Author Topic: Alignment settings recommendation  (Read 1278 times)

Offline Drew

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Alignment settings recommendation
« on: April 30, 2008 - 11:32:51 PM »
The car, '71 Cuda Small block. Front end is all new parts including, ball joints, 11/16" tie rods, Stage 2 Firm Feel power steering box, Fast ratio pitman arm & idler arm, RMS upper control arms, Boxed lower arms, Fatman 2" drop spindles, .906" T-bars, Poly strut arm bushings & 17" rims.

It's mostly a street car that gets driven hard & put away wet.

I'm looking for opinions/suggestions on what to tell the alignment guy to set everything to.


TIA




Offline Chryco Psycho

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Re: Alignment settings recommendation
« Reply #1 on: May 01, 2008 - 11:08:25 AM »
the best settings I have used are to max the caster [3* or better]
1/2* - negative camber
1/16" toe in

Challenger - You`ll wish You Hadn`t

Offline dwbiggs

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Re: Alignment settings recommendation
« Reply #2 on: May 01, 2008 - 01:24:57 PM »
What does more + caster do for handling?  Quicker turns?

1974 Challenger Rallye - 440+.040, 0 decked, 10.5:1, Ross Pistons, Hughes 3844 cam (238/244, .536/.540), Eddy RPM manifold, Eddy aluminum heads, Holley 750, TTI headers, .96" T-bars, IAS shocks, 1 1/8" front sway bar, 3/4" rear sway bar, XHD 6 leaf springs, Firm Feel stage 2 steering box.

Offline Drew

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Re: Alignment settings recommendation
« Reply #3 on: May 01, 2008 - 03:43:20 PM »
What does more + caster do for handling?  Quicker turns?

I'd dont know but I'd like to. Bill said I should be able to get 10+ degrees of Caster with his upper control arms. When (if ever) would you ever want to run that much?

Chryco Psycho,
 Your suggestion about Camber & Toe are pretty much what I deduced from searching a bunch of old posts (mostly yours  ;D)

But I'm still up in the air on how much Caster to run. From the type of driving I do it seemed like 6-8 degrees was mentioned a couple times. Should I run that much Caster?

Offline Chryco Psycho

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Re: Alignment settings recommendation
« Reply #4 on: May 01, 2008 - 07:13:21 PM »
adding caster does 2 things , it forces the wheels to want to go straight so it recovers better coming out of turns & adds stability at speed , this adds load to the steering making it harder to turn which adds feel to the Mopar over powered power steering , I always adjust to max with stock control arms which should get maybe 3* , 5 -6 would be great with power steering , you may find it to heavy to turn with manual steering

Challenger - You`ll wish You Hadn`t

Offline vinb

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Re: Alignment settings recommendation
« Reply #5 on: May 01, 2008 - 09:05:51 PM »
I had 3 1/4 positive with the power steering and still didn't like the steering. So I put in a manual box and moved the caster back to 1 1/2 positive just about right you can really feel the road and it feels like you have control and not the car. 
Hey , manual steering and a 4spd goes together,  so my wife won't drive it anymore ( ;) maybe I'll put drum brakes back in (not)....

Offline Chryco Psycho

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Re: Alignment settings recommendation
« Reply #6 on: May 02, 2008 - 01:45:43 AM »
I agree , I like manual steering & brakes

Challenger - You`ll wish You Hadn`t