DPE

Just finished putting on the rear Konis on my 2010 GT. There was so little to it I almost thought I was missing something, but I believe they are fine. Call it a plus of having a live axle? I've done quite a few suspension jobs, and this was decidedly the fastest I've ever replaced shocks. Did it with the car up on a couple boards, at 'normal' ride height. Re-used the lower bolts and flag nuts, but added loctite blue for good measure. Staying with OEM springs for now.

I tightened the top nuts down quite a bit, but it got to where I was really smashing down those rubber pillow bushings that go on either side of the car's body. And I don't think I'm very close to the 37ft-lbs of torque Koni recommends. The Konis instructions have a little generic diagram that appears to indicate that you don't want to smash those down excessively. But if you don't, you're never going to get to the recommended torque on that top nut. If you have Konis, what did you do?

Also, did a quickie check of camber with a level; car tracks fine, but it seems I'm at -0.7 degrees on my LF and -1.8 degrees on my RF; doesn't that seem to be a larger difference than a person would want? Could be operator error, just seeing if anyone else was that far off from one side to the other from the factory. Tire wear is fine, and like I said the car tracks perfectly straight. Regardless, I'll get it fixed up with the Steeda upper mounts when I install the front Konis.

Norm Peterson

It's been over two years since I installed my Koni rears. I honestly don't recall being very fussy about the torque, but I did watch the bushing compression since an over-compressed bushing is likely to fail. Nothing back there clunks or seems loose when I work the adjusters, so I guess it's OK.

Normally, that much "cross-camber" would be cause for concern. But I suspect that there are a few things that haven't been considered that mainly affect DIY alignment measurements.

Have you checked the surface that you had the car set up on for "levelness"? More precisely, that the surface under the RF tire is at the same elevation as the surface under the LF and that the elevation difference at the rear tire points is at least reasonably similar to any elevation difference up front? What I'm getting at is that you have to add in any error in setup pad levelness to your measurements in order to get the "true" cambers (one side will go more negative, the other side less). For example, if an imaginary line drawn between the LF and RF contact patches was actually "down" by 0.5° on the left side, your actual cambers would be -1.2° LF and -1.3° RF.

Another possible source of error comes if you set the level up against the tire sidewall (which is uneven due to molded-in data and such) rather than working off the rim flanges. Or up against the tire bulge at the bottom on one side? Tires equally inflated, left vs right at least?

Even when measuring off the wheels, you still have to make sure that the top and bottom measurement points are at the same points on the wheel flange contour.

If either or both wheels are bent, that would introduce an unknown amount of error.

Measuring right after you let the car down off the jack will always give an erroneous reading. I hope the car was first driven or at least rolled some distance backward/forward to settle the suspension.


Norm

DPE

Thanks Norm. I'll probably leave the rear shocks as-is then; they're certainly not going anywhere given the Konis come with their own nut and a lock-washer, and the bushings are compressed about as much as I'm comfortable with.

As for the camber, my garage floor is pretty level but I wouldn't be surprised if it was off a little. The car is actually sitting up on long, doubled 2x10 boards; I have a scissor lift in the garage and need that extra 3" of height for any normal or sporting car to clear the lift. However, the car hasn't been lifted, and is just sitting on the boards (which allowed me enough room to change the rear shocks without lifting it up). No suspension binding, in other words. I measure from the wheel flange, and have good faith the wheels aren't bent.

That said, could certainly be off for lack of a level floor or the boards are uneven or I just didn't measure well. Just thought I'd throw that out there. May get it down and re-measure before putting the front Konis and Steeda mounts on, but more than likely I'll just do those and then do a proper alignment with the car down on the garage floor or <gasp!> pay the $50-75 to get it aligned on a rack by a local tuning shop.

Rubrignitz

I didn't worry about torquing mine to spec. There was a little pic in the instructions showing an X on a smashed bushing and the correct bushing compression amount. I tightened mine until the bushing was compressed the same as the pic and left it at that.

I'm guessing your camber measurements are off.

Norm Peterson

You can check your floor for level with a length of clear tubing mostly filled with water. Make it U-shaped with the ends pointed up at your wheel spots. When the water column heights are the same at both front wheel spots, the spots are level. Or you could use a laser level and a scale.

1/8" difference side to side is worth just under 0.125° camber.


Norm

JAJ

As Norm says, 1/8" is about 0.1 degree of slope across the wheel base of an S197. I use a set of 1/8" thick floor tiles (not soft vinyl, the hard asphalt ones) and stack two under one rear tire and one under the opposite side front so I can be sure that the both axles are level. I came up with that system using a laser level to verify flat. You don't have to care about front-to-rear, but side to side matters a lot. Leveling both the front and the rear gives you a good shot at a clear and believable reading.

The other thing to remember is that if the floor is off level, the amount of error adds to one side and subtracts from the other. A 0.1 degree error will give you a difference of 0.2 degrees from one side to the other. Your 1.1 degree difference could be caused by a 0.5 degree error caused by nothing more than a 0.4" difference in floor and lumber stack level across the front axle.

For stuff like this, a cheap laser level is invaluable.