diy wheel alignment?

[fordperson]

I was thinking since I have 3 cars and all of them dont have caster/camber adjustment (just toe) Are the mechanical plates that sell on ebay good for that? If anyone could post a link or some specs of what i should be looking at that would be great.

Tom

[curtis73]

Its hard to provide a blanket statement for more than one car for alignment specs, but in general they can be summarized like this:

Toe is almost always optimized at about 1/16" toe-in. This can be altered, but it should never exceed about 3/16". 1/8" would be a safe maximum, but rarely do you need that much. Stick with 1/16".

Since camber and caster are not adjustable, they can stay where they are. If you want to get adjustable plates, you can adjust them a few degrees for performance use, but if its a passenger car that sees little performance driving I wouldn't worry about it.

If you do run c/c plates, here's what I suggest. Camber can range from 0 to 3 degrees in. Zero (straight plumb) is a good setting for ride quality, tire wear, and overall calm driving. 3 degrees might be a setting on a race car that gives up all tire wear to ultimate handling. It also entirely depends on the body roll (yaw rate) of the car. If you want to support handling with high roll rates, you'll need more camber, but that is just a superficial fix for what should be done; a properly designed suspension. My suspension on my fun street car is 1/2* camber on both sides. My spring rate is designed such that body roll is very minimal, so it only takes a tiny bit of camber to "plant" the tires in a turn. It also depends on the ultimate grip of the rear. Too much camber can cause very abnormal over- and under-steer qualities. Its a delicate balance and I'd have to know more about the suspension and how its going to be driven before I could truly say.

The Caster is a little more forgiving. Most factory cars are set between 1/2* to 3*. You can get away with up to 4 or 5* with today's properly cooled powersteering cars, but its not necessary. Run enough caster to provide stable high-speed accuracy, but not an excess which can cause difficult steering and tire scrubbing. Again, maybe 1/2* for a Lincoln Town Car and 3* for a 'vette.