jlt31971

I just installed Koni's shocks and struts ,steeda ultra light springs, steeda hd upper strut mounts, adjustable panhard bar, X5 ball joints, and a bumpsteer kit. After researching on here that seemed like the best way to go for me, car looks awsome drives great without much of a change in ride. When i went to shop to get the alingment camber, toe and thrust angle were all fine but they said i had negative caster about 1 degree on both sides that they couldn't adjust out, but told me not to worry it won't cause a problem with the way it handles or tire wear just with the wheel returning to center after i turn a corner. Is this truly not a problem or should i try to fix it.

scottybaccus

What specs did you have them use? The stock specs aren't necessarily appropriate.

The OE camber for 2011 Mustang is -.75* (+/- .75*)
The OE camber for 2011 Shelby is -1.0* same tolerance

The Eibach Sportline springs note that OE is OK, but preferred spec is -1.0* (+/- .75*), same as the Shelby.

My car measures at -1.2* on both sides with no alterations to the OE mounting parts. This is within tolerance any way you slice it. It might go out of bounds as it wears, but that should be a while.

parchisi

Why couldn't they adjust it out? They do know that the Steeda HD mounts have +/- 1 degree of adjustment, right? In any case, -1 degree is about where it ought to be anyways. I had some idiots try to align my car, and refused to use my caster/camber plates and insisted that you can't adjust camber from the strut mount. The guy wanted to drill out the control arm holes to ajust the camber....yeesh.

danzcool

Note that he's talking about caster and not camber. I've got no input.

scottybaccus

Good catch. I missed that.

Could the strut mounts be backward? I recall notes about taking care not to do that when I pulled my struts.

parchisi

Oh, caster? Stock caster should be positive 6 or 7 deg if I'm not mistaken...might want to double check that we are indeed talking about caster and not camber. Even if you did flip the strut mounts, I imagine it would be tough to locate the top of the strut forward of the spindle. Not to mention the detriment to handling.

Argonaut

I think we have some terms mixed up here. Did you mean "camber" but typed "caster"? Negative Caster doesn't make sense, can't happen. So lets assume we are talking camber here - as mentioned above, -1 degree camber is good for a street car, no problems there. On the other hand, with respect to the wheel returning to center however, that is a trait of Caster (the more Caster you have the more self centering the steering wheel will be). So...WTF? Perhaps the shop didn't explain themselves very well.

jlt31971

I am talking caster and not camber. The steeda plates only adjust camber and not caster. So they told me they could not adjust it out, my camber and everything else was fine. I know camber is adjusted by moving top of strut in towards engine or out towards outside fender and caster is adjusted by moving top of strut to the front or back of car. i installed the plates with the steeda towards the engine.

parchisi

OK, we now understand that you are indeed talking about caster, but its nigh impossible to have negative caster on our cars. And if you did, I would call the situation pretty far from being OK and your car would NOT handle normally. I'm afraid to say that there was probably a misunderstanding between you and your alignment guy.

Maybe he meant that the caster was 1 degree more negative than factory spec, not just 1 degree negative.

Sam Strano

Shopping carts have negative caster. Fox and SN95 Mustangs had horrendously low caster, about 2 degrees. You can't have negative caster. Either someone has no idea what they are talking about, there was a issue in communication between two people, or they mis-spoke, or the alignment machine is SERIOUSLY screwed up.