Cobb springs and alignment

[GhostMercury]

So after installing my springs the alignment place is telling me my strut towers need to be notched so they can fix the toe or whatever. What kind of bs is that. has anyone else had this problem. I'm going to loosen the bolts and then pull on the spring and see if i can get it to move any

[Mid_Life_Crisis]

WTF? (uhm)

You did say in another post that your drop was surprisingly low, could that have something to do with it? You didn't leave any pieces out did you? (kidding)

Why would they have to notch the towers for toe? I could maybe see caster or camber, but not toe.

[SPEEDYHANS]

from my experience toe is when the wheel are pointing at each other and can be fixed by adjusting the tie rod ether u must mien camber,or the guy is a idiot,or they trying to take ur money but look into it

[GhostMercury]

i might be saying the wrong thing it might not be toe. but its the adjust,ent that suposedly can't be adjusted the tires are like this / / if you were looking at the front of the car. but not that extreme

[Mid_Life_Crisis]

i might be saying the wrong thing it might not be toe. but its the adjust,ent that suposedly can't be adjusted the tires are like this / / if you were looking at the front of the car. but not that extreme

Both tires are off in the same direction? I begin to suspect that either something went horribly wrong during your installation, or you already had a problem with your suspension and just weren't aware of it. Forget notching, you need to get that thing looked at by a suspension/steering system expert.

[GhostMercury]

well its only 1.5 on one side and .5 on the other. so i think maybe i need to realign the top 3 bolts and make sure they are perfectly strait.

[bacarl]

/ / from the front of the car is camber. / / from the top of the car would be toe.

When you put the two dashes, do you mean that's what the two tires look like? If the left is +1.5 and the right is +0.5, it would look more like this from the front of the car: \ /

Or maybe when you put // that just shows a single tire? In which case it still illustrates camber.

At any rate, toe is completely adjustable via the toe links, like speedyhans said. Camber is technically not adjustable, but by moving the strut top left or right you can affect camber on a MacPherson suspension. Unfortunately i don't know what our camber specs are, but both left and right are almost certainly slightly negative, so the two front tires would like this when viewed from the front : / \

Lastly, when you lower a suspension, camber always becomes more negative. If you're measuring excessive positive camber after lowering, then yes as Mid_Life said there's probably something either wrong with the install or wrong with the suspension originally.

[bacarl]

By any chance could you scan & post up your alignment sheet, if you got one? Also can you confirm that both sides are positive, and which side is 1.5 and which is 0.5?

[Mid_Life_Crisis]

well its only 1.5 on one side and .5 on the other. so i think maybe i need to realign the top 3 bolts and make sure they are perfectly strait.

Do you have the printout? It is ridiculous for us to try to help with this when no one is sure which setting you are talking about.
The top of the strut assembly has a fixture that allows the strut to rotate when you turn the wheel, so forget about correcting toe by loosening those three bolts and moving the strut top. If you were to shove the top of the strut forward or backward, it would change the caster, and side to side will change the camber, but nothing you do there should affect toe.
Technically it might change it the slightest little bit, but I'm not convinced that a typical alignment shop would be able to measure the difference.
Shift the top to get the camber correct, lock down the bolts, and then use the rod ends to adjust the toe if you are concerned about the strut position messing up toe.

[GhostMercury]

BEFORE
the front left
-CAMBER is -0.5
-CASTER is 3.4
-TOE is 0.11
-SAI is 9.2

the front right
-CAMBER is -1.4
-CASTER is 2.8
-TOE is 0.12
-SAI is 12.0

AFTER
the front left
-CAMBER is -0.5
-CASTER is 3.4
-TOE is 0.10
-SAI is 9.2

the front right
-CAMBER is -1.4
-CASTER is 2.8
-TOE is 0.11
-SAI is 12.0

so its the camber that is messed up. Will re-aligning the strut holes help fix it?

[GhostMercury]

bump for the specs i posted

[jville]

Do you have the printout? It is ridiculous for us to try to help with this when no one is sure which setting you are talking about.
The top of the strut assembly has a fixture that allows the strut to rotate when you turn the wheel, so forget about correcting toe by loosening those three bolts and moving the strut top. If you were to shove the top of the strut forward or backward, it would change the caster, and side to side will change the camber, but nothing you do there should affect toe.
Technically it might change it the slightest little bit, but I'm not convinced that a typical alignment shop would be able to measure the difference.
Shift the top to get the camber correct, lock down the bolts, and then use the rod ends to adjust the toe if you are concerned about the strut position messing up toe.

