I am taking on the challenge of aligning my car by myself today.
I checked the service manual for alignment specs, and I noticed there are only specs for the factory 14" wheel and 16" wheel combo. I don’t see one for the 17" wheel package offered on the later 2Gbs. Is there an addenum somewhere on the CD or the net that has the serviceable toe, camber, and caster factory spec ranges for the 17" wheel package? Or is it safe to assume that the 16" wheel specs are ok?
well the thing is about alignment is that once you modify the suspension it’s all on you.
how low/ stiff is your car?
also it’s about personal preference, how do you want it to handle??
Car height from hub center to fender arc(top) is 14.5 inches all around. I expect that to droop/settle another .25-.5 inches.
550lb springs front, 409 lb springs rear.
I know the risks responsibilities if I decide to do it myself. I have a few settings calculated in my head for how I want the car to handle (camber settings, toe). What I want to do is try to implement these settings while keeping the caster and toe as close to stock service range as possible as a start.
Practice aligning the car (because I will have to check all the specs again when it does settle)
Get a feel for how the settings make the car feel at least on the road. I know once I start auto-xing or going to the track again, I might need to tweak, but I want to find a comfortable neutral feeling for the car, and eliminate the low speed/ power on understeer characteristics.
That’s the goals, basically.
I just want to be as accurate as possible with the specs. Since the service manual has separate numbers for the 14 inch wheel package and the 16 in wheel package, I figured the 17 inch wheel package should have separate specs too. I just can’t seem to find them. :gotme:
things start getting messy once you start getting into messing with the camber… some funky things go on with the suspension, effecting dive and squat. Can also effect the steering, how stiff/loose it is… rather, how easy it is to turn or not.
Ug, suspension is messy.
Had a little chat with MHill and Xman, I think I’ve got all the info. I’ll probably post up when I’m done. Maybe I can find a digital camera around here…
17s shouldnt matter from the 16s when iam at work tomorrow ill check the specs
Got the alignment done 
Took me about 5 hours. Set my camber front and rear, toe, everything Car feels great, tracks straight! No rubbing, everything went well.
I surprised myself. Other than taking the time to be sure my measurements and readings were accurate, it was a simple job. Tedious, but not difficult.
Too bad I didn’t have a camera, otherwise I would have taken some pictures . I will have to fine tune again once my springs settle, maybe I’ll have access to a camera then.
Currently, I set the car for -2.5 Degrees camber, 1/18" toe out front; 0 toe and -0.5 degrees negative camber rear.
I’m never paying for an alignment again
how much more camber could you have gotten? Now you just need a good corner weighting.
I had a max negative of just over 4.5 degrees. If I reverse the ball joint, and put in the bigger anchor bolts I originally purchased, I could probably get an even +5 positive camber.
The 4.5 looked like it might rub if I have a 245 tire. It BARELY cleared, and I do mean BARELY.
would u say that this is something that is do-able for someone somewhat experienced with wrenches? I always do all the work on my cars myself and i do mean ALL. maybe get a DIY up?
The way I align is to first decide on ride height, and get that set, then try and get your camber and toe settings close to 0, and disconnect the swaybars.
make sure the car is on level surface, or all your measurements mean squat
Then I drop it on the scales, and see what we are looking at for weights…
Obviously your goal for a street car is usually going to be 25% weight on each corner, but rarely can you actually achieve this, so you play with your coils until you can get it as close as you can, without going too crazy changing the ride height.
All of this should be done with you in the car and someone else adjusting, or weight equivalent to you in the drivers seat
You can also play with moving some weight around such as battery relocation to help with the weight distribution. Keep in mind if you move weight around, try and keep it between the front and the rear wheels. (ie: if you are moving the battery to the trunk put it against the rear seat, not against the tailights).
After you have your weights where you want them, you can set camber, caster and toe. I would set caster first, make sure cross-caster is equal, and then set camber.
