Well I finally lowered my car.....like a month and a half ago

I never went for an alignment, but I didn't drive the car too much either (probably 500 miles) I don't care if my tires wore uneven, getting new wheels and tires in the spring/summer

Anyhow, when I go to the alignment shop do I just give them the car and let them take care of it, or should I give them the specs I want?

If I give them the specs, what do you recommend? Here is my setup if it matters Hotchkis springs, bilstein shocks, 35mm strano bar, lcas, aphr

by the way, the car handles real good now, hardly any body roll for the spirited street driving I do

 

That is up to you. When I did alignments I told the owners (when cars like this came in) that I was gonna put it back to factory specs and see how they liked it and to bring it back in a couple of weeks(if they were gettin tires at the same time or had fresh ones on) so I could check the wear. Almost everytime they liked it as is and everyonce and a while I had to bump the alignment here or there for wear(this part will taylor the car to you and your driving habits if done by a knowledgeable tech).

 

An alignment on a Camaro is not necessary after lowering.Im not sure if you did anything else when you lowered it such as tie rod ends or if you just have your own specs to adjust to but if niether of those two things apply then you are just wasting your money.

 

oh ok, I thought I always read that you need an alignment after lowering

 

Wrong. Flat-out, plain old wrong.......

When you lower a car, any car things move. The sterring knuckle hasn't, but the location of the steering rack, the upper and lower control arm mount have moved. This puts the arms and the tie-rods on an angle, which shortens them and changes your suspension geometry. Just the same way you need to add or re-adjust a PHB after lowering because one end moved (the body mount), but the other end did not.

Align the damn car. If you look at the inside edges of your front tires closely, you'll see you need to do this. You could care less about your tires now, but if they are wearing funny (and I'm sure they are), you aren't using the tire contact patch to it full extent.

I'd give them specs you want, but they won't be much different than stock. Some though as stock is meant to make the car understeer and for greatest tire life just rolling down the road. You already have more negative camber from the lowering, might be too much, could be just right. But putting that back to zero like stock will cause you front end grip, so I'd not recommend that. The big issue is the toe setting. I'll lay you money it's not close. Straight up zero is a good all around spec because you don't drag or push your tires sideways at all like you do with much toe-out or toe-in respecitively.

 

They probably are wearing funny, but they are near the end of their life anyways and are going to be replaced, hence the reason I was so late on getting an alignment. Just finished finals and graduated college I have time now to get it done.

Sam your the pro at this, I am completely lost when it comes to this stuff What should I tell them?

Also as a side question, I am getting a knocking noise in the front since my install, I read one of your responses from a while back stating that it is probably the nut on top of the shock is not tight enough, I was just wondering how you know when it is tight enough? I can't use a torque wrench because I need to use an allen key to hold the thing from spinning. Basically what I did was screw the nut down to about the same thread depth as the stocker was set

Thanks Sam, and btw I love the front sway bar, the car feels really nice

 

I did a search in this forum for the "Trackbird alignment" and gave the shop those numbers. They were able to get pretty darn close, and I'm very happy with the results. The car handles great and is very responsive. Your results may vary, but that's my experience.


-Mike

 

hmmmmm funny.My car was lowered and i took it to have it aligned and the factory specs were right on. I never had any abnormal tire wear or pulling. Now if what you our doing is road racing the car then yes by all means get the car aligned but if all your doing is driving around town or drag racing the car then I still think its a waste of money.

 

Both of the local places that I went to would do an alignment check for free...then charge if they have to adjust anything.

Food for thought

 

i'd rather spend 50$ and be safe, rather than 300$ in a few weeks for some new front tires...

After lowering mine, my camber was over 6 degrees out, cross camber was rediculous...the toe was nowhere near being correct...and the caster was also a bit off...

i spent about 2 hours setting it up to where i like it, and was definitely worth it to me

 

-Sam Strano
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is rite on, not that I know it all, but I do get a lot of pratice,and still learning(50-70 car per week , last 29 years )
come see my specs go 3-4 pages deep
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^ whoa...

gave me a headache looking at that...Beachboys are cool though

 

Sorry to thread jack, but since there are experts in here, I will bring up something that has been bugging me but haven't had time to deal with it.

My car is lowered. about 1.5-1.7 inch drop. I didn't get it aligned for a long time after the drop, but about 2 years after the drop I noticed that the tires were wearing big time on the inside of both fronts (this was about 4 months after I hit a huge raised area on the hwy, not sure if that has anything to do with anything). Well I went to a pontiac dealership that I was near when I had time because my regular place was booked solied for the week. Well, after a short wait I am told that they can not get the car to align. They are not sure why, but they couldn't do it. No charge and I was out the door. Well, I take it to the chevy dealership I get all my work done at (very corvette and camaro enthusiest heavy technicians at this shop, why I like them), and after they work on it they tell me that no matter what that they can't get the car to align and they are all baffled why. The car was way off (I mean people have told me that Auto Crossers pay thousands to get it so far off what ever that means). Since I was short on cash, I didn't let them charge me to dig into it, and figured I would ask some people, but I get the same response form every thread and or people I ask, they all say "There is no reason it can't be aligned no more then it is dropped". The dealership blamed it on the drop, but There are cars in our group way lower and they still align. I just don't get it or know what to do about it.

EDIT--I found an old thread that had the tollerances of the car. Mine was -3.0, best they could get it was a -1.9 and that is no where near what it is supposed to be from what I understand.

 

hmm...sounds like they couldn't get the control arms to move enough...it may have been that it would take them more time to do it than they would get paid for...Flat rate techs don't want to get involved with anything that may lose money for them

 

I would agree with that if the service manager wasn't a family friend and the guy working on the car a guy I have taken out to eat as a thank you for doing a good job on my cars over the years.

Maybe I will try again somwhere though. I need a place that can do it with my rims, both the pnotiac and chevy dealership said they can't do it with my rims, I have to put the stock ones back on.

 

I lowered mine with Hotchkis springs and Strano revalves and had it alligned the same day. The tech said the allignment was way out of wack!

 

Thing that gets me is from what others have said you have to buy aftermarket equipment to get our cars past -2.0 and I am at -3.0. Time to take the A-arms off I guess and look at them.