I depowered my rack and requested 3.5* caster. When I got it back the guy had told me he maxxed them and the sheet says I'm at 5.8 left and 6.1 right. I was basically told I can't adjust anymore to get to 3.5.

The car steers easier now but isn't what I expected. More importantly what could be wrong as to why I can't get to 3.5?

 

Most likely it's the bushings. I work at an alignment shop on the weekends. In my experience if the car has been drastically lowered it stresses the bushings. When these people want to set camber,toes and caster back to stock it is very difficult because the bushings won't give.

 

Outside of my tirerod ends all my bushings are original. I have the bushing replacement on my to do list as i figured it would mess with my settings some. Wasn't sure that's what caused my casters to be so far off.

 

The two things that I have seen to effect the alignment are bushings and camber/toe bolts because they will get worn out also. On my Na I use Nb alignment bolts to help me pull a little more adjustment out of the car.

 

Like most alignment techs, Kumar has no idea whats going on.

Your techs just sucked. Probably got the directions of min and max caster mixed up. Or **** in your car is bent. If you have an NA I'm not even sure its possible at all to hit 6° of caster without something being bent and thats literally at the maximum caster minimum camber setting. Bushings can change the numbers by a few tenths of a degree, different alignment bolts wont change the numbers you can hit. Just do your own alignments with string, a camber gauge, and some math.

 

oh you want 3.5° of caster and lots of camber?

here, we'll max your caster.

 

I'm not the best alignment specialist by any means, but I do try with the best of my abilities to help. Leafy is right 6 on caster is reaching pass the tolerance. Your subframe may be damaged. The little brackets that the caster bolt is suppose to push against may be messed up. The brackets sometime disconnect from the subframe from rust. The reason why I use nb alignment bolts is to compensate for any subframe damage.

 

You only mentioned caster -- what did you request for camber? They're related. If the shop really put minimum caster adjust in the car, the rear cam bolt will be as far in as it can go, and the offset washer (cam) will be pointing straight out. You can see it just looking under the front of the car with a flashlight. Leafy will correct me if I got it backwards again.

The business about stressed bushings makes no sense to me either. Bushing stress is released when you loosen the cam bolts for adjustment. The car has to be at ride height when they're torqued down.

I hate doing Miata wheel alignments, but it's not rocket science. One good thing is you can see where everything is set with only a flashlight if you know where to look and what to look for. Kumar's pics above show the parts.

 

Front is a piece of cake. Max both adjusters, confirm that the camber and caster is even because none of your **** is bent and mazda did a good job with the tolerances on these parts. Adjust toe to suit. The rear is the bitch. I try to hold the camber number by having someone read the camber gauge as I move the eccentrics then get out and measure the toe. It would be easier if I had an assistant who would read the 1/64ths gradients on my machinist's rule and do math quickly in their heads.

 

Mine's not quite that easy. That would give me just over -4 degrees camber up front which might be great, but more than I'm looking for right now. So I have to set it.

And you're right, the rear sucks. I measure toe, measure thrust angle, measure camber and decide which of the four cams to change -- just a bit. And then repeat until I'm disgusted for the day. It eventually gets done.

Thank God I've got urethanes and can torque everything in droop. That used to be the worst part of the job.

 

I string both ends of the car, so I really dont have to consider thrust angle, its going to be zero just on how I measure toe. I do measure track and one of my hubs or rear bearings or something is slightly thinner than the other side because even when stringed up perfectly the car is always 3/32" narrower on the passenger's side at the wheel. And I put the car up on boxes so its a lot easier to get under it to adjust.

 

Lucky guy that I am, I went through the suspension twice, THEN my Xida's showed up and I've done it twice more. Four alignment/corner balances in 6 weeks. But every time I've done it a little differently, so it's coming together. I don't do string. It requires twice as many measurements as doing total, so your net precision is half. And all the car cares about is total.

And I've discovered electric scissors jacks. Just lift the entire end of the car by sitting and pushing a button. So no boxes for me either. As you might recall, I'm a believer in extensive rolling to settle the suspension each time before measuring. Not a convenient thing if you're up on stands.

To each his own.

 

Right you like to roll. I noticed with my method if I leave the tiles dry and its above ~65°F in the garage that I've got to give the car a bounce or sometimes the toe number wont change. I just grab the rear suspension brace and yank on it.

 

I used to do that too. But I found I got slightly different values between slip-plates and my rolling technique. Since I've never raced on slip plates, I decided the rolling technique was the winner.

(Nothing like stealing a guy's thread, but maybe he's learning something. )

 

Well i thought they had adjusted it to 3.5 because it was much easier to turn. I don't have the sheet handy (think i left it on my desk at work) but the paper i believe says i was at 7*. I know my subframe is bent but not exactly sure what it is affecting. I can't say i've ever really put much thought into the steering geometry and how everything works together.

I had a blowout a while back and hit a curb. My driver side steering rack mount is bent slightly upword. As mentioned i'm not sure how all the geometry works out so not sure if this is related. I'm fairly certain the control arms and everything are un harmed although I'm sure an inspection wouldn't hurt. I've had 2 assignments since though so you'd think someone would say something..... i guess that would be too much to ask.

 

Give us the full gambit of adjustments:

Caster
Camber
Toe

I run max caster and at least 2* front and 1.8* rear camber. 0 toe in front, -1/16 in the rear total to keep my car pointed in the right direction while cornering on the throttle. I have a very neutral car now (albeit this setup was only tested on 225s). More caster, snappier but heavier steering. Driving with my depowered rack is easy, the only part that sucks is parallel parking but that's really not an issue you just gotta be rolling a bit to get the wheels to turn.

 

Ok i'm at work so I have the paper now.

Left Front Camber .7*
Left Front Caster 4.6* (was 6*)
Left Front Toe .15*

Right Front Camber .5*
Right Front Caster 5.1* (was 6.3*)
Right Front Toe .15*


Left Rear is -1.4* camber
Left Rear .11* Toe

Right Rear is -1.5* camber
Right Rear .12* Toe

Front total toe is .30*
Steer ahead is 0

Rear total is .23*
Thrust angle 0..

 

are you on stock suspension?

6* degrees of caster is not too much. dropped cars can get higher. Your tech is just ******* lazy. I don't see any reason why he can't get you closer alignment specs than that.

half a degree difference on caster/camber when its not maxed is pretty lazy.

 

I was told the casters are maxxed. Yeah I'm on tein coil overs. I'm not super low in my opinion either. Definitely not slammed and I'm on 205/50/15 rsr tires on 6ulx8 without any rub and unmolested fenders