I like to run 0 toe all around maybe a 1/16th out in the front to start and make adjustments from there. More toe=massive tirewear and unpredictable handling… get a feel for the car first, and make adjustments after.
Keep in mind that camber will also change the weights on the scales, so you might want to recheck it, and make minor adjustments if needed, and then re-check camber. Its a pain in the ass cycle, and you usually need to compromise at some point.
Also be sure to shake out the car every time you put it in the air, to settle the suspension.
Rick, a good person to help you out would be bruce perry out by NYI, he has a level floor, scales and is damn good at aligning / cornerweighting. He is cheap too, I got charged around 100 i think for an entire afternoon/night with my WRX.
Tom, PM me Bruce Perry’s contact info.
boardjnky4 , if you are handy with the wrench, you can do this no problem. The key is double checking (and in my case quadruple checking) your measurements. I was taking measurements with the tire on as well as without (with the rotor snugged with lugnuts) and constantly comapring the two as far as the camber angle was concerned. The minimum you need is a T-square, right angle, a protractor, a level, and a tape measure. Having four jackstands and some string helps too. Just take your time and don’t rush. Make slow adjustments and check as you go. Nothing too drastic. You laso need to account for camber as it changes when the car is loaded. Depending on your car, you may need to take the wheel off to make your adjustments. In my case, I had to calculate and compensate the difference between setting the camber with the wheel off. Then I checked it multiple times with the wheel on and on the ground.
This job would have been much more difficult if I had to really worry about caster. Most of the new cars have caster set from the factory, and it isn’t adjustable. I have some caster dial in, but I decided not to mess to much with it. I kept it in a safe range.
Yeah, I pretty much did everything stated. Level floor, already decided ride height, etc. etc.
The only thing I didn’t have was scales for corner weighting. I’m too po’ Maybe next year with the new tires and race rubber, I’ll get it cornerweighted before the season.
I also couldn’t put myself in the car because, well, then who was going to do the alignment? I realize that having me in the driver’s seat would be better. If I can find some excess junk that weighs what I way, I’ll stuff it in the front seat for the next time I do it
Yea, sand bags or something might work, or just pay a dozer in beer. Although dozers probably too fat.
Yeah, dozer’s are too fat 
I have three 40lb sandbags… I need one more to better approximate my weight in the driver’s seat, but I figured 120lbs was close enough when I got my alignment done. I meant to take them back to Home Depot after I got the alignment done but I still have them.
Anyway, those numbers sound like a good starting point. Hopefully either WNY or FLR put on a test and tune early in the season so you can really wring it out and see where any adjustment is needed.
:word:
Although I do not want to discourage you from doing this, and I know others have done this and rally guys do it all the time. String alignments are a thing of the past, antiquated and should only be done if on the fly like rally guys who dont have access to the correct machines during service.
This is coming from my personal experience. I have performed countless 4 wheel alignments in my day, there is so much changing one angle can do for the suspension and to know just how changing one angle will instantly and most definately change all the other angles takes experience. I can tell you this. Without an alignment machine you will not get the desired effects, and if you get close to what you really expect then it will be hours and I mean hours from when you started. The string method with a caster guage is a joke.
Good luck tackling this on your own you will need it as your eye will never be as accurate as a Laser beam compensated for indivdual corner runout.
For the price suburban charges I would take it there and just sit in the car if you really want to get that specific but make sure if you are going to those extremes that you fill the gas tank and take anything extra out of the trunk.
Good luck you will need it.
In order to properly align a car you need to set in order
All of your alignment angles are based off of the rear of the vehicle as that does not turn. Then Caster must be set first as it is in itself a combination of cambers and will affect camber and toe greatly. Then you must compensate your camber then when all is said and done, set your toe.
Exactly what I did :tup:
Personally I think the string method works well if done correctly, and its what I’ve seen most race teams use from trans-am, to rolex cup to rally.