coilover/alignment questions

tamadrumr88 · Post by **tamadrumr88** » Tue Jan 10, 2006 10:38 pm

okay so i splurged on a set of tein basic coilovers (for an srt4, NOT a 2g) off of srtforums.... i promised myself i wouldnt keep putting money into my car but i got them at a good price.

anyway, i searched and searched and searched, but could not find any specifications as far as an alignment with these coilovers. i know you may be thinking, "what the hell are you talking about" but this is what i came across on neons.org for the mopar stage 2 coilovers and this is all i could find on the tein coilovers (about half way down)

what will i need to run -1 degree camber front and -.5 rear, and 0 toe all around??? i dont want to go as extreme as ground control camber plates but i need to know if ill be needing crash bolts for sure. im gonna be dropping about 2" F and 2.25" R, which is about 1.75" lower than my front currently sits and about 1.5" lower than my rear sits (im on stock srt springs - thats why i have different numbers)

any input is greatly appreciated

*** heres the pic i mentioned from neons.org concerning the stage 2 mopar coilovers ***

Baal · Post by **Baal** » Tue Jan 10, 2006 11:30 pm

wtf... if they coilovers are slotted you will have a very good range of camber, i dont see whats your question.

tamadrumr88 · Post by **tamadrumr88** » Wed Jan 11, 2006 6:47 am

i dont know if the tein's are slotted, thats why i posted this here. if they are slotted then i wont be needing crash bolts

rice_eater · Post by **rice_eater** » Wed Jan 11, 2006 11:24 am

i know some local srt guys needed crash bolts when they dropped their cars over 2" to get the camber back up, but i'm pretty sure that was on stock struts. still, i'd get them sloted at the dealer or a shop you trust maybe before you even put them on... just make sure to go to the same place when you get your allignment so that if they didnt slot them enough you wont get charged to have them rip it off again

tamadrumr88 · Post by **tamadrumr88** » Wed Jan 11, 2006 3:02 pm

well i work at a dealer

im fully capable of doing strut/spring swaps (as ive done them a few times already) its just a matter of getting the camber right. since were friends with the mechanic hell do a 4 wheel alignment for $40.... not bad

Baal · Post by **Baal** » Wed Jan 11, 2006 6:44 pm

If they are not slotted, slot them

wickedneonrt · Post by **wickedneonrt** » Wed Jan 11, 2006 10:06 pm

Depends on who and where you get it done but i know our machine shows a alignment set up for both base, and acr neons. the acr's have a much better set up and there alignment calls for lmore negative camber and different toe than the normal r/t 's, sxt's, se's whatever. If you have enough adjustability go with that set up . Might wear tires more but its way better on handling. Also depending on your coil over set up you could also put eccentric bolts in the spindle/strut mounting location to give you an extra degree of camber adjustability on all four wheels.

tamadrumr88 · Post by **tamadrumr88** » Wed Jan 11, 2006 10:15 pm

could you list the acr specs in case i cant get a hole of them at the shop. i work at a dealer so im hoping they be able to get ahold of the acr specs... would it be all right to use the stock acr specs with my coilovers?

and i honestly could care less about tire wear. the faster it wears, the better!

rice_eater · Post by **rice_eater** » Thu Jan 12, 2006 1:00 am

wickedneonrt wrote: If you have enough adjustability go with that set up . Might wear tires more but its way better on handling. .

nah, wear shouldnt be an issue.... you can go -2* camber and 3* of toe before wear becomes a problem and i doubt they'd go that agressive

tamadrumr, you'll care about wear coz what actually wears is the edge of the tire if you drive hard, so the more negative camber you have up front the better. my front tires look brand new on the inside, bt the outside has the thead almost smoothed out. i used them quite hard for practice and autox so i expected that and corrected it with camber as the season went, but i noticed the same type of wear on the outside on my stock tires, though obviously not as bad. i dont know how much you like to slide through the corners, but you will enjoy the negative camber very much and it'll save your tires if you do drive hard, so get as much as you can. my -1.5 camber gives the front a noticeable tilt which looks quite mean if you ask me

Baal · Post by **Baal** » Thu Jan 12, 2006 1:36 am

mmm if you dont car about tire wear then go

front = -2.0
rear = -1.0

front toe out = 1/8 (total)
rear toe out = 1/8 (total)

tamadrumr88 · Post by **tamadrumr88** » Thu Jan 12, 2006 6:46 am

i was looking along -1* front each tire and -.5*.... cuz thats what GT4 is showing me on my srt4

what is the point of adjusting toe? does the wheel start to rotate backwards at higher rates of speed? and youre just compensating for that?

