What alignment and where?

Zheiko

Zheiko

Octane Boostaholics
Hey,

so I am picking up set of lowering springs, and I was told that alignment is required, My question is, will the standard garage called advance pitstop, or any of the other ones, that do alignment, if I bring set of values I want them to set, are they going to be able to set it the way I want it, or will they just set it to the standard values and will not even talk about it with me?

Also, what Values would you recommend, for a bit of sporty drive, but mainly daily driver over city? Car is currently understeering, and I would like to get this evened, maybe a tad bit into oversteer.

Thanks
 
understeer is a trait of most 50:50 split 4wd and fwd cars.
i think the only way you are going to get oversteer is with a bit of tap dancing on the pedals.
you wont be able to align your way out of understeer while maintaing driveability.

Advance will only allign you with in the tolerances specified by the manufacturer probably +/- 10 minutes for toe dont know if they have the ability to do camber adjustment probably +/- a degree or 2. you have no castor adjustment on a standard car.
your best off go to some one in the know.
if they are using 4 wheel laser sytsems they are only as good as their calibration, often they are dropped and not recalibrated.
you cant beat the manual laser gauges they are the most accurate for toe.

for road use i have mine tracked to 0 minutes and camber 0 and it drives well.
for track you will want something more agressive but go to someone who is setting up geometry for track cars all the time.
 
My experience with Pitstop and other franchises is that they usually will only set it to whatever their machine tells them and typically they will not set anything else. I know the guys in my local Pitstop quite well and they say this is because of potential claims etc. On occasion you might find someone willing to set your car to your settings if you know them well enough.

Have a search on here or Scoobynet and you will find the Prodrive alignment settings easy enough if you want something a bit more aggressive and less understeering, but still ok on the road too (without wearing the inside threads too much).

Depending on your model you might not have camber adjustment (my Hawk doesn't from the factory). In that case you will need to buy camber bolts and / or other solution to enable you to set camber. Without being able to set camber the alignment changes will have a very limited impact short of ensuring the right toe is set.

To dial out some of the understeer you may need to do more than just alignment settings though. The simplest solution is to uprate the rear drop links and if you want more you can also go for a stiffer rear ARB (only go up one size and not too stiff or else you will lose too much grip).

Also check your bushings are tight and not worn, especially to rear bushing on the front wishbones tends to wear. Best to replace with a polybush, or consider a Whiteline Anti Lift Kit which comes with an uprated poly bush for that position.

How much are you lowering the car by? If more than 20-25mm then suggest you look at maybe getting a bump-steer-kit from Whiteline to counteract dynamic camber issues. Impreza's suffer from this, especially when lowered, and means that as the suspension compresses the wheel gains positive camber which gives you a lot more understeer - and you cannot dial it out with alignment because it is dynamic (changes with how much the suspension is compressed).

There's more that can be done, but the above will get you a lot of the way there and basically reads like a stage 1 and 2 improvements if that makes sense.
 
a rear arb from whiteline or give wagon dec a shout is best advice i can give
 
Forget about advanced and any of them places most don't even know how to use the machines or give a toss. . Talk to wagon dec on here he will set it up properly and it will be done right :thumbsup:
 
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