Motorsport Wheel Alignment: Step 5: Perform Alignment
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Step 5: Perform Alignment
02.39
| 00:00 | - In step 5, we're ready to go ahead and make our alignment changes. |
| 00:03 | The order we do things here is important to take note of. |
| 00:07 | The first thing to deal with is the caster as it tends to have a lot of flow on effects to the rest of the wheel alignment. |
| 00:13 | We already know the caster we have currently. |
| 00:15 | And as this car has adjustments on both points on the front lower control arm, we need to decide how to make use of these as they both affect our camber and our caster simultaneously to some extent. |
| 00:27 | The front adjuster is more dominant for adjusting camber and the rear more dominant for adjusting the caster. |
| 00:34 | One thing to mention here, in addition to keeping track of the set down and set up values, I like to record the values I measure in order as I go. |
| 00:42 | This helps me keep track of where I started and how much change I'm getting in each step. |
| 00:46 | This can be really valuable to do this so I recommend doing it as well. |
| 00:51 | Using the rear adjusted for both sides, I've got the caster where I want it with 6.5° on both sides of the front axle. |
| 00:58 | Caster can be a bit time consuming as we need to rotate the wheels and zero the caster gauge for each measurement. |
| 01:04 | But it's worth setting as accurately as possible. |
| 01:07 | Now we're ready to set our toe and camber.. |
| 01:10 | These tend to affect each other, meaning making a camber change will often result in a toe change. |
| 01:15 | This means it becomes an iterative process, going around a loop of camber and toe. |
| 01:20 | Some suspensions are more sensitive than others. |
| 01:23 | However you'll start to zero in on the settings you want pretty quickly and the closer you get the less these settings will affect each other. |
| 01:31 | On this RX7, we can adjust the position of the lower control arms to change the camber with the forward eccentricc bolts. |
| 01:38 | Having the car set up on platforms is helpful in this case as we don't have to jack the car up to make our camber changes. |
| 01:45 | We can just lie directly underneath the car. |
| 01:47 | Now measure the new toe settings, record them and adjust the steering arms as required. |
| 01:53 | Because the steering rack is in front of the wheels, when we increase the camber, we end up with toe in as a result of our adjustment. |
| 02:00 | As you gain more experience, you'll start to anticipate how much you need to compensate the toe for for a given camber change for your car. |
| 02:08 | Once the toe is set to target, recheck the cambers and record them. |
| 02:12 | At this point we're just moving iteratively, repeating the loop of checking and setting the camber and toe on the front axle until we reach our targets. |
| 02:20 | The rear of the car is a little simpler but the idea is the same. |
| 02:24 | Just checking and setting camber and toe until we get to our targets. |
| 02:28 | The camber is set with the eccentric bolt on the inner point of the lower control arm and the toe with a short adjustable link in front of the wheel. |
