alignment specialist, please help

[tonywham]

Just put on Ohlins RT coilovers, set it at very moderate drop (1" f 0.5" r) and went for an alignment today. The technician at the shop said the suspension on rear tire on the passenger side had some problems. When he tried to adjust the toe on that tire by turning the cam bolt, he can't dial the toe even close to the specification (about 0.08 degree toe out). He doesn't know why but suspected there might be something wrong with the cam bolt or the knuckle. Everything else was dialed spot on. Any alignment specialist out here? Any idea about why? Any input will be appreciated.

[Ant_tc]

That much of a drop should be able to align back to factory specs for camber/toe without a problem. I'm sure the tech should know this but I'll ask anyway, does he know there's 2 separate cam bolts for adjustments? In my pic, top circle adjusts toe and bottom circle adjusts camber.

[tonywham]

Originally Posted by mrxant

That much of a drop should be able to align back to factory specs for camber/toe without a problem. I'm sure the tech should know this but I'll ask anyway, does he know there's 2 separate cam bolts for adjustments? In my pic, top circle adjusts toe and bottom circle adjusts camber.

Thanks for your input. And he was questioning that the cam bolt in the top circle has some problems. He can adjust the camber to the specifics. The alignment tech is very knowledge and trustable, but I think I will take the car to another shop just to check.

[Hellkite]

Originally Posted by tonywham

Just put on Ohlins RT coilovers, set it at very moderate drop (1" f 0.5" r) and went for an alignment today. The technician at the shop said the suspension on rear tire on the passenger side had some problems. When he tried to adjust the toe on that tire by turning the cam bolt, he can't dial the toe even close to the specification (about 0.08 degree toe out). He doesn't know why but suspected there might be something wrong with the cam bolt or the knuckle. Everything else was dialed spot on. Any alignment specialist out here? Any idea about why? Any input will be appreciated.

You need rear toe bars. Your alinement guy is right. My car was like that. As you lower the car the factory rod levels out changing the distance. Dinan also makes a set of rear toe rods because even if u use his fake coil over kit u will need toe rods. If you have wider then stock tires it's needed even more so, the rear of the car starts to duck walk.

[tonywham]

Originally Posted by Hellkite

You need rear toe bars. Your alinement guy is right. My car was like that. As you lower the car the factory rod levels out changing the distance. Dinan also makes a set of rear toe rods because even if u use his fake coil over kit u will need toe rods. If you have wider then stock tires it's needed even more so, the rear of the car starts to duck walk.

I barely know nothing about suspension geometry. I thought if I lower the car at very moderate level, it should not give alignment a hard job. Also, if the rod levels were out, why only one tire can't be aligned back to factory specifications?

[Hellkite]

There may be something else at play. But even at the stock height I was getting close to the end of the tie rod adjustment. Do you have wider tires? ( this will exacerbate the issue) Ok check out this picture as the suspension is lowered the center of the spindle moves up (A) then as a moves up (B) levels out so ( B) becomes longer pushing the rear of the tire out putting the wheel past the point possible correction with only a eccentric bolt.

Even Dinan states rear specs are hard to obtain with stock components "rod-ends incorporate left and right hand thread, which allows quick and accurate toe adjustment that is tough to achieve using the stock system."

[Ant_tc]

Rear geometry does change as you lower, but if it’s only a 0.5” drop, shouldn’t be difficult to get your camber/toe back into spec. If you can take a peak under neath and see if the large lobe of the eccentric is at 90 degrees, than it’s maxed out.