car lowered- how can i get alignment?

oki, my car is lowered about 2 1/4 inches to 2 1/2 inches. the car is so low that when i went to an ailignment shop, the machine was not able to do my alignments. the mechanic had to eyeball my alignment. now my front tires are worn out, maybe like 40% threads left. i redid my suspension to incorporate the bilstein shocks and i didnt mant to pay another 50 bucks to get the car aligned by some guy who's just gonna eyball the alignment, so i did it my self. just trial and error, if the car went to one side, i corrected it until i had it going straight.

my question is how did u guys get your car aligned properly if your car was dropped severely?

usually you'd hafta get a camber kit cuz you won't be able to align your car to the right spec

i have a camber kit, but im not sure if my car is aligned properly (toe in toe out). the car sometimes pulls to one side then at times it'll pull to the other side. it goes straight on the highway but slightly very slightly pulls to one side.

i think im gonna measure the tie rod lenghts to see if there the same on both sides. if not, i'll make em the same lenght then tune it from there

if its fine on some roads and bad on others it may be the road and not your car. My car will go straight as an arrow as long as the road is perfectly flat, but there is one road on my way to wal-mart that is crowned... now with my winter tires on (non-low pro) its no problem but with my summer tires (low pro) my car is a friggin bitch to drive on that particular road. she pulls all over the place. And to the eye you can't even really tell that there is a crown in the road, but with those tires on you can feel it...

Anyway make sure you are on a good road before you start judging your alignment by it.

Take it a place that deals with PERFORMANCE! Until we get an alignment rack at our shop we send all that stuff to a guy @ BMW. Does it on the side @ night, he races big time & knows whats up. learned many lessons from him . . .races a 318Ti(ugly teard) with an M3 engine, Ferrari brakes, etc, etc.

any place with a flat rack and who uses the Hunter Engineering Company machine. It detects postioning and angels are sensed by IR.

Right look for a race shop not Sears or NTB/Pep Boys.

The shop I go to I have to bring boards with me to get my car on the lift. Or you can buy one of these:

http://www.ioportracing.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=L78425&Category_Code=CSE

http://www.ioportracing.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=L78425&Category_Code=CSE

I got my car aligned today and I was looking at the tolerences. It seems like it would be very hard to eyeball the toe. For my car the tolerence is within 16 hundredths of a degree, (-0.08° to 0.08°). I calculated that out, and at the edge of the tire you couldn't be off by more than .4mm one way or the other in order to meet specs.

yeah, alignment is not something to be done with the eye... when tiny tiny little amounts change things in huge ways like with alignment you need to know it is right

Exactly I would actually get your money back from the eyeball alignment. That is just crazy. I would like to see this guy's eye - "Must have frickin lazers coming out of his eyeball" ->Dr. Evil.

lol. yea i shouldnt have even paid the full price for the alignment. damn i got suckered. now i need to find a tuner/performance shop that will be able to do my alignment

loesch8102 , is that ur car in your sig? your ride height looks close to mine, where did u get ur car aligned and did they have problems doing it for you because the ride was so low?

lol. yea i shouldnt have even paid the full price for the alignment. damn i got suckered. now i need to find a tuner/performance shop that will be able to do my alignment

Where do you live? Since I autocross I have alot of contacts that do suspension tuning.

i live in New York. queens, new york to be exact, about 20 mins from new york city (manhattan). if u know any place in the new york city area, it would be great!
thanks again

Boosted K20: Yeah, that's my car. It's lowered 2" with H&R Race Springs. I had it aligned at Sears Automotive. I am good friends with some of the people that work there so they take good care of my car. They didn't have any problems with it and the final spec sheet looks great.

so u think i should go to sears automotive to get my car aligned?

It all depends who doing it & what equipemt they're using. Talk wth sears before work is done, make sure they've done what you need.

There are some links here for the Tri-State area:

http://www.autox4u.com

Brand-spankin'-new member here, looking for info on performance shops that do alignment in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

I'm new to the area. The Honda dealer that serviced my car (75K miles) said they couldn't do my alignment because of the modified suspension (lowered, racing springs, camber kit in the front) and suggested I take it to Firestone. I'm just not 100% comfortable with taking it to Firestone. Do they know Hondas? Will they do a good job?

Anyway, found this thread and thought maybe CivicSiRacer or anyone else might know a place in or around Grand Rapids that would take care of my baby and get my wheels aligned.

Thanks in advance.

Look up your local chapter of the SCCA. They should have links on their home page for alignments on lowered cars.