I try to do EVERYTHING myself on my car. However tire mounting/balancing and alignment are still relegated to a trusted shop. I'd honestly rather do that myself but can't justify the money for the nice tire mounting balancing machines or a sick Super Tracker laser alignment machine like I saw Ed on Wheeler Dealers using LOL.


I've seen you guys use some ridiculous looking setups and I think I'm at the point I'd like to know more.

 

People use string, eyeballs, and other mechanical measurements or DIY alignment setups.

I use my key in the ignition to drive to a shop. A lifetime alignment costs like $130-180.

 

I watched my 'neighbor' at WMHM use Align Your Car With SmartStrings, SmartCamber | Smart Racing Products this year. He says it works fairly well. Although he's using it on his track-only Integra.

I think this is the closest you can get without a laser setup.

With smartphones these days...I'm kind of surprised a laser setup hasn't gotten cheap yet. Maybe I haven't seen it yet, maybe it's the next million dollar idea...

 

Yeah, that's great IF you have a shop near you that offers that... not everyone is so lucky.

Here you go OP, enjoy!

https://honda-tech.com/suspension-br...level-3128246/

 

Lol. I would think that more people have access to those shops than those that do not. OP didn't mention that his next door neighbor was the sasquatch. How am I supposed to imagine such a scenario?

Firestone is everywhere, bro. I'm sure you could find one in the Mojave if you looked under the right cactus.

 

None of the shops want to touch a lowered vehicle in NWI. Some say 'your too low to get on the lift', some refuse to set camber on a vehicle 'that does not come with adjustment factory', some just want to rape you for 250 per job...

 

Super weak. I printed out a spec sheet to take to firestone and they were actually happy that I did so. No hassles at all. I recommended a few of my friends go to the same one for the same deal.

Merlin was also happy to align my lowered car(s).

 

it seems location dependent, I probably should go to the firestone all the stance kids go to, seems they have had good luck getting their alignments done there without issues. The other firestones near me didn't want to touch the skunk2 camber adjustment on my car and gave me a really off alignment...

Been needing to do string alignments, but haven't had a chance to.

 

I'm a pretty handsome guy. Maybe they thought I was cute. Everyone's always saying how cute I look and doing my alignments to whatever cute *** spec I want.

Y'all should try that.

 

DING DING DING

I have one shop that will do it that isn't pimple faced 17 year old high schoolers. They do GREAT work. It's $140 every time. One hour labor. That **** gets expensive. PLUS.... some people like fixing their own ****. I already KNOW how to drive it to a shop and get it done as stated in OP.

Everyone else keep the ideas coming!

 

Hey that's my car!

I shamelessly copied the SmartStrings setup. It works great. I wish it wasn't on the other side of the continent with most of the rest of my tools, I could use an align.

There's no reason why you can't get it just as good with strings as you can with a laser. The level of precision is only limited by the precision of the ruler you use and how willing you are to take your time and be detail oriented. If you use a tape measure that only has 1/8" increments, that's as good as the toe is going to get. If you use a set of strings and .001" caliper, that's as good as it gets (and majorly overkill for a rubber bushed street car).

I work on pinnacle level race cars for a living. Guess how many laser alignments are done on them? The only advantage that a laser rack has over a string rig is that it's significantly more dummy resistant (notice I didn't use the word proof!).

 

As the others have shown there are definitely other options. I've done my own alignment a handful of times now and while I absolutely hate doing it, I've gotten very good results. Last time I did a full tear down of my suspension I did my own alignment and then took it to my trusted shop (West End Alignment). Turns out I was basically spot on. While I definitely plan to keep using West End I'm now more confident that I can do this at home with good results. I really should take some time and build a setup like spAdam put together.

Toe String Method: For this I've used jackstands at the 4 corners of the car with string on each side of the car. It's a pain to setup and you need to reset the strings after raising/lowering the car but it works.

