Just got my car back from having new springs up front (350#), new torsion bars in rear (29mm), new rear Konis, and the whole thing lowered. Looks great. Haven't felt her up yet, but will do that after an alignment. Questions: I plan on swapping out the front and rear sway bars to the 968 M030 bars sometime this summer (cash is short because of this and my current lawsuits). Will I need a new alignment after that?

When I do get my alignment, how much neg camber should I have put on left/right, front/back? This is a street driven car, but I may decide to autocross or DE it after school ends. I also like a very tight, agressive set-up on the street (just my preference).


Thanks

 

[quote]Originally posted by PrerYDoG:
<strong>I plan on swapping out the front and rear sway bars to the 968 M030 bars sometime this summer (cash is short because of this and my current lawsuits). Will I need a new alignment after that? </strong><hr></blockquote>

Not for a street car and those bars. If you were doing a competition car, and especially with more adjustable bars, you'd need to redo the corner balance. The stabilizers *should* have no effect on alignment if installed properly. You may want to tell the shop that you are doing this though.

[quote]<strong>When I do get my alignment, how much neg camber should I have put on left/right, front/back? This is a street driven car, but I may decide to autocross or DE it after school ends. I also like a very tight, agressive set-up on the street (just my preference).</strong><hr></blockquote>

Honestly, that's a matter for your shop to work out. If you're not taking this to a shop that knows Porsches, you may want to reconsider. Most good alignments come right from a database the shop will collect over the years. They'll take into account the primary use, tires, suspension, corner balance, etc to come up with the right combination. Generically for camber, you don't want more than -2 degrees on street tires... will wear them out way too quickly and increase the tendency to tramline or catch a groove.... not fun, especially in the rain.

Good Luck!

 

Just to clarify - there's not a shop within an hour of me that does Porsche's on a regular basis. Infact, the only mechanic I can get to work on my car has a shop that looks like a crack house. He's a damn good mechanic, but he doesn't do alignments, and unfortunately, there's only a couple shops in the entire area (within an hour) that will even ATTEMPT to align these cars, so I'm not too confident in their ability to know exactly what needs to be done.

 

If it were me, I'd find a different shop... seriously. I drive ~2 hours to my shop (Fordahl's - home of the crews for the Alex Job ALMS Porsches and Park Place Saleen and a few other significant teams)... wouldn't have it any other way. I tell them what tires I'll be running, they pull the numbers from their database... sanity check them... and I have the perfect setup. Now, my car is used for competition, so it's a great deal more important. Alignments don't happen very often, and you should find shop rates about the same (I pay ~$125 for full race alignment and corner balance). Add to this, there is no less than one special tool needed (rear toe adjuster).

Skip

 

Unfortunately there are only 2 Porsche Shops within a 3 hour drive of me, and both of them are horrible with their service and mechanical abilities. Race shops in the heart of Virginia either don't exist, or cater to Mustangs.

 

If you really want to find a good alignment shop, you might try one of your Virginia PCA regions. If you E-mail some of these guys they will probably be able to help:

<a href="http://www.blueridgeporsche.org/index.htm" target="_blank">Blue Ridge Region</a>
<a href="http://vista.pca.org/fst/" target="_blank">First Settlers</a>
<a href="http://vista.pca.org//shn/" target="_blank">Shenandoah</a>

 

There is nothing as satisfying on these cars as having a proper corner balance and alignment done, the difference,even in as great a car as these are stock, is really unbelievable. I run as much camber as I can get evenly on all 4 corners, but I do endure tramlining and reduced straightline stability, but when the road starts to curve... <img src="graemlins/burnout.gif" border="0" alt="[burnout]" /> <img src="graemlins/burnout.gif" border="0" alt="[burnout]" />

 

Mark, who put the parts on for you? Clicks? You do have a great Porsche shop within a half an hour at G&W. I know you have mentioned before that you were not pleased with them, but give them a call and at least inquire. Speak to Phillip . He will at least point you in the right direction to someone nearby. G&W is by far one of the mos reputable Porsche shops in the country. Their race shop used to be located in Waynesboro near their regular shop, but moved to Danville - now located at VIR. Too bad , because when theyhad the race shop that close , they used to lower, and set up everyones Porsches locally. Another suggestion is to take it to Crown Porsche in Charlottesville, only 45 mins away. Dont alway rely on these local ree-raws around here at these independent shops. They dont even know what performance parts are for these cars. They dont even know that people race cars other than Nascars.
I recently installed new springs on my 944 and lowered and aligned. I am a service manager at a dealership and had my guys do it as I watched over the whole job. Not very pleased wit the alignment specs, which are very agressive right now. When I do align it right, I will take to some guys I know down in Va Beach at Eurosport. If you want it done right and done by guys who race Porsche 944s , these are the guys for you, Tehy do all of may major work on my car. Granted, I have to either drive or trailer my car down there, but these guys are cool and know what they are doing. If you are interested in some info on this, I will get you the names and numbers.

Brian Bass

 

Bass - that sounds good. I heard Phillip left G&W, and yes, I was not too pleased with their work (especially not for the premium price I paid for it). Crown Porsche in Charlottesville can, well, insert explitives here. I've tried dealing with them on multiple occassions and they want absolutely nothing to do with my car or my buisness. I do need the alignment soon, maybe I can get it aligned well enough to take it to the beach and have it done there (I plan on going sometime soon, I hate the weather here), but I picked the car up today (from Clicks) and on the way home I discovered a newer, more pressing problem (literally pressing). I was launching the car to see if it still dropped back in the rear on accelleration (it does not, thanks Skip!), and as I was shifting from 2nd to 3rd, the accelerator did not come back up when I let off of it. Bounced the redline for 3 seconds or so before it popped back up. I'm off to fix this now...

 

That always happens. Pick up your car and some other weird *** problem crops up. I did not know that Phillip left G&W. Too bad, because he was one of the only reasons I would go there. If you are interested in Eurosport, e-mail or call them. Their website address is ...

<a href="http://www.eurosprt.com" target="_blank">www.eurosprt.com</a>

Talk to George. He is cool, and like I said they race 944s, and have factory master technicians that work for them.

 

If you're willing to go all the way to Va Beach, how about Alexandria (Pitstop Motorsports)?

Skip

 

Alexandria, now that's something a little closer. Maybe I can call it a "weekend getaway" with my girlfriend and we can visit the Smithsonian and go shopping in Georetown (yeah, I'm whipped). Sounds good, I'll look 'em up as soon as I get all the glass replaced on my car (see the topic "Replacing ALLLLLL the glass"). The list seems to grow and get smaller all at the same time, hopefully by AUGUST I'll be driving my car again!