I don’t know if anybody else has , but it seems strange…

I took my car in for an alignment to get ready for the season, mainly to get more front camber and set the front toe. After having it adjusted twice (they mis-read my spec the first time), they told me they can get -1.7 camber on the right, but only -0.6 on the left, so it was set to -0.6 both side. Now I’ve read here that some car has limited adjustment in the front, but max at -0.6? That’s right about factory spec and it isn’t much. Caster is at 6 deg, so even if I take that to minimum, the left front is still don't have much.

What do you guys think? Is there anything I can do to get more camber? The car will run B-Stock and few track days.

 

That seems outside of manufacturing tolerance, side to side, I would think.

Has the car ever been hit? Anything bent?

 

That what I'm thinking too, I'm wondering what's going on here...It was never in an accident. Carfax was clean when I bought it.

I'll have to look again to see if anthing was bent. I don't recall seeing anything. I'll see if I have time to check tonight.

Unless the tech didn't know what he was doing and adjusted it the wrong way... but I doubt it since I'm having a whopping 0.2 more camber after the alignment. This wasn't at the dealerhip btw, last thing I nned is let them know I'm racing the car, so they have a reason to refuse warranty work shoud I need it.

 

A possibility is that the alignment rack they used isn't level. I'm an alignment tech so I know that keeping the rack level requires some upkeep that many racks don't see. A way to find out would be to take it to a different shop and see what they get for readings...

 

Just checked under the car....the adjustment is indeed all the way out and nothing is bent. I'm sure the aluminum arms would probably crack if there's any bent. The rear has more camber just by eyeballing, that's for sure, so whatever the rear has, the front has less.

I suppose I can get somebody to double check for me. Anybody know what's the maximum camber an average stock RX-8 can get?

 

This might not be the issues, but you need to make sure to tell them to reduce the caster to the lowest amount. If you adjust the caster and camber by yourself, you can observe the camber becoming more negative as the caster is taken out. I told this to my alignment person, but they still f'd it up and did not take out all of the caster.

I have poor camber on one side versus the other, but not as bad as you are talking about here.

 

you can usually get 4 - 5/10's more on the right than the left

 

The lowest I have heard of before your car was -.8 on the drivers side. However if you were to take your caster down to the minimum, around 4.5, you could easily get that. The most -camber I have heard of on a car that does not have degassed shocks is -1.8 drivers side. I can get almost 1/2 a degree more out of the passengers side and that is not uncommon.

p.s. if you are still on stock shocks you are giving up some due to the nature of the high pressure OE shock. I would guess a set of Konis and taking the caster down to minimum would put you around -1.2.

 

I agree 100%.... Many shops do not take the time to check their equipment enough, time is money. The heads get dropped and banged around and all of that stuff needs to be calibrated. One time I was getting my Corvette aligned and the tech had not lowered the rack all the way down on the safety locks, so one side was 1" higher and he had to start over once I pointed it out. Almost every alignment tech you will meet only knows to set the car in the "green" on his computer screen. You either need to find a shop that does race alignments or find a shop that will do exactly what you tell them.

Also remember comparing alignment specs is like dyno numbers, unless everyone uses the same equipment they will be a little different.

 

Sometimes you almost have to find an alignment tech who is a fellow racer

 

Unfortunately, there isn't many of them around my area (know one, but he has an old rack that doesn't fit 18's). I haven't have much luck even getting a normal alignment on my wife's old car, it still pull to one side after getting it done twice! I agree the rack may not be level, but the fact is the left is still out of adjustment. Since it's more or less a reference number, and taking it to shops are hit and miss, I'll probably try to do my own. Alignment isn't cheap, and I'm sick of not getting what I paid for. I'll take the caster all the way back, loosen everything up and see what I can get. Sounds like I have more in there, just have to find it. Too bad I won't have time until middle of next week.

yea, I'm still on stock shock. Probably will be for the rest of this year at least.

 

These cars are pretty easy to set the caster and camber on. You can buy an alignment tool that attaches to the wheel. You basically want all the camber you can get in the front and to do this you have to minimize the caster. It is important to have a nice level piece of concrete. Setting toe is not as difficult as one might think either.

