Top notch write-up and attention to detail as usual, 03whitegsr. I'll have to look into the Longacre digital toe gauge, because my cheap Amazon special angle gauge isn't as precise nor repeatable as I'd like, although it's probably good enough.

You guys just need to convince your friend to sit in the front seat and whole the steering wheel like I did. Actually my true motivation with that was to have some weight in the driver's seat to set the alignment with my equivalent body weight in the driver's seat. That said, I'm not convinced it made much of a difference. Perhaps next time I'll actually put grease between the floor tiles instead of salt to reduce the friction further and see if that improves anything. I really like not having to clean up grease, though.

 

I hated cleaning up the salt that didn't really work that great, and would get all inside of my clothes anyway. The ball bearing things I posted are a must have if you use plates to shim them. I like 03's idea about building up something so you can get under there easier, but once you have done it a few times, you don't need to see the bolts anymore. You can reach everything from the car being on the pavement. I have done this dozens of times now. If you can use squares like I did and the bearing pot spinning thing sandwiched between its super easy for the wheels to adjust and defeat the bushing tension.

 

Even with someone holding the steering wheel I still struggled keeping it perfectly straight. The super quick steering rack of our cars exaggerates a slightly off steering wheel and makes it pretty tricky to get it perfectly straight. That's why I think rigging up something to keep the wheel locked with absolutely no movement is the way to go.

How important is it to get "slippage" under the wheels? I used plastic sheeting under all 4 tires and after making adjustments bounced the suspension up and down to help get it in its true position. My current setup worked OK but I want to have a better method come spring time when I put back on my real suspension.

As for getting under the car with it on the ground, yes it was doable but this was at stock ride height. Now my car isnt some hellaflsuh no finger wheel gap stance nation ride but its probably ~2" lower so I think I may have issues getting under there in the future.

 

my experience of chasing my tail doing this when I did it the first few times, was because the rubber tires on the concrete, and rubber bushings in the suspension would effectively preload my tiny adjustments. Nothing would happen, so I would make a bigger one, then a little more then wiggle and pull on the tire, then beat on it, then pop; it would adjust. Crap too far, OK got back, nothing, a little more, nothing, etc.

I was always loading up the rubber, because the friction of the tire, or the tension int he bushings would store up that little tiny adjustment. Once I got the bearing plates, that all stopped. I would make a tiny adjustment in toe, and just tap the tire with my fist and it was settled.

I found this particularly useful in the rear toe setup. Something about those bushing and leverage point of where you adjust making it harder to control.

I never did anything about the steering wheel. It was always off so I ignored it, but you do need to at least lock it, otherwise your adjustments are just turning it in the cab. It got so off at one point that it bugged me enough and a took the wheel off and moved it a tooth. That was easier, and lucky enough made it perfect.

 

Maybe my plastic sheeting worked well then as I dont think I had issues with stored energy like you mentioned.

As to taking off the steering wheel you may want to rethink that. From what I've read that is not the right way to straighten the wheel and has an impact on your suspension geometry. I'll wait for someone far more knowledgeable than me to go into that. What I do know if that is not the right way to do it.

 

That may be true if you have the tie rod ends really uneven and you correct by resetting the wheel. I actually replaced the tie rod ends with the whiteline ones from the Roll Center Kit. I did not match the thread count on the existing ones I took, (so that alignment would be more or less good to go, I decided to set them at nearly even thread markings, so that geometry would be even, or throw amount the same, and not care about the wheel. Then it didn't really move the wheel much, but I decided I eventually wanted to straighten the wheel. At the same time I bought a new wheel from a forum member because mine was coming unraveled at the edges. When I put the replacement on I click it over one tooth. perfect.

All that to say, I think you are correct, you don't use it as a correction mechanism, but since everything changed that issue was covered by the new tie rod ends.

I think I drove for 3 years with that thing just off center a bit. I am so OCD I don't know how I did that!

 

Ok good to know. I didn't mean to call you out or anything, I was just trying to help. An uneven wheel drived me crazy. Daily driving the car its OK however when Im racing, it just throws everything off. I recall the backend stepping out and when I counter steered I ended up over correcting due to the crooked wheel. This was during an auto-x so its not like it caused me to crash or anything but the mistake cost me .5 seconds thus a wasted run.

