Was having some clearance issues with my new 18x10 RPF1 wheels and Hoosier A6 tires. All my efforts to dial my camber in my self was getting me no where becouse I kept getting odd results. So I put it on the alignment rack shooting for a front camber of -3.2. We went through the computer process of dialing in the alignment which involved raising the car and setting the.front camber. We dialed it in at L -3.2 / R -3.2 and everything was good. We lowered the car and it shifts to L -4.2 / R -2.2. We raised the car and its -3.2 again, so one more time we dropped the car, rolled it and again the -1 degree offset.

What can cause this and is it normal?

Should we be set the camber in the air to L -2.2 / R -4.2 so that when we lowered the car it would show a final camber at -3.2?

 

Whatever you set the alignment specs to while it is in the air, it will be out when you lower it. Machines don't generally compensate measurements from in air/to on ground. So you'll have to adjust, lower, roll call and check specs. This is what I do atleast.

 

You need to set the camber while the car is on the rack and the suspension is compressed at your desired ride height. Setting the camber in the air will give you different results when the suspension is settled.

 

The tech insisted that the air camber numbers were good and that the ground camber numbers was due to the tire and ect.. Should we have continued to adjust it till the camber read correctly on the sheet? I'm assuming so but I need some comformation so I don't looking like an *** when I go back to use the rack again.

 

The machine I use has the option to freeze the numbers before you lift it then you go from those same numbers when it's up. If the brakes aren't set tight the whole thing is skewed when lift if a wheel spins at all.

 

^ That's pretty much what this rack did. But the final numbers on the ground and on the print out didn't read what I wanted. I guess I'm just gonna try and go back on Monday and try it again. I spent all this money on Hoosiers and I don't want to chew them up on something silly.

 

/\/\/\ this is correct.

 

Werd^. Find a new place to have your car aligned.

 

You'll never get camber in if you lift it to adjust. Adjustment must be made with the cars full weight on the suspension, preferably settled.

 

setting camber with the wheels up is an option on some machines, the operator just has to know how to use it.

 

Why are you raising and lowering the car for camber adjustments?

Do you have camber plates (yes, have to ask)? You should be doing it at the plate...with you in the car.

 

Ranger calls their option,
19. Raised
The Vehicle Raised function acts similar to Super Toe, it
measures change in values allowing adjustments to be
made accurately without the wheels needing to be straight.
Raised can be selected from the Front Axle screen by clicking
Raised or by pressing F4. The screen shown in FIG 19.1
will appear. Lift up the vehicle and click on Raise Finish to
continue.
After Raise Finish is clicked all measurements on the Front
and Rear Axle screens will show the change made to specific
alignment angles.
When finished making adjustments, from the Front Axle
screen click Raised or press F4 again to cancel. Or from the
Rear Axle screen press F4 or click Vehicle Down.

 

Follow up...

But like cfdfireman1 said, the alignment lift was built in with a raised function and that's what we were using. I went back three more times and finally got the camber correct but i do feel like i may need swap in some 3* camber bolts to properly secure it in the future.

Yes Smike i do have camber plates on my coilovers but I'm running a very tight clearance setup with the 285 Hoosiers and in order to prevent Tire to Coilover rubbing i was trying to get the most out of my camber bolts so that i could keep the plate adjustment as far away as practical.

A lot of my clearance issues with my setup were fixed when i raised the car but as for the camber issue i was running into... the problem was we were locking down our lifted camber adjustments with the strut not resting on the camber bolt. We were not getting enough camber simply from turning the bolt and we didn't want to take the plates past -1* so we adjusted the tire's camber by hand. But with a **** poor impact gun and the weight of the car on the strut, the gap would close up between the strut and camber bolt and simply skew the final camber results once the car was sitting level again. Basically we were adjusting the camber off the wrong side of the camber bolts lobe and the natural weight of the car was doing everything it could to correct the action.

With a better impact and an understanding of the issue we were able to figure something out and things are working great. We did have a mishap with camber that caused a little bit of damage but we have it in check for now and plan to fix it permanently with the addition of a -3* camber bolt. I've had two more races with 1st place finishes since this with no further issues.


Some pics of the damage...