OK, I live in friggin' Tennessee. I have to drive several hours to get to a non-factory shop that knows what vtec is, right. Just a frame of reference.

So here is my question: Is it possible to do an alignment myself and have it be anywhere close to correct? I just got my GC coils in and will probably be running Omni camber kit with bolts/washers in rear. Is there anyway of setting camber and toe myself after installing coils/camber kit? The shop up the street from me doesn't even use instrumentation for their alignments. How do they do it? With a level?

I would love to save a few bucks here, not to mention learn a few things... help me out.

 

Bump. Come on people!

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Wilky &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> How do they do it? With a level?
</TD></TR></TABLE>

Toe plates. Just picked myself up a set:

https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=1229499

What I'm planning on doing tonight is stringing the right side of the car, and setting that wheel to zero. Then, I will use the toe plates to set the other side. I'll be doing a write up hopefully as well.

 

oooo..i know...park it up to a curb and turn the steering hard...i used to do that to my bicycle.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 2slow4u &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">i used to do that to my bicycle. </TD></TR></TABLE>

hahahahaha agree

 

all i could correct was toe though.

 

http://www.c-speedracing.com/howto/a.../alignment.php

 

There are camber/toe combination tools. Use that with the string/jackstand method. The best thing that I have come up with that I don't see in any writeups is to make your own slip plates. Find something strong that wont crack under the weight of a tire, like a thick tile or a chunk of sheet metal, and you make a sandwhich with grease inside. Put one under each wheel so that you can adjust the alignment with the wheels loaded, and so there's no friction on the tires screwing up your readings.

The bounce and roll method sucks and hooking the alignment setup to your car is difficult and expensive.

Do an archive search, there was a guy that did a good writeup.

 

yeah i've seen the jack and string method...but you can only do toe unless you do a jack and string method that goes verticle too so you can do camber.

 

No, you just use a camber gauge.

I personally don't care so much what my camber is as much as that it's even side to side and less on the rear than the front. It just so happens that on our cars, inches of drop from stock is very close to a 1:1 conversion to negative degrees camber. In other words, 1 inch drop ~ -1 degrees camber. 1.5 drop ~ -1.5 degrees camber.

But my digital camber gauge tells me what it is anyway. They have some pretty cheap analog gauges at Longacre.

 

I wouldnt change your alighment unless your eye can see 1/16 of a degree.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by suspendedHatch &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">. They have some pretty cheap analog gauges at Longacre.</TD></TR></TABLE>

They do, and I've been thinking about getting one for a while; but honestly, just setting my toe has done well for me for a while now. Maybe when I get more of a national level competitor, I'll worry about my camber settings, but for most people, camber doesn't really matter.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by ryer_t &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I wouldnt change your alighment unless your eye can see 1/16 of a degree. </TD></TR></TABLE>

1/16 of a degree? Camber or toe? Do you realise how small that is? Toe is measured in either degrees or inches. I have trouble setting 1'16 toe with tape measures, and there's no way you could see that. 1/16* camber is nothing you'd ever see, and most camber guages won't even read that small of a deflection.

 

I guess you havent done many alignments then. I was impossing dont do it unless you have a alignment machine. And yes some factory specs want that much of a degree. You cant, it really is impossable to do with out a machine Cause you have something called a thrust angle that is started with your rear tires. That will cause the car to have a crooked steering wheel. Which from what I read no one has done anything to the rear alignment. Then you have to understand scrub radius, then caster roll, then steering axis inclination. Those turn tables arent for checking toe they are for check the ackerman angle. Just to let you know. The caster is what usally wants the really small degrees. So ya i kinda know how small it is. The reason companys make these parts like camber kits so you can keep the factory specs with the car lowered. So when you wander off from what factory says is good you are messing with a lot of things. The suspension is my favorite thing on a car.

 

I see what you were getting at, but I've done plenty of alignments with my toe plates, camber gauge and jacks and strings and have gotten very accurate results. I always use jack stands and strings to set up the car after changing the ride height. This will get the toe and thrust angle to zero, and then I can make adjustments as necessary.

Unless you have a slotted spindle arm, or some other adjustment to move the tie rod relative to the ball joint, you won't have any problems with the ackerman effect, so I don't even have turn plates.

I understand the principles of scrub radius and steering axis inclination; but these are fixed dynamic properties that the alignment has an effect on (just becuase the camber changes as you corner, and it will have a different range based on alignment setting) but can't be changed. I've never heard of caster roll before, and I couldn't find any reference to it in any of my texts or any of the online resources that I normally use.

 

...thrust angle to make it simple...thrust angle is simple, if you have a factory thrust angle...one that is not messed up...your rear wheels will simple follow your front wheels...if its off, your rear end will tend to wander...which i do not like.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 2slow4u &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">...thrust angle to make it simple...thrust angle is simple, if you have a factory thrust angle...one that is not messed up...your rear wheels will simple follow your front wheels...if its off, your rear end will tend to wander...which i do not like.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Thrust angle is where your front and rear axles are set to 0 toe with respect to the left and right tire, but not the centerline of the car. This will cause you to have to have the steering wheel at an angle to drive straight down the road:

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/...hid=4

http://www.longacreracing.com/...ID=12

 

That's nonsense. Though those machines are capable of that degree of accuracy, the tech isn't going to bother getting it that close. If it's within spec, they don't touch it. If it's close to spec, they can fudge the results. Seen it with my own eyes. Alignment machines don't do alignments, techs do.

Do they ask you to sit in the car while doing the alignment? No. If that's an insurance issue, fine, then put some sandbags in the driver's seat to at least approximate the customer's weight. Otherwise, what good is that 1/16th of a degree accuracy once the customer sits in the car?

That's why my string alignment is more accurate than a professional alignment.

On my toe plate are two precision set rulers. I line the string up right on top of the lines on the ruler. That's close to 1/16th of a degree accuracy, and close enough that it doesn't matter to the handling of the car or the tire wear.

I was forced to figure out how to do my own alignments after every shop either refused to align my car, asked for extra money, or turned their nose up to my car. I have two Civics, one is lowered 1.5 inches, the other is stock height. On the stock height car they refused to align it because it looks low with the 15 inch rims and they don't want to risk scratching their precious $20,000 machine.

 

All good info. Thanks for all the help.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by BLUE EH3 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">http://www.c-speedracing.com/howto/a.../alignment.php</TD></TR></TABLE>

Awesome link I need to leanr to do this myself. Gonna just do toe first before attempting camber.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by ryer_t &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Then you have to understand scrub radius, then caster roll, then steering axis inclination. Those turn tables arent for checking toe they are for check the ackerman angle.</TD></TR></TABLE>

You're talking about things we can't even do anything about without lots of work or money. So someone wanting to check their toe gives 0 ***** about scrub radius or ackerman. And you don't check toe on slip plates, you need toe plates and tape measures for that. But you do use slip plates when adjusting toe, so they're still helpful.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by drdisco69 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
But you do use slip plates when adjusting toe, so they're still helpful.</TD></TR></TABLE>

For slip plates, I bought a length of aluminum flashing from home depot, and cut it to the size of my contact patch. No grease or anything needed; slipped like butter for $5.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by turboman &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Awesome link I need to leanr to do this myself. Gonna just do toe first before attempting camber.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Same here. Good thread guys