merlindavis

3g 4WS, on H&R Sport springs...

i had the car aligned shortly after lowering it, at the Honda dealership... can't remember what the specs were, but i think they only touched camber, and got it as far as they could on stock hardware...

fast forward to now, had the car re-aligned recently due to installing the camber kit... front and rear toe was all fuxored, and it's within the dealership specs now... my eyeballed adjustment to camber (which cause the nasty toe) ended up being almost dead for three corners (-0.36°), with it being -0.20° on the right rear, adjusted to -0.24 by Honda...

my question is this... they didn't touch the caster at all... i wasn't able to speak to the tech directly, but i was told that everything was within spec according to the screen the tech looks at, however, front caster was out of spec according to the printout that the dealership gave me... they told me that lowering the car hampered their ability to properly align the car, and i believe that they didn't touch the caster at all on the first alignment... their excuse is that it might not have any adjustment left in it... this is all second hand knowledge, with the tech who did my car staying back in the shop and not managing to come up to the counter and explain it to me...

car goes back in on friday for them to take another look at it...

results of the recent alignment:

front left -
caster initial +1.44°, final +1.44°, spec +2°/+2.8° (+2.2°±0.3°)
camber initial -0.36°, final -0.36°, spec -1.4°/+1.4° (0°±1°)
toe initial +5.2mm, final +0.1mm, spec -1mm/+1mm

front right -
caster initial +1.36°, final +1.36°, spec +2°/+2.8° (+2.2°±0.3°)
camber initial -0.36°, final -0.36°, spec -1.4°/+1.4° (0°±1°)
toe initial +4.5mm, final +0.1mm, spec -1mm/+1mm

front total -
toe initial +9.7mm, final +0.2mm, spec -2mm/+2mm (+2mm±2mm)

rear left -
camber initial -0.36°, final -0.36°, spec -0.4°/+1.2° (-0.2°±0.3°)
toe initial -7.8mm, final +1.3mm, spec 0mm/+2mm

rear right -
camber initial -0.20°, final -0.24°, spec -0.4°/+1.2° (-0.2°±0.3°)
toe initial -6.3mm, final +1.2mm, spec 0mm/+2mm

rear total -
toe initial -14.1mm, final +2.5mm, spec 0mm/+4mm (0mm±2mm)

specs are the dealership numbers with the shop manual numbers in parenthesis...

opinions, suggestions?

__________________
1993 Mercury Grand Marquis - Road Trip Beast
1994 Volvo 850 Turbo Wagon - Soon to be in Project status