I aligned jaxjeffs speed 6 after his suspension drop (hr) with our laser eye hunter machine. drives perfect, no abnormal tire wear.

[jville]

So after installing my springs the alignment place is telling me my strut towers need to be notched so they can fix the toe or whatever. What kind of bs is that. has anyone else had this problem. I'm going to loosen the bolts and then pull on the spring and see if i can get it to move any

Yes you do have to file/slot the strut tower mounting bolt holes to adjust camber/caster on the front. the rear has excentric cams

[GhostMercury]

yea but is that maybe a small enough amount that i could try and reposition the strut and fix it. because how could my car be diff then everyone elses

[Mid_Life_Crisis]

Yes you do have to file/slot the strut tower mounting bolt holes to adjust camber/caster on the front. the rear has excentric cams

There is a fair amount of slop in the mounting holes on the strut tower. No filing should be necessary. Loosen the three bolts, shove the strut top all the way towards the engine, trying to center it front to back (to keep caster the same on both sides) and tighten it down. This will max out the camber in the negative range. Once that is done, go back and get it tested again.

[bacarl]

BEFORE
the front left
-CAMBER is -0.5
the front right
-CAMBER is -1.4

AFTER
the front left
-CAMBER is -0.5
the front right
-CAMBER is -1.4

so its the camber that is messed up.....
How do you figure? Camber is identical before/after. -1.4 is a lot different than the +1.5 that you said before. Nothing wrong with -1.4. Granted they're not quite even left to right but that is not a problem, it will likely never be perfect.

However, I'm very surprised that your before/afters are so similar. After changing springs, one would expect to see a change of several tenths for caster & camber. Anytime suspension components are removed/rebuilt/replaced, things tend to move around. If the shop had aligned the car, pulled it off the rack, pulled it back on, and aligned it again, I'd still be surprised to see numbers this close. There's always some variation in the measurements and it's quite common and normal to get a few hundreths variation (like you see in your toe numbers) even in back-to-back measurements on a Hunter.

At ay rate, if you want to even out the car and add more negative camber on the left, do like Mid_Life said and push the strut top inboard. Remember to do it with the wheel off the ground or the weight of the car will be on that joint and you won't be able to budge it. But really, the alignment is fine as it is, unless -1.4 is out of spec - but I doubt it?

[bacarl]

Wait a sec... I bet your before and afters came off the same sheet didn't they. I forgot that Hunter sheets have two columns.

The "before" does not apply to what your car measured before the springs were installed. It measures "before" then allows repair, I think, then measures "after". Because repairs are difficult to actually do on a Hunter, I don't think they happen often, so the before/after are identical. That's exactly what I meant by typical variation in your toe numbers: nothing actually changed between the .10 and .11, the machine just picked up some variation so it printed an "after" column.

Sorry for the confusion! My experience with Hunters is from a manufacturing facility, not an alignment shop. Our Hunter is just used as as auditing machine. If there's a problem with the numbers the car goes to a seperate station/device to be adjusted.

What we need to check out is what your specs were literally before the spring install. Obviously that's not going to happen, but like I said I bet everything is still in spec. The only reason you'd need to adjust your struts is if you don't like the numbers the way they are.

[Mid_Life_Crisis]

However, I'm very surprised that your before/afters are so similar.

Similar, they're identical.
I think he told them not to do the alignment when they told him filing was necessary.
These cars have four wheel alignment adjustability, by the way. Get a complete alignment done. My car was slightly "dog-tracking" as the alignment person called it because the rears were off. Swapping the rear springs really shouldn't throw anything off back there (except the expected change in camber), but it could have already been off.

[GhostMercury]

but my car still pulls to the left now

[bacarl]

Camber doesn't have much effect on pull, unless it's off drastically. Check your tire pressures?

