Allignment

[89SHOMike]

Does anyone know and/or recommend a good alignment shop for the '89 in the Aurora area. I am willing to travel to anywhere in the Chicago area if the shop will do a good job and not talk to me like I do not know what camber is. I am not looking for a stock alignment. I want to have the shop align the car the way I tell them to. I am looking at -2.5 camber front, -2 camber rear, and probably 0 toe all around. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[SHOZ123]

I take my car to the local Midas and give them the numbers I want. They may object but they always do it. That is in Kankakee.

 

[SHO Type U]

What struts and springs are you using? Using an adjustable camber plate also?

 

[TankII]

Slight (near 0) toe-in in the front, near MAX toe-out in the rear.
Caster/Camber to regular specs.

TankII

 

[DemonNeno]

Does anyone know and/or recommend a good alignment shop for the '89 in the Aurora area. I am willing to travel to anywhere in the Chicago area if the shop will do a good job and not talk to me like I do not know what camber is. I am not looking for a stock alignment.

I don't know about the Aurora area... I'm out in Des Plaines.

I want to have the shop align the car the way I tell them to. I am looking at -2.5 camber front, -2 camber rear, and probably 0 toe all around. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

You're looking at some extreme figures there! I wouldn't push camber any further negative then -1.4 degrees and spread the caster inbetween 0.3-0.5 apart depending on how it drives at higher speeds (does it tend to pull at the top end left/right?)

Increasing caster beyond factory specs will result in poor turn-in steering while reducing it will essentially reduce the cars' wheelbase, with the sacrifice of knocking out the vehicles center of gravity. Around spec figures are recommended, but no higher IMO.

Toe is essential to follow carefully. I don't quite understand the idea behind the NEGATIVE toe the Taurus spec aims for. Torque and a squatting (the rear of the) car will push it further negative. I generally set front total toe on my own car at about 0 if not 0.05" positive rather then -0.10". The rear specs are fine. If anything, the rear seems to get a bit less stable if camber is set to negative. It seems like pushing the negative camber results to narrowing the width of the rear by adding less tire across the ground towards the outside of it.

When I first got my SHO, it had both rear arms bent by a parking horse or something. It seemed as if it must've slipped past someones' attention or they simply didn't desire to fix the bent control arms, so they just set the toe! After driving back from California, when i purchased it, I racked it up at work and took a peek. Viola! After temporarily straighting the control arms, the high speed sway during lane changes lessoned. I took camber up to -1.2 on both sides rather then having it set at -2.3 & -2.7!! OUCH...

Finally, don't expect miracles with these cars. There is absolutely no rear camber adjustment from the OE arms and the toe back there usually has a seized eccentric. Front camber is a 1/2 degree adjustment at most for a vehicle that old, although caster generally isn't an issue. There are adjustment kits available for all three issues possible.

SHO Nut Performance offers a adjustable tension strut to allow up to 2 degrees of caster.

Find yourself 4 adjustable rear GTP control arms and grab reducing sleeves from SHO Nut Performance to have a fully adjustable and painless rear Camber AND toe adjustment. This is a INCREDIBLE mod that's worth every cent for the adjustment available!

Lastly, get to Pro Suspension to get yourself additional front camber. This is a strut mount mod, meaning the front struts have to come out for this. It's WORTH it!! I've had to settle with some rather crummy results in the past because the OE camber adjustment is very little.

Hope this helps!

 

[TankII]

Neno, I run -4.1 Caster front BOTH sides in the front. Can't adjust it any less on one side, so I asked them to make it the same both sides. -1.0 Camber, I believe, .10 total toe front, -.10 total toe rear.

I have the specs I gave them the last time in the car. Maybe at lunchtime I'll get them and pass them on.

TankII

P.S. We just closed on a house with a Garage, so the Red '91+ you saw in '98 when we were still in KY should get better protection from the CT winters!

 

[shojuan]

Slight (near 0) toe-in in the front, near MAX toe-out in the rear.
Caster/Camber to regular specs.

TankII

That's nuts! There should be ABSOLUTELY NO toe-out in the rear. Rear should have a very slight amount of toe-in. Zero toe would be alright but the least bit of toe-out in the rear is just asking for nasty surprises. A slight amount of toe-in in the rear helps straight line stability, so it is desireable. -1.0 camber in the rear would be fine for the street. For the street it's ok for the rear to have more negative camber than the front without causing excessive wear.

For the front zero or a slight amount of toe-out is good. During travel the front suspension tends to pull the tires towards toe-in. That's why the factory specs a little toe-out in the front. Sure, a little toe-in in the front will improve straight line stability...at the expense of steering response and increased tire wear. The car will feel as dead as grampy's caddy when you *try* to show off your car's handling moves. More than a little toe-out up front increases steering response tremendously but makes the car very "twitchy". Think of a fighter jet. Aerodynamically they are unstable. That's why they're so maneuverable. But they got fancy flight systems to compensate. A SHO has it's driver and that's it, so more than a smidge of toe-out up front is something best left for the track by people who know what they're doing. How much negative camber you can run up front without causing a lot of tire wear depends on the particular car: newness and type of front suspension components, and also the model tires. Anything under -1.0 camber up front should be ok for most folks without having tire wear problems. Some folks can get away with more...say -1.3 or so. It's fairly common for folks who autocross their SHO's to set more negative camber up front for an event, more than -2.0. And then back down after the event. Same for some guys during track events. Obviously these folks do their own alignments.

Front caster should always be positive for a SHO. More positive gives more straight line stability at the expense of a heavier steering wheel. I (and many others) run the most positive caster I can get by pulling the subframe as far foward as it will go. I've never had troubles or complaints with my steering being too heavy. The max possible front caster naturally available on our cars is quite safe.