someone please explain

Praesepe559 · Post by **Praesepe559** » Thu Jan 12, 2006 3:50 pm

tamadrumr88 wrote:i was looking along -1* front each tire and -.5*.... cuz thats what GT4 is showing me on my srt4

has anyone read the article on GT4 vs. real life racing? you could probably do a search as i dont have the link, but they compared lap times at laguna seca vs. lap times in GT4 at laguna seca. They used about 6 cars including an SRT-4, and found that the game was pretty close to real life for that car, and had lap times within about 5 seconds.. of course lap times on the game were faster because you dont have to worry about killing yourself and smashing the car

btw -1* front and -0.5* rear is exactly what my allignment guy told me would provide the best mix of performance and road manners/tire life.

Baal · Post by **Baal** » Thu Jan 12, 2006 6:55 pm

tamadrumr88 wrote:i was looking along -1* front each tire and -.5*.... cuz thats what GT4 is showing me on my srt4

what is the point of adjusting toe? does the wheel start to rotate backwards at higher rates of speed? and youre just compensating for that?

someone please explain

what do you mean rotating backwards?

Well in case someone doesnt know toe aligns the tire like camber but horizontally, like \........./ (top view)

Front toe out will give a much more responsive and fast turn in, while rear toe out will help the car rotate better at the middle-exit of the turn.

Camber doesnt really wear tires down that bad, TOE however wear them down extremely fast, i wouldnt recommend TOE if you care about your tires.

-1.0 is a mild front camber set-up, you can go -1.5 for a street car withouth problems as long as you dont drive as a granny at the corners.

tamadrumr88 · Post by **tamadrumr88** » Thu Jan 12, 2006 8:32 pm

i know what toe is, i just dont understand why it wouldnt be at 0, being exactly parallel to the body of the car.... i thought that perhaps that angle contorts at higher road speeds and perhaps the tires looked like this \...../ and by slightly putting them like this /.....\ that they would come back to this |.......| at those higher speeds

Baal · Post by **Baal** » Thu Jan 12, 2006 8:45 pm

tamadrumr88 wrote:i know what toe is, i just dont understand why it wouldnt be at 0, being exactly parallel to the body of the car.... i thought that perhaps that angle contorts at higher road speeds and perhaps the tires looked like this \...../ and by slightly putting them like this /.....\ that they would come back to this |.......| at those higher speeds

no actually it just helps the way i said in the other post.

wickedneonrt · Post by **wickedneonrt** » Fri Jan 13, 2006 9:55 pm

i checked on the acr specs . the actually turned out to be the same as the normal neon except instead of toe being .20 degrees (+ 10- or - 10) it gives more of a wider range. .20 (+30 or -30) and on camber its 0 degrees straight up. Normal neon is suppose to be within half a degree of that and the acr it gives 2.4 degrees positive or negative of zero. Just roll with a small degree of negative camber for the best in stability and hopefully stay pretty decent in tire wear.

rice_eater · Post by **rice_eater** » Sat Jan 14, 2006 11:05 am

wickedneonrt wrote: Just roll with a small degree of negative camber for the best in stability and hopefully stay pretty decent in tire wear.

this isnt guesswork, it's been more than proven that up to 2*s of camber will not have any effect on tire wear, stability, fuel mileage... in fact you'll be saving your tires every time you take a tight turn, when now the car will turn as predicted, instead of dragging and burning up your tires. the only reason not to get camber up front is if you're gonna drag the car, and that shouldnt be an issue with the neon

Louie · Post by **Louie** » Sat Jan 14, 2006 11:46 am

from what i understand the tein's are slotted.

my ipp's are slotted and i have my car a good 3 or so inches lower than factory and i have no problem getting correct camber settings.

in terms of tirewear, -2 is about the max. camber doesn't wear out your tires, toe does.

and i forgot which way, but toe one way improves straight line stability, and toe the other way improved turn in response.

i usually align to -1.5 front, -.5 rear. with zero toe. and i have no problem with uneven tire wear.

where people get that camber eats tires up is that when camber changes, so does toe. so lets say you dropped your car and the camber looks fine, the toe may still be all out of range.