From here on out I've learned that I can't simply deal with a crooked wheel. The thought of it keeps me up at night

 

call ME out. hahaha. no no, I just was giving you my excuses. You know, like all good race car drivers. I've got tons of them. By the way if you don't already use it I highly recommend the Roll Center Correction Kit. I imagine for autocross its even more dramatic. I found it most transforming for street driving, and less so on track. Not sure I have a scientific reason why, but I think its speed related, so my guess would be for autocross it would be awesome.

 

Haha race car drivers...the track was damp, my tire pressures were too high/low etc.

Yeah Ive got the RCC installed on my car finally. Had a blast cutting up my subframe and control arm. I cannot comment on its effectiveness though as I did it along with other various bushings and coilovers. I wish you luck with the car

Now Im on a mission to determine a quick and efficient way to level my garage for my next alignment. I've watched the water bucket leveling videos in the past so ill have to take another peak and come up with something that will allow me to adjust accordingly as well as get my vehicle off the ground.

 

I used the water bucket and jack thing when I did it. Its very accurate. I then use those 1/4 inch boards that were in my thread for that. I only did it with a 1/4 but that is pretty exact. I need 6 in the rear and 2 in the front (5 and 1 on the other side) so the garage slopes for run off an inch from front tire to rear, which is about half the distance of the total length. I also drew squares on the floor with the number of plates so I don't need to remember or reference anything. Park on them, in them, and the jack up slide the plates under and its perfect each time for setup. That board is in Home Depot for like 6 bucks a 4x8 sheet, and they will cut it into 1x1 squares for you. Couldn't be easier.




Coilovers will likely be next. Did you start cooking wheel bearings when you got coil overs? Affording Ohlins, R&T, which seems to be the choice is causing a delay. 3k. yikes.

 

Good to know you had success with the water bucket leveling strategy. I may have some spare time this weekend for me to attempt to level out my garage and tweak my latest alignment.

I haven't cooked any wheel bearings to date, knock on wood. I've only run street tires up to this point so it may npt be as much of an issue in my case. I'd imagine once you add into the equation sticky rubber and low offset wheels it will become more of an issue. Where have you seen that adding coilovers promotes wheel bearing failure?

Good luck with the coilover hunt and don't settle. If you have your heart set on Ohlins then be patient and something will turn up eventually. I wanted a set of R&T DFV's and I ended up finding a set on here used for 100 miles. They looked mint and I got them for a great price. Your patience will pay off in the long run.

 

Do you daily drive the R&T's?
I got coil overs for my wrx wagon many years ago, and that was the beginning of the end. That and R compounds happened about the same time, but it could corner impressively, and therefore it cooked its wheels bearings pretty regularly. There was also great breaking with aggressive pads that added tons of heat to the setup I suspect.

 

Guess I forgot to put it on my original post, but yeah, I through some bags of concrete in the driver's seat to match my weight while doing the alignment. I agree, is not significant on the impact it will have on the alignment. But in my opinion, it's $10 in concrete and plastic sheeting... Why not.

I also did a pseudo corner balance though. Measured spring free length and length with the car on the ground. I use hyperco and swift springs and both are supposed to be very predictable on rate. It came out very close to equal on side to side weights and matched the f/r bias the car is supposed to have. It will be interesting to see if it's closer on some real scales.

That is actually my next project, home made corner scales...

 

Interesting. Do you plan on repurposing some other scales, or are thinking about building your own scales with some load cells?

 

I will be daily driving on them except for the winter months. I got them late in the season but couldnt resist not putting them on so I did and put them through 2 auto-x's and about a month of DD until I pulled them off.

Subarus are notorious for cooking wheel bearings. Their factory wheels have a really high offset and when people put on aftermarket wheels they prematurely kill bearing. The evos killing bearings seem to be due to the heat from tracking their cars so I wouldnt be a good test subject at this point since I only auto-x right now.

Come spring time when I do my real alignment I will be adding in something to compensate for my weight although Ill prob just be use plates from my work out bench since I already have them
That is pretty interesting the way you did it. I know when I put on my coilovers and had my alignment guy dial it in I choose to have him corner balance the car as well. The ride height looked pretty even side to side but when I removed my coilovers I noticed that the passenger side was lower by ~1". Were you simply trying to match ride height side to side?

I labeled my coilovers when I took them off since they were corner balanced however I think Im gunna be upping the rates. This leaves me with a decision whether I should leave them as is, try and rough the corner weights using some sort of systematic approach like you just described or pay my guy to corner balance it again.