Camber Challenged?
 

Is there any way to get more camber out of my front suspension? Right now it's at -1.1* and that's all they are telling me they can get. I'm running the Bilstein PSS coilovers. The rear has been lowered as far as it will allow and then the front was lowered until the car has a 1/4" rake. Looking for a way to make this happen without replacing the entire suspension or spending a ton of money.

If I'm just stuck with this, what starting numbers should I be shooting for when I get an alignment to maximize the car with this limitation?

JayL, there are some cars that are more camber challanged than others but I would assume that 1.1 is not a legit number. You can add camber by going with offset bushings or and old spec miata trick of heating up the a arm and bending it. If this is for the road course you'll need 2 degrees for street rubber and 3 degrees for r comps/slicks to keep the tires happy. Tune from there with a pyro.

I don't believe for a god damn minute that -1.1 is the best they can do, I do however believe they are morons. Is this the NA or NB? What do the bushings look like?

Was this car ever wrecked or entertained by a few speedbumps...at speed. I went over speed bumps at MSR-H a few years ago at about 70mph and it killed the lower control arms.

You should have problems getting less than -1.1 if your car is that low. -3 should be easy.

+1

Are they having this problem on both sides or just one?

If one side, I can believe it. My '92 is the same way. Means that somebody has curbed it other otherwise tweaked one of the A-arms such that it ain't quite factory spec anymore. It happens.

OTOH, if they think they're hitting this camber wall on both sides, then something ain't right about this situation, and it probably isn't mechanical in nature.

Have you made it clear that camber takes precedence over caster? The geometry of the suspension is such that you often can't achieve both -2° camber and +5° caster, so you have to let them know which one you're really targeting.

What caster are they getting? If they are trying to max it out, it may keep them from getting camber.

Something sounds bent. Start with the lower balljoint, then the lower control arm.

It's the left side that's causing this problem. The car isn't very low compared to most people on here, just a little bit lower than stock. It's my 2001 NB and it has never been in any kind of incident whatsoever. All the components are original and the car only has 27K on it. It's had it's fair share of hard launches at the drag strip, but I can't imagine that my launches were hard enough to cause any damage to the A-arm. I did have my dump tube pointing towards the lower arm for quite awhile. The distance closed even more when the car was strapped to the dyno (which was hundreds of pulls) and that heat could have weakened it enough to make a difference. The shop that did the alignment was TC Motorsports, they do a lot of Miatas and are well known up here in the racing community. It did end up with 6* castor and they claimed they couldn't get close to the 4* that I wanted. I gave the tech the specs that 949 Racing has listed for an alignment (the tech didn't like them at all) and told them that's what I wanted.

Regardless, it needs to be fixed. Should I start with trying a different shop? Or perhaps the ball joint, do both top and bottom A-arms? Any other components while I'm in there? Since it costs me money everytime I try to get it aligned, I'd rather bring it back knowing that it's going to be fine.

He He... many have scoffed at Emilio's specs until they were actually implemented. Goes beyond old school way of looking at things, but faster is faster. ;)

That's weird, I'd suspect a bent part. How much camber in the other wheels? Something is not right, but lowering the car may get you somewhere. Still, if you have 5" at the pinch weld and can only get -1.1 then something is bent.

I would.

My regular alignment shop in SLO is a basic tire place, but the techs there understand what I do and they never gripe or bitch about the specs, and they do the work quickly. On a recent customer car, the regular shop was full so I took it to a different place. This place is supposed to be the "hot" alignment shop in SLO.

The first mistake was when they wanted to test-drive the car before loading it on the rack - I told them that their alignment tech was going nowhere near the driver's seat of a 400whp LSx Miata, including pulling it up onto their rack. s

The second mistake was when the old geezer barking instructions to his middle-aged tech came into the lobby and recommended that I "toe the front tires in, because with this much caster the car will want to wander on the highway." I politely told him to hit the numbers, do not deviate, and do not ask me about changing them again.

Two HOURS later (at least 30 minutes of which was three techs just staring at the bottom of the car), the old guy comes out and the service writer asks if the car is done. He proceeds to say that he's not happy with the numbers, but they are what I asked for. I roll my eyes and pull out a credit card, and the old dude (who apparently owns the shop) then proceeded to say "But hey, I don't work on race cars, so I don't really know what the specs should be." :vash:

Anyone with a laser rack and $10 worth of motivation in his shirt pocket can produce a perfect race alignment - if you doubt your shop at all, switch shops.

lol, holy crap... :jerkit:

I feel really lucky to have a local shop that races Miatas/3s in Continental Tire to handle my alignments after reading this.

That was an awful experience.

I'm going to try a different shop next week and see what they can do.

I would. Unless your lower control arms are bent with a 10* angle or something weird.

Now the fun part will be choosing a shop. Should I go high end (Speedware) where the tech might feel he knows best or just go to Sear's where the tech will hit the numbers I want because he doesn't care how the car drives when he's done?

If the tech feels the need to inform you that want you want is correct, you can feel the need to tell him to suck it.

