Miata Mailing List: June 1997, Message #266
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From: 	doc@dickson.net (Doc Wynne)

Subject: Re: removing steering wheel...alignment

Date: 	Tue, 3 Jun 1997 10:35:10 -0500



On Mon, 2 Jun 1997 19:29:13 -0500, Bob Krueger <voodoo@miata.net>

wrote:



>There is an absolutely amazing amount of adjustment variability from car to

>car in the Miata's front suspension.



 That may qualify for the understatement of the year. <g>



> When I was on stock springs, shocks,

>etc., I wanted to align to -1.0 camber in the front and -1.5 in the back.



 I was shooting for -1.2 front and -1.8 rear.



>Typically, alignment shops do the back first, so we went ahead and set up

>the -1.5 no sweat. Then we got to the front and couldn't get anywhere near

>where I wanted to go with the caster set at anything I thought was

>reasonable. I finally settled for -0.9 camber at a caster setting on both

>wheels of 4.5 degrees. Based on this setting, I made the tech go back and

>redo the back to -1.3. This is why I like this guy. I ask for something

>like that and he just says "OK" and does it.



 I had to do a little "convincing" of the alignment guy to get

him to keep experimneting with settings until I was happy, but he

did do them. I (seemingly) have one of those "short control arm"

cars referred to in the Letters section of Miata Mag., in that I

could get -1.2 out of the left front, but only -0.7 out of the

right...and those settings only by giving up loads of caster...I

had to settle for +2.3 (now that is twitchy!).



>But even though I was what I thought to be severely limited by the A-arms,

>you were apparently even moreso.



 Yep. But then again, I bet if that if positive camber was a

"good thing", then I'd be smiling bigger than your would be. <g>



>Obviously, the new springs allowed for a lot more flexibility in my

>settings, but even now I have to push to get 5.5 degrees of caster with

>-1.5 camber. JT goes in there and pops out *6* degrees of caster with the

>same camber no sweat! Pisses me off [g]!



 With -1.8 front (and -2.2 rear), I can only get +4.5

caster...and my springs are shorter than the FM springs.



> How does Mazda manage to get these

>pieces so different? They're stamped parts, after all, so you'd think

>they'd be fairly reproducible. If I made Voodoo Knobs with hole depths that

>sloppy, I'd have pinched boots and half-inch gaps all over the place!



 If they did engines that same way, we'd have to have oil flow

gauges rated in gallons per hour. <g>



>I don't autocross the car, thus the zero toe. I might tweak in a little

>toe-out if I did race it. I know a guy who's pretty fast and he made marks

>on the tie rod ends so that he can drive every day at zero toe and then set

>a bit of toe-out when he gets to the track. When the race is over, it's a

>quick turn of the wrench to get back to the marks and then drive home.

>Interesting idea.



 I've thought about it, but for the negligible extra tire wear on

the street, I decided it wasn't worth the trouble. Now that the

car is low enough to have the camber I want with a decent amount

of caster, it is much easier to drive on the street without

having to change settings each weekend.



 Now, before I found an alignment shop that could get such a low

car on the rack, I did drive about 1000 miles on the street (and

one autox) with the alignment that resulted from the springs and

shocks. Very stable, and cornered unreal...but really bad on

tires. It ended up with -3.9 camber and 5/8" toe out front, and

-4.2 camber rear. I darn near ruined the D60's in those 1000

miles.



  Doc