While attending a race car prep seminar at http://www.aimautosport.com for FranAm (Formula Renault) cars. These guys won the championship:
"Sixteen year-old Canadian Andrew Ranger has clinched the Title in the 2003 FRAN AM 2000 North American Pro Championship Series" so they know from whence they speak. I had a nice conversation with one of the race engineers. It turns out that they have had many Mech Eng grads come through their shop, one of which became Paul Tracy's (CART 2003 champ) engineer and one became Sam Hornish's (IRL champ) engineer. All to say it was a super nice shop with some very nice stuff. The engineer I spoke with, the guy on the left in the picture



helped to develop an alignment jig/tool for setting toe, camber and caster. This is the nicest and simplest tool I have seen. It is meant to be used with strings set up all around the car. The tool is sold by one of their partner companies and can be seen here;

http://www.aimautosport.com/Co...2.htm with a link to the actual company here:

http://www.mktechnologies.com/ Just look at the toe/camber board

The board ($95) is set against the wheel vertically to measure camber and horizontally to measure toe using some inset machinist's scales. The camber measurement requires the addition of a Smart Level Gauge. Toe can be measured from wheel center or wheel rim with a $30 option for each, or just resting on the tire (not the best) as is. I was very impressed with how well it worked in practice, and this is all this championship winning team uses. The company makes some very nice scale platforms and a few other tools.

I also found a nice link to some DIY alignment on another site.

http://corner-carvers.com/foru...13211

Since winter is coming, we can all use to time to get a better set-up!

 

Claude,

Am I missing something?

Instead of one ruler in your hand, this is a board with two rulers attached to it.

It's still measured against a set of parallel strings (they recommend theirs).

Why so much more accurate? The way the board pins "capture" the rim edge or something?

Scott, who has the same thoughts and plans for the winter...

** 'Course accuracy on a formula car is probably a bit more stringent than on something like mine. No pun intended.


Modified by RR98ITR at 11:27 AM 11/25/2003

 

The board's adapters just stay on the rim much better than a tape measure and they are adjustable for width, and the two rules are at least always parallel and perpendicular to the rim. It is much much faster and more repeatable than using a tape measure or ruler. You see the toe-in/out (Ruler difference) instantly by looking down over the fishing line (string) to both rulers simulateneously. I found that when setting toe to 1/16" total, which is 1/32" per wheel, there is not much room for error in the parallax dept. When I saw the gentleman using the toe board, I could see immediately why they invented this simple device. One tool to measure caster/camber/toe. Nice! You can make your own, but for $95 plus $30 for the adapters, why bother (you do have to add Smart Level for camber/caster). Plus it won't have a nice red paint job. In my world, measuring things only gets done as well as the operator and tool permits. This is a good tool. It gives reliable, repeatable meaurements. Ask 5 people to meaure toe with a tape measure, and you will get 5 different results (we are talking 1/32" toe on each wheel here). Plus I think the tool is cheap for its quality.

 

I know there's been occasional talk on the topic of DIY alignment, and some folks have found success at it.

I tried DIY'ing it with pipes and jackstands, balances and rulers, but I never could get the feeling that I was at all accurate.

However, I did find that if you take a 16x16 or so board with a hole or slit in its center, and lay it up against the wheel centered, then use it to make marks on the floor, you can at least measure the distance between the marks and determine if you're toe is in or out, but you have to measure with your back wheels to determine your track.

I think its a big help if you have your rear end aligned (individually) first at least once before doing the DIYs. That way, at least you've got a pretty stable reference point.

 

Yeah, I hear that. I always use a machinists rule - not a ruler.

And the error in parallelism thing makes sense too in tiny increments.

Scott, who thinks he also has some error built into his own eyes...

 

Yes, some BC guys that use to race NASPORT own this company, MKT and make some fine tools!

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by hatch2k &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I know there's been occasional talk on the topic of DIY alignment, and some folks have found success at it.