Toe Tape Measure Method: This only works for the front but it's exceedingly simple. Start at one wheel and extend the tape measure under the car over to the other wheel. Hook the tape onto one of the grooves on the backside of the tire and pull the tape towards you and record the measurement to the corresponding groove on the tire close to you. Now, do this again but at the front side of the tire. Make adjustments as needed. Note that this requires your tires to have grooves which are straight and parallel to the direction of rotation. And because of where you take the measurements you can't compare your toe readings to real ones.

I also put together a really simple camber gauge. Doesn't apply to everyone since I happened to have a fairly expensive (when it was new almost 10yrs ago) digital level to use. But, I think these are actually fairly affordable now. You can definitely build this for yourself for less than $40.

 

Nice Mitu protractor. I make do at home with a $20 Craftsman one. There should be a pic of it in my thread. The big thing with doing camber with a digital is having a leveled floor to work with.

 

Exactly!!! I hate NWI...

 

That's everywhere. It's the reason I went down the road of doing my own. I couldn't stand getting jerked around trying to get a job done that I'm capable of doing better on my own anyway.

 

We have a hunter hawk eye alignment rack at our shop. Its in ground so it drives straight on, never have an issue with any of my lowered cars. I hate aligning lowered cars. Alignment Machines are not able to watch changes in camber as you change its degree. Its kind of hard to explain, but its a step by step process that has to be repeated to insure an accurate adjustment. Ive only done the tape measure alignment, and it was OK at best. steering wheel straight. But its not accurate enough to avoid tire wear. Theres a lot to go into an alignment, especially on lowered cars. DIY alignments are not accurate enough for the head ache. If you just want a little bit straighter steering wheel give it a shot. if your trying to save tires, or have a pull concern, I wouldn't waste my time on it.

 

Tell that to the guys OR gals who have full cages and fixed seat positions. I would love to watch most tech's try to get in my wife's race car LOL! A lot of guys are able to get a very accurate alignment with backwoods methods... digital is just less time consuming. In the end, an alignment on a machine or not is still only as good as the person doing it.

 

Yes, definitely a concern. I was able to do mine in my driveway without much problem, it wasn't perfectly level but ended up being close enough. Most garages should be pretty level side to side. You can also take measurements with the car head in and then back in and average the two to help figure out how level your surface is. The nice thing about camber compared to toe is that you can make adjustments at one time and not need to constantly drop the car to check, raise to just...etc. I've found that 1 deg of adjustment at static ride height is the same as 1 deg of adjustment at full droop. For example, if you take your initial measurement and have -2 deg but want -3 deg. This means you need to dial in an additional -1 deg of camber. Jack up the car and let the suspension come to full droop and take your measurement again. For example's sake say at full droop your camber is now +2 deg. You can make your adjustments at full droop taking measurements until you have dialed in an additional -1 deg which should leave you now with +1 deg at full droop. Upon lowering the car back down you should now have -3 deg of camber.

Also, in terms of leveling, I tried this method years back and it seemed to work fine. The sand didn't quite achieve the desired result in my experience and generally wasn't worth the trouble.

 

We're both on the same page with this it seems.

That's exactly the method I use to level my floor. Most garage floors (and home slabs I general) are pretty flat for a couple of reasons. 1) they need to be for proper he construction and 2) poured cement is a liquid slurry and therefore is generally self-leveling. The tiles are 1/8" thick and therefore you can get the whole floor to within +/- 1/16" by stacking them. Obviously that gets more complicated if we're talking about an older home/garage or a driveway. Driveways are usually contoured or sloped in some way to fit the lot.

I never had luck with the sand. I use bearing grease between them and I can push the car sideways with one hand. This method requires that you have at least eight of the tiles, I buy them by to box as they tend to crack easily.

 

longacre toe plates.

and a laser to set the rear track angle.

https://honda-tech.com/suspension-br...lates-1974327/
How to do your own Alignment. - Page 5 - SR20 Forum

 

Those are cool but as you stated in the thread kinda limited.