Again, under no circumstances should there be toe-out in the back. You do NOT want to experience the rear end trying to steer all by itself without help from you. And that's what toe-out back there will do...on any car. Toe out makes a car want to turn even more so when the car starts to change direction from straight ahead (say like going over a bump....no help from you to cause the car to turn!) Up front you've got the steering wheel to compensate for steering changes when going over bumps. You have no control over the rear when it decides to steer itself. There are very, VERY few cars that specify toe-out in the rear and that's because they have suspensions that tends to toe-in under motion. The toe-out is to counteract this. The SHO is not one of these cars. Just the opposite. A slight bit of toe-in in the rear to compensate for a tendency towards a bit of toe-out under motion.

 

[TankII]

Sorry, I got a look at the spec sheet in the car.
+4.1 Caster, not negative. Near neutral camber (-.1.3 total) in the front.

The toe-in/toe-out:

Let's just say my source for THAT spec is a highly respected SHO person's spec. And it worked for me - I stopped all tire squealing in the corners.


BTW, with my Konis, sway bar combo, and this alignment spec, I CAN set up the car to rotate a bit at an autocross. However, at speed with my Konis set up in 'Street' form, it is completely neutral (As attested to by me getting into a corner WAY hot and doing a 4-wheel drift into the next lane)

It has never gotten loose on me in the snow, even with mostly bald Blizzaks in the rear.

TankII

 

[shojuan]

The Helms manual defines toe-in as being a positive value and toe-out as being a negative value, however some people seem to show toe-in as a negative number and toe-out as a positive number. This is a source of consfusion and why all the good texts on performance suspension don't use negative numbers with toe, instead always noting whether a value is toe-in or toe-out. Now the longer of the three articles that Gary Morrell submitted on shotimes seems to be a victim of this same confusion. IMHO that page needs a re-edit to makes things clear so folks won't go and do the opposite. Most of that page is taking negative numbers to be toe-in and but still manages to suggest that toe-in is a positive value (which is what the factory Helms manual defines) in a place or two. Since that page lists the factory nominal, min, and max specs complete with positive and negative values, it's important to stick to the factory convention which that article doesn't do! It's important to be clear about it too. There is a lot of good info on that page but it really needs a re-edit for consistancy and so folks don't confuse the numbers. The various authors certainly seem to be confusing each other.

TankII, it's very well possible that your alignment guy's toe notation is opposite what the Helm's manual uses which would change the meaning:

Neno, I run -4.1 Caster front BOTH sides in the front. Can't adjust it any less on one side, so I asked them to make it the same both sides. -1.0 Camber, I believe, .10 total toe front, -.10 total toe rear.

So the .10 total toe front would be .10 total toe-out and the rear would have .10 total toe in. Opposite how the helms describes. Now, if it is indeed the case that you truly do how toe-out in the rear then you within spec, albeit barely within the minimum (toe-out), if and only if the toe numbers you have are measured in degrees. The spec allows .12 degrees toe-out in the rear (listed as -0.12 degrees in the 89 specs and -0.13 degrees in the 94 spec). With harder bushings the tendancy for the rear to toe-out is lessened so that's another consideration. The spec considers the bushings to be stock. If your numbers are in inches then you are out of spec in the rear; the inch equivalent for the allowable toe-out limit in the rear is 0.06" total (again, Helms lists this as -0.062" or -0.060" depending on the year). The inch values assume the stock tire diameter measuring the tire front and back level with the center of the hub. Measuring at the rim, the hub, or with nonstock tire diameter (like a 225/45-17, an inch less diameter than stock) the inch measurements need to be converted with the formula Ta/Da=Tb/Db where Da is the stock tire diameter, Ta is the toe spec at that diameter in inches, Db is a non-stock measuring diameter, and Tb is the toe in inches at that diameter. Use millimeters if you like. As long as Ta and Tb use the same units and Da and Db use the same units you're fine, just don't get confused, especially if you're converting measurements or specs from inches or mm. The advantage of angular specs is they don't change if you change your tire diameters or the location of where you are taking the measurements.

As long as somebody knows the difference between toe-in and toe-out it's always easy to know what is meant when somebody says X degrees or inches toe-in and Y degrees or inches toe out and it would be best if everybody did that. Unfortunately the Helms does not so it's important to keep in mind that they mean something like -0.031" toe to read 1/32" toe-out and +0.062" total toe to read 1/16" total toe-in.

I really don't want people to be confused about these things and there's no reason that it should be confusing. Toe is easy to measure and to change. But it's the most important alignment setting and it's easy to get things mixed up when people get to talking, measuring, or writing. When talking stick to the same conventions or know how to recognize and adjust for different conventions or points of possible confusion. When measuring write down your measuring conventions and write down all your measurements. When writing stay consistant and watch out for potential points of confusion. Hey, I'm guilty of not doing these things and to make matters worse I tend to be overly verbose when I write. I'll write a lot without saying much and tax the attention span of many. However, as I said toe is an important measurement and I don't want people to get confused about it when making alignment changes or giving specs to somebody else who is going to make changes. When I get the time I'm going to make a chart of the alignment specs, sticky it, and hopefully not confuse folks in the process. Then when I get more time I'll add some commentary of why the stock specs are what they are and what's good about that; why it's bad for most to go away from the specs; why some do and what they are hoping to gain from it.....and hopefully not confuse folks in the process. I don't expect any of it to be news to the more seasoned folks who are familiar with their alignment settings. I suppose I could just add it to the alignment thread I stickied a couple years ago. But that's more of a how-to discussion and I think a what-to sticky having the factory specs and definitions in an easy to find chart will be handy to many, perhaps even some of those seasoned folks. Besides, a chart will be handy for me if I misplace my notebook and the explanations will come in handy when I forget all this stuff.