ehall

Any of you guys have any suggestions on camber/caster guage apperatus and toe measurment gear? Any experience?
It's becoming a total pain in the *** to get a freaking tech, around here, that ever bothers to freaking return phone calls, much less set up an appointment to do the damned work. Brumos wants 3 and a quarter so I may as well buy the gear and do it myself?
So what have you used?
TIA

v12man

Smart Racing strings and Camber kit works for me at home - the Hunter 7 something or other at my friends shop also works well - comes with free labour... just costs beer.

I did not trust myself in the beginning - but you do eventually - just takes a bit longer than the fancy kit, but I now understand what happens and which adjuster does what.

ehall

Thanks for the reply. I'll check into that.
I figure that it isn't brain surgery, just knowledge and pacience that is required+proper tools.

Claus Groth

Check out this site. http://www.sherline.com/alignsys.htm. I fabricated my own simpler fixtures based on this design since I use standard car balance scales. If you are interested, I can send you a drawing of my part if you can read an AutoCAD drawing.

Claus Groth

I should write that I fabricated two fixtures and and adjust one end of the car at a time. This fixture allows you to access the rear toe/camber adjuster while the car is on the ground.

Bill L Seifert

The problem with doing it yourself is that not only does the front and rear of the car have to be aligned separetly, but together. Otherwise the car goes down the road caty wompas. I know a guy that use to do his Saturn himself, and he even won an SCCA National Championship, so I know he is good at it. But, I also know I can't do it. Every couple of years, I get a good 4 wheel alignment, and then I can adjust from there. I have a Smart Camber and a toe guage. This year the local techs wanted close to $300, so I bought the special tool for the rear for $36 from Vertex, or Performance Products, (I can't remember which.) and took the car to the local "Merican" car alignment shop. He did it for $150 and I got the see the figures on his computer alignment machine. The front doesn't need a special tool, but the rear does.

If you live in JAX you might want to call Nort Northam in Orlando, he is a pretty good 944 racer, and I'll bet he might know someone in North Fla that can do the job right. His work phone is 407-647-1911. Also Zots is somewhere between Orlando and Wildwood just off the Turnpike. I broke an alternator one time at the Turkey Creek Plaza and Ron Zitza, who owns Zots fixed it for me. I may be misspelling Zots. Ron is an old Porsche racer. I live part time in Daytona, and getting race car stuff done is easier in North Fla, than it is in Pleasant View, Tenn. or Nashville for that matter.

Bill Seifert

1987 944S Race Car

ehall

Thanks for the info Bill. The problem here isn't finding a well qualified tech, but instead the problem is getting them to call you back, when they say they will, if they will at all.
I have the special tool, so i may shop around for my own "merican" alignment shop as well. lol
I agree with your point about getting F/R aligned as a unit. That does concern me as well.
Having looked around, The tools will cost my close to 300 bucks, give or take 50.
I may break down and have Brumos do it. It's WAY out of alignment.

ehall

Thanks for the offer Claus. I'm a CRAPPY fabricator, but I'll bet someone will see tyhis thread and you'll get some questions in the future. Thanks again.

kurt M

Smart strings or home made of the same and a camber guage or homemade of the same will let you line things up very well. Add scales and scale frames to level them up and you are golden. Scale frames can also be home made. Smart racing website has the instructions on their equpment open for download. You can read up on the methods and get the work sheets to see if you can wrap you head around the process before you buy. You can with a little shop fab time have a home shop setup that wil do full lineups and corner balance for under $2K. Lineups only for under $500 or less then $200 if you make your own equpment. All kinds of stuff can be found used if as you say your fab skills are not so fab.

M758

I did the aligment on my 944 spec car at home.

It took time, but very little money or tools.

I had camber gauge and the rear toe adjuster as my only special tools. All the rest were standard stuff.

I used string and bubble level to create a flat patch. Then some thin wood to make up the difference. I used shopping bags with soap water inside to make slip plates.

I then took 4 jack stand stands and ran one string line down each side of the car. Using a tape measure I squared off the strings around the car. I too measurements from teh center of the hub to string ensure it was equal side to side on both the front and rear. Clearly the actuall numbers were different front to rear, but side to side is all I needed. That took me abotu 90 mintues the first time and maybe 60 mintues the second time. Anyway in the end I had two straightlines running down the side of the car. From here I just measure from the line to the wheels to get toe. This gave me front and rear toe on each side of the car good to 1/16 of an inch.

Then when I made my rear toe adjustments I lifted the car found a reference point from the fender to brake caliper in the rear and simply adjusted my toe till I got what I wanted there. I also did a differential measurement of camber in the air to ensure I got what I wanted. It took time but worked out quite well. The last race I did I was quite happy with how it turned out on track.

trackjunky

Save your money.

I routinely did my own alignments. The "special tool" is a pain in the ***. Clearance sucks.

Here's what I did. I hooked two ratchet straps to the front, or backs (depends toe-in or toe out) of the rear rims then a frame point on the opposite side (think of an "X" being formed by the straps under your car. You can adjust rear camber with the sway bar removed and you can use the ratchet straps to dial in toe. This keeps the adjustment in one spot so you can sneak out from under the car and check your alignment settings - or - provides just enough time to startle your wife so that she can take the measurements for you. I drive the car up on two 2x12's stacked and cut to be ramps, then sandwich thick green lawn bags with windex sprayed inside them to make turn plates. Make sure everything is close to level as the car can slide off these 2x12's. The bags are slick!

I do about 2-4 alignments per track season and it's worked fine for me. Checked against a Hunter alignment machine and I was pretty darn close. Off by a few hundreths.

Do I get the $150 prize for best solution submitted by a reader?

ehall

How do you get caster measurments?

trackjunky

Smart Guage.

Bill L Seifert

"How do you get caster measurements?"

How do you change caster on a 944? I know the caster blocks are supose to adjust that, but they just move side to side. Caster is the front/ rear angle of the strut. I just don't see how that is adjusted with the caster blocks.

When I get a professional allignment, I just take their word for it. When I adjust the front myself, I just center the caster block. I am sure I am doing that wrong.

Bill

trackjunky

When you adjust the lever on the end of the arm by the caster block, look at the orientation of the wheel in the wheel well. You'll see that it moves forwards and backwards. This is the caster adjusting. As you push the rear of the arm (at the caster block) towards the outside of the car, the wheel moves forward. As you move the caster block towards the center of the car the wheel moves backwards in the wheel well.

Set caster, then toe. Usually, I set caster and it pretty much stays put.