if any of you have changed out your front a arm bushings with energy kit number 16.3105 you will probably have zero caster when you take the car in to get aligned. on the rear most bushing the metal cylinder you press into your new bushing is slightly short, well that and the bushing is made incorrectly, it needs more material on the side that carries its part number {facing the front of the car}. if you blast the back nut with the impact gun and bolt it all up the a arm is set back around 1/16th to 3/32nds. the easy fix i found was to hog out one of those fat suspension washers you get with new shocks, insert it on the front side of the bushing which more or less forces the arm forward that 1/16th you lost and corrects geometry. i could probably draw a diagram if anyone doesn't follow me here. i'm also going to get the car aligned again in the morning and we'll see how much positive caster my shim mod bought me. my goal was to get 1-2deg

 

how did ya go

 

oh, thanks for reminding me. it appears that those shims buy you about 1/3rd of a degree each. what you run into after the first one is the front a arm bushing pressing against the frame. it's possible to trim this down some and let the lower arm come forward another 1/16th to 1/8th inch and gain with another rear shim. the thing is, guys have started complaining about bump steer somewhere north of 1.5deg +, that being the case since i have the car at positive .1 and .2 pass side it's not doing too bad. it was -.18 and -.12 before my little shim trick. it's a minor gain, but still, for an extra washer, i think it's worth doing

 

And we find yet another reason to not run ES bushings on our cars...

Can't run the trailing arm bushing and keep correct suspension operation (it binds), can't run the front shock bushing (it self destructs quickly), and now we have a report that the rear bushing in the front LCA isn't shaped correctly to produce the correct alignment when installed.

idrivesideways, Whiteline sells a caster kit for our cars, which consists of spacers to go in between the LCA halves and longer bolts. I think I paid $40 shipped for it, but never installed (I don't trust the bolts. I do track days and would hate to have an LCA come apart at 120+ mph because I hopped a curb). Could be another way to get your caster back to where you want it though. You could also try and "fab" your own by sticking a washer in between the LCA halves on each bolt. Personally, I would want tapered spacers, but the kit only included flat ones.

 

this is exactly what i did do, spacers to push the arm back to where it should be. the only thing is, if i want another 1/2 degree + i'm going to have to cut down the front a arm bushing so it's offset and add a spacer behind it. no real danger risk in doing since it would still use the factory bolt. it's just kind of a pain to do a complete fab job when you buy a new bushing kit.

btw, you should be able to tell what grade the bolt is by the dashes on its head. grade 8 or better would be all i would ever consider in suspension.