NASSEX

Is it normal for the rear to always have more negative camber adjustment than the front on the NA8 chassis?

Going to get a alignment soon but for the time being, when I adjust the rear wheels to have the least amount of negative camber possible, and the front to have the most possible, it still looks very obvious that the front has way less negetive camber than the rear....

I opted out from getting the ELBJ's for the time being, thinking that (and hearing from some others) that as long as the rear is raked a little bit higher than the front, you're definitely supposed to get much more front negative. Hense why people always had to lower their cars as far as possible in the past before ELBJ's were a thing, in order to get the front camber specs that they wanted.

I can take a pic of the car if needed, but the car is sitting about 2" lower than stock ride height. No rubbing, no fender rolling currently. There is still a little more room to lower it. But as it sits right now, the front camber is maxed out all the way and doesn't come close to being able to achieve more negative than the rear.

It's weird because I remember reading a thread a month back about how someone even posted data (Here) of the slope in relation to ride height and front and rear (-) camber. And according to that post, he claimed that the front was always more (-) than the rear. And he even said that at a certain ride height point, if you go lower, the front (-) camber rate will drastically increase from that point on. If that makes sense.

So I read all of that, as well as posts from others regarding their setups while not having ELBJ's but being able to easily get a whole degree of (-) front camber over the rear. Yet here I am worrying that I was misinformed.

I even scroll through videos on youtube of lowered NA Miatas getting alignments while trying to eliminate out as much negative on the rear as possible. and the videos shows them needing to have to settle on like -2 degrees on the rear or more. And the front being about equal at best.

So what's the real truth of the matter? Is it a normal thing to not be able to get Front -1.4° Rear -1° to Front -2.5° Rear -2.0°?

NASSEX

I'm trying to have things set up right on my end so that when the people do the alignment, they can easily make it as close to the spec sheet as possible. And not be a waste of time in the sense that the rear wont go any less than -2 degrees but the front only can see -1.5 or something like that.
Spec sheet:
Front -1.4° Rear -1° to Front -2.5° Rear -2.0°

Anywhere between those two specs are what I'm wanting to run.. Use the limiting factor and round the ratio from front to rear based on the ratio of the specs given. I don't want to be *that guy* and ask for a whole lot. I want to try to do what I can in my power to adjust what I can before hand so that things work out

themonkeyman

Those should be easily achievable targets on fairly aggressively lowered Miata, provided nothing is bent. Are you using a camber gauge when you move the eccentrics around? How are you measuring toe?

NASSEX

I was aiming for just equal toe in/out zero degrees on my temp DIY alignment. As well as maximum front (-) camber and minimum (-) camber rear. To see what I'm up against with that ride height currently.

I used jacked stands and strings propped equal height and distance away from the center hub wheel caps for a cheap and quick DIY alignment. Just to get it somewhat driveable to make it to the shop which is only a 20-30min drive away.
I was in a hurry, it was only meant to get me to the shop and not eat too much tire. I just wanted to make sure they at least had as close to zero or a little toe in if possible but the less the better without spending too much time on it. Final specs were something like
1/8" toe in on both sides of the front and rear was like 1/8" toe in passenger and about 1/16th" toe in driver. But still, no matter how much I would try and dial it myself, it was only going to get me so far with my work surface not being as level as it could be.... So it was better not to spend forever on it lol took me about 1 1/2 hour in all. Because I've done it before.

I did adjust the front cam bolts to be as far out as possible, in order to have a example of what I'm dealing with when it was complete, visually from front vs rear (-) camber wise.
(Also to have the opportunity to maybe ask the alignment shop what my front camber reads at from the start, and then be able to base the rest of the alignment from that)

The driver side rear was already perfectly 1/16" (about as close to zero as I could get around the whole car) So I left it as is. (The camber was as also already set to least negative as possible on that wheel) Another good reason for me to just leave it!

The passenger side rear had SOO much toe out (with the least negative camber adjusted), like a whole half inch of toe out lol I just did whatever it took to get it to read a 1/8" toe in, regardless if it added a crap ton of negative camber.

So the example I am using visually is the driver side since both front should show the most negative and the rear should show the least. And I will say after taking a closer look today that it looks ALMOST even, so maybe I'll be alright if I just lower the front some more. *HOPEFULLY LOL* Thank you.

No camber gauges, I was going to initially get all the tools that I could to do it myself, but my biggest difficulty was having the car perfectly level on any road or grass surfaces near my house. And even after all that trouble, likely a whole days worth of work and cost of tools I still wouldn't be able to get it as accurate as what a alignment shop could do for a affordable price. Otherwise I would have some camber gauges lol

NASSEX

PS I do realize that that is a CRAP ton of overall toe in (like overall 1/4" front and 3/16" rear), but like I said I Wasn't really concerned with getting it precise and spending too much time on trying since after all my DIY alignment was going to only get me so far with the level of inaccuracy of it. It is only meant to go 20-30minutes to the shop

turbofan

iTrader: (1)

Frankly I really wouldn't worry too much about getting it close before you go to the shop. At most they'll charge you a few extra dollars if they have to re-comp the heads and roll it onto the machine twice, but that's usually not a problem on the Miata.

The important part is to find a shop that will do your specs and do them carefully. If you do that, they are not going to be surprised or complain too bad when you show up with it a ways out.

NASSEX

Out of curiosity, what does this mean?
Thx!

themonkeyman

Wait, so you're just eyeballing camber on an uneven surface and worried about the results??

Dude just take it to the shop, it'll align out fine. You're worried over nothing.

matrussell122

iTrader: (1)

Its just part of the process when doing an alignment.

themonkeyman

Basically just ensuring there is no stiction in the tires after making the adjustments throwing off the reading.

curly

iTrader: (25)

compensation is when you roll the car forward and back so the cameras can measure where the wheel sensor plates are. VERY rarely do I need to recomp on a car, usually only when I need to make massive front camber changes on strut cars. So really never on a miata.

You can NEVER do an alignment after simply lowering a car off jack stands. It needs to be roll back a few feet and then rolled forward. The suspension simply won't settle without this and any measurements are pointless.

If you've been driving around on an aligned stock suspended miata, and you lower the car 2", there's really no need for any DIY alignment if you're only driving ~10-20 miles. At most just zero out the front toe visually. Camber won't affect tire wear drastically for that kind of trip, and the toe sweep in the rear of a Miata is fairly minimal, so you should still have close to what you used to have.