climberd

I respect people who know when to delegate, as the world is theirs for the taking.

My counter Considerations: I don't have to schedule an appointment, sit in a plastic chair while they get around to my car, I don't have their potential lack of accuracy, lack of antiseize on the tie rods, lack of regard for proper torque specs.
A Hunter machine is going to be no more accurate than my method, by has the risk of being less accurate.
I may spend more time in the beginning, but will end up spending less time than at/to Firestone over the life of the vehicle.
Checking camber will now take me an extra couple minutes every oil change, checking toe will be reasonable, and I may likely only ever have to adjust one or two corners at a time, if any.

And I will indeed spend less money, though the money is the least consequential part of this.

Regarding time, once I have my string mounting figured out, it should be quick to setup. Should be able to measure all camber
In 60 seconds, and all toe in under 10 minutes.
Caster is irrelevant. If a control arm gets bent, I'll notice the tire sitting further back in the when well. Otherwise, it's not adjustable without some serious work. I had my caster verified at the best body shop in Dallas. All his camber and toe measurements matched mine.

But I have a garage shop where I build components for Subaru racing applications. There is nothing on this Lexus I can't currently do, except body work, engine machining, and seat upholstery. I delegate similar things out in other areas of my life.

climberd

Going to do this again, but this time am going to try to be more efficient about it.
-Swapped in Eibach springs, which have now had time to settle.
-For toe, designed an Excel spreadsheet so that I can mount string without having to make front/rear the same distance from wheel center. I plug in the measurements to the string from both sides' wheels' front, back and middle, and it figures out the offset of the sting's angle relative to the car, and compensates for it.
-Going to stick closer to factory alignment specs. The car has a lot less suspension travel now, but I don't know how to improve on factory alignment specs...

Degrees Measurement Range
0.08 Camber Front -0.67 - 0.83
-0.17 Camber Rear -0.92 - 0.58

0.3 Toe Front 0.1 - 0.5
0.2 Toe Rear 0.0 - 0.4

dicer

I will always do my own alignment, I do not trust any goof in a shop with my stuff. Most people don't take care of their own stuff so how can they do it for someone else? Lots of horror stories of cars ruined in shops.

oldskewel

iTrader: (1)

Really nice work on all this. Congrats for having the skills and thinking ability to do it yourself.
You mentioned earlier in this thread about the difficulty with the coupling between rear camber and rear toe. I was looking through the manual for my '91 the other day, and noticed many pages of charts where they seem to figure this out for you. I.e., you put in whatever caster and camber change you want and look up on the chart and it will show you how much to adjust each eccentric bolt. I know it will still be an iterative process to some extent, but the manual seems to have figured that out for you, if it helps. If you still need it, and the procedures for the '91 will help you, PM me and I can email those pages.

dicer

On a reality tv show some weeks ago they showed a very expensive race car being aligned using a string set up, I was floored that the development department was using that method and explained how much more accurate it was. They did have very fancy wheel fixtures as well to assist the process. Its a slow process especially when you don't have a pit or roll on lift to work under the car, but it can be done.

Losiracer2

I just installed new front outer and inner tierods on my parent's 03 Sienna and used the string method and eyeballing, trying to get the front wheels straight. Initially I counted the number of turns and tried to match it up but the front tires were wayyy toed in, scrubbing, and were making the van crabwalk, so that went out the window.

All I did was tie the string to a rear wheel spoke and pulled it taught towards the front. I then tried matching it up to the front and back sidewalls of the front tire, to where it was barely touching both to get as straight as possible. Drove to the alignment shop to give the guy 50 bucks with my alignment coupon and I was surprised at how close I was. The car didn't even pull and the wheel was straight on the trip over there.Funny how it is about 1 spline off center now after the alignment. But I corrected using an 1/8th of a turn increment to center on either side.

After my home alignment, I got within .6 degrees on the RF and the LF was in spec after taking it to the alignment shop and reviewing the before/after readings on the printout. So, I believe that the string method works pretty well. If you're in a pinch, this will get you to within 95% of an extremely accurate alignment.

dicer

Tying it to the wheel is HOW NOT to do it. The strings need to be parallel to the cars center line and with various track widths from front to rear and also the toe of modern independent rear suspension cars it is impossible to get any sort of accuracy tying strings to the wheels.From all the variations from shop to shop on alignments I don't see how any of them can say how close or not an alignment is, I don't trust them at all.

XS04231S

Hoping it's okay to ask this question seeing that this is an "alignment" thread:

If I am on coilovers (Megan Racing coilovers, specifically) and my 1996 LS400 is lowered with about -5ish degrees of camber, how many and what arms are needed so that I can get - NOT NEGATIVE like my fellow VIP enthusiasts on here lol but - ZERO camber in the rear (all while retaining stock OE toe specs, of course)?

I know there are the main three that I see everywhere - rear toe arms, rear traction arms, and rear lower camber arms - for the LS, but is it necessary for me to get all three in order to get back to zero camber while staying at my lowered ride height? Or can I just install toe and traction arms in the rear and still get away with it? I saw in this thread below that someone mentioned only needing to purchase traction and toe arms to adjust camber (but not specifically to zero), so I wanted to double check by asking my own question:

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/sus...mber-kits.html

Again, my goal is to have zero camber (or stock OE camber spec) in the rear while at a lowered ride height, seeing that it naturally cambers negatively when lowered.

Thanks guys!

dicer

I think a person would really have to draw up the suspension geometry to see what is going on and what would need to be changed. A lot of things will affect the camber, the length of the control arms, the distance of the pivot points, the location of the pivot points and changing stuff if I remember also affects the roll center, and would also affect the rear toe. Playing with suspensions can make the car dangerous to drive especially when hitting bumps and dips in the road, a person really needs to understand what he or she is doing when modifying suspensions.