06stangGT

Ok, so I am lowered with the eibach pro kit and had an alignment done when I got the springs installed. When the alignment was done, i was advised that I did not need the camber bolts that came with the springs, so I gave them to my dad who has an 07GT with the steeda springs. Well, 10k miles later, my front tires look like this ( / \ ), and Im pretty sure i need the bolts now.

So i take my fathers car because his front tires are starting to do the same time. He has the camber bolts installed. The tech said that he cannot adjust the camber on this car, even tho it has the bolts installed. This is the message that came up on the alignment machine for front camber adjustment on a 2005-2009 mustang including GT500

"1. using a suitable grinding tool, enlarge the strut to wheel spindle lower mounting holes as indicated by the etchings on the strut lower mount. Do not enlarge the holes more than indicated by the etchings on the strut mount. remove any burrs and paint any exposed metal.

2. Install the strut and spring assembly using cam bolts (ford #4R33-2B236-AA) and new nuts in place of the regular strut to wheel spindle bolts and flag nuts.

3. using the cam bolts, adjust front CAMBER and then tighten the strut bolts to spec."


I thought the cam bolts were all i needed? Now i have to enlarge the holes ???
So with this being said, what Must I do, (besides get another set of the bolts) to get my tires corrected and the car aligned the proper way.

thanks a LOT!

Boozshey

I never got mine realigned. It last a couple years. After replacing the tires. I asked about getting it aligned. They said it wouldn't be that great of an alignment until I got the adjustable pan hard bar to fix the rear.

but yeah the / \ front end came after the springs settled.

06stangGT

right, with the UCA you can adjust the pinion angle ... but im talking about up front...

Boozshey

The shop told me that they use the rear tires to align the front. if the rear is out of whack the front wouldn't be right.

I know nothing about aligning the front end. Just tell you what I was told and what my tires look like.

I do know that they weren't nearly as / \ when i first installed the springs. Now that they are settled however it's worse.

GrayPony

The panhard does not adjust pinion angle, it's used to center the rear axle. An adjustable UCA is how you adjust pinion angle.

pascal

Norm,
Where are you...

ICIBUY

I'm very interested to see what you get for an answer here! I took my car in for an alignment and the shop said they couldnt do it because my chin spoiler is in the way of they're machine head so they couldnt read it??? Im going to call a couple different shops tomorrow... anyway I hope the OP gets help on this, Im sure he isnt the only one on here with this problem.

tx_zstang

Oh man, you're getting the shaft by some idiots.
You use the camber bolts so you DON'T have to ream out the knuckle holes and use the Ford kit. Jeez. The camber bolts allow for one of the bolts of the two to be adjusted, altering the camber angle.
Normal camber specs are -0.75* +/- 0.5*. Without camber bolts, dropping the front 1" will put the camber to about -1.5* or so, slightly out of 'spec'. Of course a larger drop will put the camber more negative, and cause inner wear to occur faster.

And i call 'BS' on adjusting the camber based on rear tires: that's ridiculous! Nor for toe, I can understand.

Ok, there is a way to check your camber alignment yourself, and even adjust the camber bolts to get within spec. Using a hanging string on a level ground, and a little geometry, you can calculate the camber angle. [i should do a writeup on this as a sticky.]
Ok so tape a hanging string (such as some kite string with a nut tied to the end) onto the front fender so the string hangs down over the center of the wheel, almost all the way to the ground but not touching anything. Measure from the string to the top and bottom parts of the rim, to the same part on both top and bottom. Using a flat-end ruler, like one used by school kids, works really well, since you can rest it flat on the wheel and measure to the string in millimeters. Computer the difference between the top to the bottom, and that gives you a delta distance. 6.5mm is right at spec, at 0.75*, and 8mm is about 1.0*.
For example, measure from the top of the wheel's outer lip to the hanging string, and it measures 2.2 cm. Then measure the same spot on the rim but on the bottom of the wheel, again to the hanging string, and it measures 1.2 cm. The difference is 2.2-1.2, or 1.0 cm (10 mm). Using simple geometry, taking into the account the distance of the top and bottom points on the string as a right-triangle base and the tangent being the delta difference (8mm), calculating the cosine angle gives you the camber angle.
Ignoring the geometry details, the 10 mm computes (if I remember right) to about 1.5*.

So you can adjust your camber bolts, run it a day or so, recheck it, until you get it right. This only works if you are level ground across the width/front of the car.

Make sure you get the bolts tightened to spec.

Hope that helps. Sorry, no pics, but i can take some and post up some calcs I've noted somewhere.

07 GT E UPP

Norm Peterson

That sounds like a case where thrust angle is an issue; if the rear axle was slightly crooked in the chassis the car would dog-track down the road and the steering wheel might be off a few degrees as you compensate. I'm not sure what a small amount of lateral axle offset would do.


That is entirely to be expected. As the front of any car equipped with a strut suspension drops for any reason (which includes nose dive under braking, outside tires during cornering, and normal suspension movements BTW), camber goes more negative.

Keep in mind that as camber drifts from what it was set to, toe will also change. For a front steer car (rack ahead of the front "axle" centerline), as camber goes more negative, a toe in setting will move toward or into toe out.


It's easy enough to level up an area to use for checking alignment, and shimming the wheel locations as necessary with 1/8" thick floor tiles will get you to within 1/8° of horizontal.

For about $40 you can get a digital angle finder that will read camber angle measurements directly to 0.1° (which is probably closer than necessary for street driving as long as the cambers are about the same side to side (small to zero "cross-camber" in alignment shop speak).

If you commonly take corners hard, don't be too concerned about -1.5° camber. But unless you're at least semi-seriously competing in an autocross, keep the static toe from being "toe out".


Norm