Alignment bolt practicalities
 

OK, recognizing that I overthink things, I have some practical questions about "best practices" for NA/NB alignment bolts. I'm hoping for input from people who do their own alignments and thrash their cars hard on the track. If you've read things elsewhere that would be useful, I'd appreciate links.

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1. Do you follow the bolt orientations shown in the factory service manual? These seem to me to put the nuts in less-accessible places for applying the cave-man levels of torque that's needed to prevent slip.
   1. If not, do you use the bolt head (with integrated offset washer) to adjust the alignment, or do you still adjust at the location specified in the FSM? I'm guessing that there's more "slop" in the offset washer at the nut end of the bolt.
2. How tight do you set the nuts before doing the alignment?
3. Have you ever snapped or stripped a stock alignment bolt/nut?
4. Do you use a breaker bar and a socket, or a box-end wrench and a cheater pipe? Some special extra-long-pattern wrench?
   1. In some places, I can only fit a wrench and that doesn't really provide enough leverage to apply 100+ imperial units of torque.
   2. What do you use to counter-hold all that torque?
5. Does the height of the car off the ground affect how you tighten these bolts? I use QuickJacks to get my car pretty high in the air, but there's still not walk-underneath levels of room to swing a bar.
6. Do you use Loctite?

These may seem like simple questions, but to me they're the difference between what I've done in the past that's "mostly successful" and the pro-level result I want to achieve on my next alignment. I should have caught my last loose alignment bolt before it became a problem, that's on me. But having just pulled them all off, none felt like they were in the 100+ range despite my best efforts during my last alignment.

In shorter form: I want to do a better job of tightening these bolts and am looking for places where I can improve.

Thanks in advance!

I'm a long way from a pro, but....

1) From a "holding the setting" standpoint I don't think it matters which way the bolts go in, I put them whichever way is most convenient for access.
2) I don't think this matters too much. Tight enough that it turns into one assembly so that you can rotate the cam, but not so tight that you can't? :)
3) I have not, but I was always pretty careful
4) They sell extra-long box end wrenches, that's what I used.
5) Most pro alignment racks don't have a ton of room underneath either.
6) I do not. I don't think it would help much anyway, the problem isn't the threads on the nuts loosening, it's the eccentric cams slipping and I don't think locktite would work on that.

--Ian

I've been aligning my car on Paco stands for a few years now.

1. I follow the factory layout, bolts are inserted from the center of the control arm. So, the nuts are on the outside of the control arms. You can improve access on the FLCA-F nut by turning the steering to get the rack bellows out of the way. I adjust the settings by turning the bolt head side, and always try to overshoot my adjustment when turning it, then going back a bit. That should, in my mind, settle it into the middle of the range of slop.
2. I only overtorque the FLCA-F bolt. I don't really know what I torque it to, I just get it gutentight. I guess I've been lucky in that it only slipped on me once at the factory torque setting. If it happens at the track, find some toe plates and use only the camber bolt to adjust your toe back to the original setting. That should get your camber bolt just about where it was prior to the slip.
3. Never stripped or snapped a stock bolt. I am currently using the Supermiata alignment bolts at the FLCA-F location but don't know that I'll buy another set. The washers do not seem up to the task, I had one strip off the teeth that hold the eccentric washer in place. The washers all had imprints of the oval hole that lets the adjustment bolt do its thing.
4. I use wrenches and the redneck double wrench technique, or a breaker bar and socket. Depends on tool access. I calibrate my arms based off of torquing to the factory spec first. I use another wrench to hold the bolt head in place and always torque off of the nut if I can help it. Make sure you have the bolt head slightly pre-torqued so it doesn't slip on you before the wrench holds it.

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...464c2642dd.jpg

5. The Paco stands let me access it from the side. I'm not that slow of a driver, I like curbs, and I'm on 200tw 225's. I'm not on the Hoosiers and I'm just doing HDPE, so maybe that's enough for the torque I need.
6. No loctite, no loosening of bolts.

Cats all around! Free cats in return for valuable information!

We're currently 50/50 on bolt orientation, no on the Loctite.

This gives me an idea that I'll just spew out and request for comments:

Since I'm using fancy urethane/steel/bronze bushings that allow the arms to move freely, can I set the alignment, tighten mildly, then lift the car and remove the wheels, allowing me to apply force from outside the car instead of underneath? It would certainly improve access...

Only rubber bushings need to be torqued at ride height. The rubber bushing has memory and resists pivoting, and it always wants to return to a zero load condition - the angle you torqued it at. So if you torque it at full droop, it'll add to your spring rate once dropped down and you'll be riding higher than if you torqued them with the wheels on the ground.

Poly/bronze bushings, regular poly, delrin, and spherical bearings all work as true bearings/bushings with rotation and friction, not just twisting rubber. Torque them at any ride height you want. I recommend at least snugging them up tight with weight on the tires though, if only for consistency's sake in taking up any slop and loading the control arms a bit. So what you described would work fine.

I don't think the bolt orientation actually matters. Anywhere it's tight access is going to have pro's and con's to either bolt orientation, so I wouldn't worry about it if you prefer the bolt to be flipped one way or the other.

In for answers, im in the midst of a total refresh. My plan was orange or blue loctite on the alignment nuts and arranged bolts easy-to-torque when the car sits on blocks.

are sm alignment washers/bolts a no-go then or...?

They're not an option for me right now because they're out-of-stock and I can't wait.

I forgot to mention that over-torquing only the F-LCA bolt is an interesting idea that I'd like to hear more input on.

I'm rocking new OEM alignment bolts. Once I get my alignment done, I take it home and put it in the air and torque everything down and mark it (in case it moves, so I can set it back to the known good alignment). I've only had an alignment slip once, and that was before I started doing this.

I don't think loctite really is needed, when the alignment slips it's not going to be because the bolt got loose, it just was never torqued hard enough in the first place.

-Alignment bolts go in whichever way is convenient.
-Use two of these to hold and tighten them. https://www.gearwrench.com/all-tools...cheting-wrench
-Never broken or stripped a bolt. Stretched lots. They are wear items. I replace about every 3 alignments or so.
-Thread locker wont stop them from slipping, will only make the next alignment more annoying.

Sorry they weren't up to snuff. Miscommunication with factory led to the mismatch in materials.

We have updated our NA/NB alignment bolt kit and stopped selling the original version. The originals didn't have enough material hardness in the washers. So we went full ham and swapped the entire kit to 4140 heat treated CrMo with about the same tensile strength as an ARP wheel stud (which we also tested).
OEM are 10.9. Our revised kit will be a 12.9 grade with roughly 90% higher tensile strength than OEM. The new stuff has had every component tested for hardness (HRB) min and proof tensile strength. Those should start shipping June or so. Ping Ed to get yours replaced.

I want to reiterate this. For anyone who had issues with the old bolts, we will replace with the new full beef versions free of charge. Just email info@949racing.com

We don't have them yet, should have them around the end of May. Best bet is to reach out then, or whenever you see the announcement that we have them back in stock.

Cats for the aftercare, gentlemen. Glad to see you stand behind your products!

I may have already tossed my first set after the deformation and would only have two left on the car, but I will probably order some of the V2 updated parts when the time comes.

Email us when you see the announcement they've arrived, we'll take care of you.

Annnnnnd that's why I'm a Supermiata fanboi.

Haha, thanks Nate, appreciate you guys. We ain't perfect but try to make it good when a mistake is made.