 

Finally got some time to play around with the front camber. I borrowed a digital level from a friend so I have better reference. It's not perfert, but at least better than reading bubbles.

It seems like no matter what I do, I can't get more camber. I'm sure the camber adjustment is all the way out, and also the caster is at the minimum position. Just in case I was being stupid for the past hour and a half, i took some pictures. Does it look right? I also loosen up all the control arm bolts, load the suspension and tighten them up again, nothing seems to happened. My front tires wear more on the outside than inside , so camber is a problem in the front.

And before people questions the measuring method. I checked the rear multiple times, and I got within 0.1 of what the shop supposed to have given me, the front was close as well. so it seem to be reasonably accurate and repeatable. But once I started doing ajustment, I got less LF camber reading. I even check the passenger side again, which I did not change, and can't repeat the first reading. For some reason it reads significantly less for the front. Guess I'll have to spend the money again to see what I really get after I play with it Or maybe I have the least front camber car ever made.

 

My previous alignments were all done by guys who were used to just getting it "green" and I had to walk each one of them through what I wanted... Very painful.

My current alignment guy is used by all the autox guys and reiterates exactly what ULLLOSE finds... that most of the local alignment shops never (or don't know how to) recalibrate their alignment racks which should be done every month.

But if you get it done by a autox alignment shop, and you still can't get more camber, then it might just be your car. One of the chicago guys a few years back had to sell his fully prepped CS miata simply because he couldn't get an aggressive enough autox alignment. My friends and I joke that we're gonna get an autox alignment on all of our future cars before signing on the dotted line!

 

I had one adjuster siezed on the front...and I had to take it apart to unstick it. You may just have to oil up the adjusting cams and then try again??

 

I'm getting quite frustrated with this...seeing how the tire wear more on the outside, I started to wonder if I even have any kind of negative camber at all. And if that's all I can get on the left front, I could be in trouble.

 

I can see the suspension arm moves as I turn the cam, so I think i'm fine there...

 

You have the adjustments turned properly in the pictures. At this point the neg camber is maxed out regardless of what alignment machine or measuring device you are using. The only question left is how much actual camber you have. The fact that your readings are quite close to those of the alignment machine likely mean that there was not an issue with the alignment machine.

 

How high does your car sit in front? There are measurements on this site somewhere of low and high riding cars. Also, the tire wear is weird even with the problems with camber unless you have already been tracking or autocrossing the car. Are you sure that the toe is set correctly? Might need to take it back to your dealer and complain about tire wear. Maybe it got dropped off of the car carrier or ship for that matter.

 

Has anyone had any luck with loosening the sub frame and moving it, in effecting camber settings? Just a thought...

 

I looked into this. It isn't possible. The upper and lower control arms attach to the cradle which is one piece, so shifting the cradle would make no difference. I was hoping to be able to match camber left to right without giving any up on the right side.

 

How about a torch, 10 foot bar, and some leverage on the upper a-arm?

 

The car is in the lowest range of the Mazda spec, but I think that only tell the tech what the green zone is. The front tires were in the back last year, so that might have something to do with it, but it has gotten worse since I have them in the front.

I think I finally had it figured out though. I loosen all the control arms bolt and let it set, but it didn't set enough to do much. So I jacked up the right rear (I had to bleed the brakes anyway). Then I heard the front suspension click and now I got camber. From my measurement, it has somewhere between 1 to 1.2. Now I just have to reset the toe, I can never set the nut loose on the steering arms. At least I got the hardest part done.

Now I'm happy

 

I like it when I'm right....doesn't happen often.....but

 

I think I broke the record.

Since I can't get the damn nut loose to set toe, I took it in again today. And after all that I've try, I got a whopping 0.1 more, at -0.7 (it's a different rack though), beating the all time low by 0.1! Disappointed, I told them to set the front toe straight, put the rear at -1.0 camber, 1/16" toe in and call it the day... a day of work and shop money wasted.

because of sites issue, local season hasn't start yet. We'll see how it goes in a couple week.