This is why I spent over $400 to get some basic alignment tools. Between the 3 Miatas I own/maintain it seems like I do an alignment on each one every year. The last time when they refused to get the settings the same left to right instead of just in the "green zone" , I just had it. It costs $80-100 for a job that I have no faith in. They also refused to provide me with a before and an after printout of the settings. So how do I know they did not just pull the car on the rack, take a smoke break and charge me $80 bucks an hour later.
About two years ago we went to a pretty respectable shop with my brothers FFR 65 Shelby Cobra kit car to get an alignment done before a weekend trip to Deals Gap. Well in 2 days driving non stop we ate the inside tires down to to the cords due to completely messed up toe angles. They refused to pay for new tires or even offer to re-align the car.
So needless to say I am now spending the time to learn how to do it right myself. It might take longer and I might not be able to set it with quite the precision that the can on a lazer table, but at least I will know it is right.

Shit like this is why I do my own alignments. I got tired of being questioned. Having access to an alignment machine is awesome.
I put a friends Miata on an alignment rack and was having the same problem as OP. There is slight visible damage to the control arm. Couldn't get more then -1 degree of camber. I'd check everything if I were you.

Best advice yet. Smart strings, a few pieces of angle iron, a digital level and a couple lasers worked real well. Once I win the lottery, we'll have a set of turntables. Until then, floor squares and wax paper do the trick.

Diy is they way to for alignment, I check mine every time I use the car, and can adjust at the track if something isn't right or I have an off road experience.

Jay,

The three places I would recommend in the Seattle area are Doug Chase (Duvall) -- http://www.chaserace.com/, Fordahl Motorsports (Bellevue)-- Greg Fordahl really knows his stuff, the "service manager" type guy isn't that great though. I've also heard good things about Group 2 motorsports (Seattle).

It's my understanding that it's not unheard of for some Miatas to max out at relatively poor camber numbers on one side. I'm toying with the idea of the offset bushings myself.

I sent you a message Jay.

You should feel fortunate, I can only get -0.6 out of the Volvo.

+1 on Fordahl... I've known him for around 30 years and he knows how to set up track cars.

Ended up going with a new set of upper control arms with the ISC offset bushings. That should get me to where I want to be. Once they arrive and I install them it's going to get an alignment and we'll see if this fixes the problem. Will post a follow-up with new alignment numbers in couple weeks.

I've done it both ways. Sears couldn't get close to the numbers I wanted and managed to damage the finish on my wheels while they were at it.

Speedware did exactly as I asked. No muss, no fuss.


FWIW, YMMV, etc.

Got a box from ISC Racing today, can't wait to get these on the car.

Attachment 190955

I'll be interested to see what you get for caster, with my offset bushings and -2.3 camber the least caster I can get is about 5 degrees. We found that more camber allowed for less caster but -2.3 was as much as I wanted on a street car.

What alignment numbers should I be shooting for? The car is on Bilstein PSS coilovers that have 282/242 spring rates and the car isn't as low as many around here. I was going to use the 949 alignment specs for a car at this ride height, but I'm not sure that would be the best starting point for a car with springs this soft.

What keeps those from spinning in the control arm?

There's a fitting screwed into the other side that's not visible in the pictures. According to ISC, it would still be fine without the fitting.

As you can see in my sig, my car isn't terribly low either but it's quite a lot stiffer than yours so I don't know that my setup would work particularly well on your car.

That being said here are my specs to give you a general idea...

Front
-2.3* front camber
5.3* front caster
0 toe

Rear
-2.0* camber
1/16 toe in

I drive the car fairly hard so camber wear hasn't been a problem. The track only guys run more camber, but my car sees mostly street duty.

Got everything installed over the weekend. Played around a bit with the ride height and it's now at 4.5" in the front and 4.75" in the rear at the pinch welds. I have an appointment this afternoon at Speedware to get it aligned and I'm going with the 949 specs as the starting point. Have a few hours before it goes in so is there any last minute suggestions or something I'm overlooking?

Unhook your sway bars so they are not preloading your suspension. I assume they have lead plates to simulate you in the drivers seat?

Will they be corner balancing the car at all?

Just got home from getting it aligned and I'm very happy. Kelly at Speedware Motorsports walked me through the entire process. Not only learned a lot but ended up with a car that drives great. The faster the corner the better it feels, noticeably better than how it was before. The drivers side front still was a trouble spot so at some point I'll be replacing the lower control arm. That should be all it takes to get the front caster down a little more. Anyways, here's the final numbers.

Front
-2.5* front camber
4.6* front caster
0 toe

Rear
-2.0* camber
0 toe

It was great to finally meet you today Jason. Thanks again for coming in and chatting cars with me while I worked.

For posterity's sake.

When the camber has been maxed out in the front, the lower control arm's inner-bushing, forward adjuster, will be positioned so that it pushes the A-arm out as far as it will go - that means a 3 o'clock or 9-o'clock position, depending on how you look at it.

If the shop says "it's maxed out", but the above isn't true, point it out.

The forward adjuster adjusts mainly camber.
The rear bushing adjuster, adjusts mainly caster.
There is only a bit of interaction between them.
Adjusting either camber or caster, will change toe, so toe needs to be adjusted last.


In the rears, turning the adjusters in the same direction, will change camber.
Turning them in opposite directions, will change toe.

Actually seeing this and how it changed the numbers was what made it such a learning experience for me.