(Dunno if this should be in this forum, the auto-x forum or whatever...)
I had my car checked for alignment with and without me in the driver's seat and also noted the corner weights.
* The toe is way off up front with one aboard
* The camber goes positive with me aboard...not good.
* Caster was okay.
* Rear Toe is too high, Rear camber a bit too high.
* Corner weights show the expected left side bias and some potential to get things right since they are not too far off. The car weight came out higher than expected but that can also be scale related and the main thing there (as with dynos) is that things repeat so that when you get the corner weights set you know you are "there".
Now that I see the alignment numbers I can see a number of obvious areas for improvement. Lotus Elise camber/caster is set via shims. I will guess at how many shims to change/remove before getting the alignment rechecked. That way I can see how much things changed via the shimming and will know for example that camber changes about x degrees per shim of Y thickness. My uprights have about 5 shims apiece presently. So I can further fine tune as required and can gain much more negative camber. I want to wind up with the same camber on each side with me aboard and with a favorable amount that is still streetable. Caster is about right up front so only the front and rear camber need to be tweaked, especially the front. Then the toe can be set. I'd like to have zero up front and a bit less toe in out back. Then toe can be set at an event if desired since I will have the car measured to see how much, say, a half turn of a front tie rod changes the toe. For auto-x maybe an 1/8 or so toe out might be a nice setup but this has not yet been tested.
On the chart below, note that the "Before" figures are for the car alone. And the "Actual" figures are for the car plus me sitting in it.
I had my car checked for alignment with and without me in the driver's seat and also noted the corner weights.
* The toe is way off up front with one aboard
* The camber goes positive with me aboard...not good.
* Caster was okay.
* Rear Toe is too high, Rear camber a bit too high.
* Corner weights show the expected left side bias and some potential to get things right since they are not too far off. The car weight came out higher than expected but that can also be scale related and the main thing there (as with dynos) is that things repeat so that when you get the corner weights set you know you are "there".
Now that I see the alignment numbers I can see a number of obvious areas for improvement. Lotus Elise camber/caster is set via shims. I will guess at how many shims to change/remove before getting the alignment rechecked. That way I can see how much things changed via the shimming and will know for example that camber changes about x degrees per shim of Y thickness. My uprights have about 5 shims apiece presently. So I can further fine tune as required and can gain much more negative camber. I want to wind up with the same camber on each side with me aboard and with a favorable amount that is still streetable. Caster is about right up front so only the front and rear camber need to be tweaked, especially the front. Then the toe can be set. I'd like to have zero up front and a bit less toe in out back. Then toe can be set at an event if desired since I will have the car measured to see how much, say, a half turn of a front tie rod changes the toe. For auto-x maybe an 1/8 or so toe out might be a nice setup but this has not yet been tested.
On the chart below, note that the "Before" figures are for the car alone. And the "Actual" figures are for the car plus me sitting in it.
