the car ever in an accident? Are you the first owner? You may even have a bent wheel.