I tried DIY'ing it with pipes and jackstands, balances and rulers, but I never could get the feeling that I was at all accurate.

However, I did find that if you take a 16x16 or so board with a hole or slit in its center, and lay it up against the wheel centered, then use it to make marks on the floor, you can at least measure the distance between the marks and determine if you're toe is in or out, but you have to measure with your back wheels to determine your track.

I think its a big help if you have your rear end aligned (individually) first at least once before doing the DIYs. That way, at least you've got a pretty stable reference point.
</TD></TR></TABLE>


What you said: "...feeling...at all accurate..."

The way I got control over some similar feelings was thru the accidental driving of a badly misaligned car. It was so far out of whack after a neccessary field repair where there was no possibility of anything but an eyeball job - yet the car worked surprisingly well (nowhere near as bad as I'd have guessed if I'd known the numbers before going out). I drew from that that on a car like mine at least that that last 64th or 32nd wasn't worth too much trouble or expense. Then again, a drivers confidence is literally priceless.

Scott, who looks at giant pro race teams and nods his head and says "yeah, I see how this kind of thing can happen...thank goodness I'm too poor to go that crazy".

 

Scott,

you are thinking too much about it. It is the only pro race team type tool you could buy for $95. Just buy it. You will thank me. It is a very nice tool. It can only make you faster, and increase your stock when you whip it out at the track. It will put fear into your competitor's hearts, those poor devils with just tape measures. When I was at that shop, they had hundreds of boxes of aircraft hardware, any one of which was worth more than this toe board, and a lot of very nice rod ends too.

We even discussed some ideas from Carroll Smith's Screw to Win. Now that was a book title. Don't tell anyone but this championship pro race team even re-uses Nylocks nuts unless they can be turned by hand. Very risquee! Imagine Carroll rolling over in his grave. Every time you pick up this tool it will make you happy. I ordered mine today.

They even had a very nice toe string set-up, where they had actually eviscerated their old tape measures and replaced the tape with a fishing line attached to a snap ring (the ones with the two little holes at the end). Tape measures with line were bolted to square aluminum tubing at each end of the car. Just pull on the snap ring, around a machined roller with groove at one end of the rear bar to the similar machined roller with groove at the same end of the front bar and hook it to a vertical pin on the bar. Do the same with the second tape measure "line" from front to rear and you have an instant parallelogram. Fishing line was perfectly aligned to centerline of wheels via single machined grooves in rollers. Front toe bar clipped onto steering rack with two semi-circular spacers on each side of the rack that locked steering rack into centre position. Rear clipped onto wing support. Nothing to adjust whatsoever. It was a 30 second install, unhook fishing line and they reel back into tape meaure bodies, 30 seconds to remove. It was simple. It was nice.

If you are curious about real race cars, you can check out this beauty at:

http://www.tatuus.it/HOMEing.htm

by clicking on the F. Renault 2000 in the products section, and looking at the "car in Details". 480 kg of pure racing machine for only 40,000 euros. Now that is worth an alignment.




Modified by descartesfool at 7:42 PM 11/25/2003

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by descartesfool &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Scott,

you are thinking too much about it. </TD></TR></TABLE>

&lt;Rolls Eyes&gt;&lt;Ted "Theodore" Logan voice on&gt; "No Way Dude!" &lt;off&gt;

Yah, it could make sense, and it would look good hanging next to my Smart Camber Gauge.

Scott, who is "uncomfortable" with Claudes near pornographic descriptions of other peoples shops and goodies....

** There's a glossy little book on NASCAR shops that's pretty cool - if you see it take a look at it.

 

Scott,

I remember seeing that nice little NASCAR book once with all the shop pictures. What is it? It was the only NASCAR book I ever thought about buying, but I don't know its name.

And you could just take the Smart level off your Smart Camber guage and put it on the new one, and voila!

 

"Stock Car Race Shop" by William Burt. Published by Motorbooks in 2001.

Scott, who see's new things in it every time he looks at it....I remember when I first noticed there were words too.