[jville]

Camber doesn't have much effect on pull, unless it's off drastically. Check your tire pressures?

camber is the main thing that causes a pull. the more angled a tire is the vehicle is gunna pull which ever way ther tire is angled. maybe you mean caster, caster is what helps your steering wheel return to neutral and a car will pull to high caster (the angle forward or back from the imaginary plum line dropped from the upper bj or in this case upper strut mount). Go to a REAL alignment shop and have the take care of it, prolly an extra benjamin depending on labor rate. At my shop it would have been 97.50 in labor pplus the 59.95 for the 4 wheel alignment.

[Kain]

but my car still pulls to the left now

Radial pull.

[GhostMercury]

whats that mean? and how do i fix it. Sorry if these are dumb questions, but i have stayed away from suspension because i don't know much about all the caster camber toe. I just wana be happy with my cobb springs and coast in a strait line lol. So i appreciate your guys help. the alignment place is just trying to get money, luckily i have unlimited alignments for 3 years so i will go back and forth till its fixed or they get tired of me and fix it themselves without making me pay

[pointysticks]

ghost..i dont understand. you mean your alignment shop wont make the adjustments? or they will only mess with the factory adjustment points and leave the "non orthodox - mess with the top of struts" up to you?

you inspired me into looking at the COBBS stuff. i am subscribed.

[GhostMercury]

yea the shop is pissing me off so im taking it somewhere else once i try and straiten everything out myself. The springs are perfect, just the alignment is getting annoying because the shop isn't working with me

[Rubasu]

the car is going to pull to the side with the least neg camber. hence the pull to the left. lowering a car changes the geometry of the suspension and tends to cause the suspension to have more negative camber this is why mazda sells the control arms for the rear with their springs to compensate for the neg camber caused by thier springs. look for a viable solution for the front camber like a set of camber plates (if they are available yet) you did not post the specs for the rear but if they are off to bad enough it will also cause pull which is why you always adjust the rear camber and toe before adjusting the front. If there are no solutions for the front available then tell the shop to slot the strut towers like they said they needed to and let them fix the camber that way until a better solution is available

[Rubasu]

and why does everyone assume that a shop is merely trying to get their money when they say they need to do something to fix something. Ghost you admited yourself that you do not know much about suspension and alignments and yet you jump to the conclusion that they are trying to rip you off when they tell you that you need something extra done to fix a problem that you are having. I just don't understand that mentality because I am tech myself and we have to hear shit everytime we try to make a sale on something that the car needs done. fix it yourself or don't complain when told what needs to be done to fix the problem you are having.

[GhostMercury]

i jumped to the conconclusion that they are ripping me off because the manager, dressed in a polo with no grease tells me i need to pay 180 to fix it, and then the mechanic comes up to me when i get my car back and tells me i don't need to notch it and try just lossening the bolts and pulling on it towards me. So i would say the manager wants the money, hence trying to rip me off, when his mechanic tells me otherwise, key point his mechanic.

[GhostMercury]

and the geometry of the suspension wasn't change that much, we're talking baout the cobb springs if you know about them or have an ms3, they don't come with a massive drop and were designed to work with the stock suspension. so as far as the geometry thing its not a 3 inch lowering job, its 1 inch at the very very very most

[Rubasu]

anything lower or higher then stock changes the geomoetry of the suspension a 1inch drop is a 1inch change in the geomoetry and obviously is enough to throw off the camber of the car hence the problem you are having. they were designed to not bottom out the stock struts and shocks when going over bumps making the car ride on the bump stops. sometimes changing the ride height requires using a different shock/strut setup to keep the car off the bump stops the cobb springs were designed to work within the stock struts capabilities that does not mean that you will not have camber problem because they were designed to work with the stock suspension. as far as the manager goes he was coming to you only after his "mechanic" went to him with the problem you were having and offered you a solution that may help fix the problem you were having. How can loosening the bolts on the top of strut a pulling it towards you help if there is no room for top hat to slide back and forth in, this is where the notch comes into play. The only thing I could think of is if the strut gets bolted trought the knuckle then a possibilty to counter your problem would be to loosen the bolts going through the knuckle and have a friend pull on the top of tire out while you tighten the bolts back up. there is sometimes a little wiggle room where the bolts go through the strut. it may eleviate some of the neg. camber but not all of it. I the best way to fix it though is see if camber plates are available yet for the car and have them installed and have the alignment redone.

[Rubasu]

and yes I have an MS3 and I have been using Cobb products since they came on the scene with parts for subarus. top notch products and great service