ketsup

i went off at sows and knocked my alignment out of place a few months back. before the OTE the specs i had were:
(note: my car is 100% stock)

front:
camber - 2.4
caster - 6.5
toe in 1/16" total

i went back to westend (darin) to have it realigned. i lost .15 from my passenger side front wheel which took the impact so it went from -2.4 to -2.25. everything else went back into place. i didn't really worry about it since it wasn't such a big loss. but i recently went back a couple weeks ago and asked for my personal specs which was to max out front/rear camber, caster, and 0 toe.

now my alignment looks like this:
camber driver side -2.4 passenger side 2.15
caster 7
toe 0

i lost another .1 degree. i thought i maybe lost the .1 because i added more caster but my driver side is still able to get -2.4 and my passenger side lost more camber?

he said it might be a bent knuckle.

the order im going to try to fix it in is:
knuckle
lower A arm
upper A arm

any suggestions?

krazik

yes you lost the camber because you set the caster up more. I deally you want to set max camber first then max out whatever caster you can get.

I don't know if I'd buy a knuckle/upright for .1-.2 deg.

mikegarrison

Typical for the driver's side to have more available static camber (assuming you are doing the alignment with weight in the driver's seat).

rlaifatt

I'd think anything over 2.0 for stock is great. As for the loss, that is minimal and unless everything else is equal (caster, toe, tire pressures, weight, settling the suspension before readings, the calibration of the alignment equipment and the lift hasn't changed at all since the previous alignments, and the actual attachment site of equipment on the rims) since the previous alignments, I wouldn't consider this minor change significant. If you decide to replace anything, the likely part to bend would be the lower arm, but there is no guarantee that the replacement arm would get more than 2.15 or back to your original 2.4 due to variation, IMHO. Other possibility is a bent rim, which affects alignment since the alignment equipment attaches to the rim. I don't think most rims are perfectly flat (outside plane), at least not those that are tracked much (run out of mine are all off some), so there will always be some variation between measurements depending on where the stuff is attached on the rim.

alvanderp

I dont know how often you track your car, but some of the camber loss could be due to the rear compliance bushing in the LCA wearing out as well. I've found that I am down a couple tenths on each side from when the car was brand new after a full season of auto-x and track events on R tires. There is visible wear on that bushing on both sides(starting to see small cracks), and it will likely only get worse over time. I will likely replace the arms prior to Solo Nats to get the camber back.

It would be nice to be able to put an aftermarket replacement in there, but I need to stay stock legal. That thing is begging for a spherical bearing though.

cthree

check your lower arm bushings. Loss of camber adjustment is a symptom of broken bushings.

rlaifatt

It's a new car that experienced a minor off, so I doubt the bushings are bad. My guess it's either natural vaiation between measurements for the reasons I listed earlier, or it's a very, very , minor bend in the lower arm or the wheel, in any event not worth worrying about.

I would guess that in an asymmetrically weighted car like the S, the differences in camber change in equal right and left turns are more than that .25* here. (Though in an asymmetric car like ours I'm not sure which side you'd prefer to have more camber if any). In a symmetrical formula car you might detect a difference. Just my opinion, no data.

ketsup

my off was kind of bad, my radiator support got bent back a little, about an inch (just got a winch and pulled it forward again) and rocks stuck in the bead of the passenger front and rear wheels.

i hope it's just a bushing that's messed up instead of the knuckle or a arms.

rlaifatt

Replacing the stock lower bushing requires replacing the whole arm anyway, unless you replace both sides with aftermarket harder bushings (more expensive?).

I say it's not worth remedying anyway. You could check the run out of the rim by jacking up that corner and placing a stationary object right up against the edge of the rim and rotate it. If the rim is bent then that is the likely source of the changing camber measurement. I wouldn't worry about it but you could choose to replace it.