3 or 4 pieces of wax paper work great.

 

I kinda like the tiles for measuring the degrees i'm turning, nice flat surface to mark against. Prob no big deal though.

 

I don't have a bump steer gauge, but I like these:

c/c tool:
Digital Caster/Camber Gauge with AccuLevel and Quick Set Adapter

toe plates:
http://www.summitracing.com/parts/lng-79500

and I use squares of linoleum tile with a little grease between them as turn plates.

so far so good!

 

You can use a couple of sheets of newspaper in lieu of the grease. Attracts less dust.

 

Do any of you guys do your own alignments? If so what brands are reliable for a caster/camber gauge and any brand or system for aligning toe? At my old shop I was spoiled with an alignment machine but now I use my neighbors, his shop has a really nice Hunter but I try not to abuse my privelage over there.

I noticed that same thing on the control arm and pivot when I watched the video, it is what it is because the arm swings on an arch, I don't see any issue with it.

Oh and lastly any recommendations for bump steer gauges? I'm pumped to get my car dialed in. I keep driving it any conditions possible and I'm really starting to get a feel how it acts and its helping me understand exactly what to correct.

 

Yes that is the video,just thought it looked odd.

 

Are you talking about this video?

I think that's an optical illusion. There hasn't been a case of extra wear or the lower shock mount coming loose.

Since the shock mount is a bit higher than the main plane of the lower arm and it's pivoting at the frame, it will move outboard while the lower ball joint moves inward, that's just the geometry.

 

Shaun,AppleJack,
On the video that shows the coil over front,it looks like the shock lower mount pivot bracket,(tall triangle piece) moves in and out toward the wheel in bump. Have you noticed any flex or chaffing in the mount to lower control arm?

 

If you think about it the same is happening at the top mount. The shock is fitted with monoball bearings so there is no bind. The lower bracket is bolted to the LCA and isn't going anywhere.

 

The SoT rear suspension is a three link.

The rear roll center height (in a 3-link, 4-link, or torque arm configuration) is set by the location of the center pivot bolt of the Watts link (or the panhard bar height if you have one of those instead). The side view instant center is set by the location of the trailing arms and the upper third link. You extend those lines to a point where they meet each other.

The upper third link is only adjustable for length (to set pinion angle), but the lower arms have multiple mounting point options front and rear, so the SVIC (an ultimately anti-squat) is adjustable. There will be suggested setup combos in the SoT instructions to help you get a great starting setup.

 

From the photos it looks like the ST rear set up runs an upper control arm rather then a tq arm set up? Any specific reason? Doesn't that make for a high roll center? I watched all the videos of the old mustangs and those thing rip, I love all the point bys one by one. Haha.

 

I have a friend with a Boss302 clone who runs a Fays 2 Watts link set up and feels it's the best mod hes done to the chassie.
Run soft shackels and polly front bushings. His is a track car.

OP if Maier is that close I cant see you would go wroung useing thier set up.

 

I can't stand to run uneven tires. Usually about half a tire set in you've figured out that the balance of the car is a bit off and that led to uneven tire wear. You may make a change to fix that, but unless you can rotate front to back you get less time out of that set of tires.

 

hahahaha! yeah... oddly, the guy that owns the car I modeled mine after runs same size all around.

 

The vintage guys swear by the staggered tires. But those guys are gazillionaires :grin:

 

Staggered is definitely proven, lol. But as we all know, expensive!

I ran a square setup (same size all around) on my previous car (E46 M3), even though it came staggered stock. I like square for longer lasting tires and being able to flip them; but I like staggered to be able to maximize grip.

I'll be running staggered on this car. For now (or in about 2 weeks), street tires will be 255 front and 295 rear, on 15" wheels. Once I put enough aside for the car, I'll grab up some 18x11 for the rear and 18x10 for the front. I will be running 285 up front and 305 out back.

 

they are vintage wheel works v45's. 17x9.5 rear and 17x8 front.

 

I'm going to have two sets - wets and drys - they'll be staggered, but that means two full set's of wheels. I mean how often do you buy wheels?

JMN444 - what wheels are they in your signature? (just seen they are TT's - they look like mesh wheels in your pic)

 

Mark, you would go staggered if money wasn't an issue? I keep debating what to do when this set wears out... May get a set of track only tires I can rotate but not sure

 

I run the same size tire at all 4 corners, because I'm not made of money!!

 

The street or track stuff looks legit. I'll be honest I cruised around the web site and I'm really digging it. Not in good or bay way but it reminds me a lot of Griggs stuff in how thoughtful the fabrication is, it looks very functional, down to business and it looks engineered in a positive way of making changes. I hate always referencing GR but I've spent a lot of time on the phone with them and I like his mind set of keeping it simple, functional and no holds barred for performance. With that being said their GR350 chassis for old school cars is REALLY expensive. ST looks pricey but from what I've seen it a lot cheaper then GR. Maier racing is nice as well, I know he always slaughters the Good Guys AutoX every time it's in town and he's a nice resource to have 45 minutes north of me. Some times I feel he's a little pricey for keeping it so old school but I can't argue with the reputation and performance so I digress. From what I know about cars as a hobby and profession I find GW really appealing for quality, price and performance but when it comes down to it I've owned my 66 for 11 years and have no real world experience tuning the chassis.

Do people change to a newer front spindle only for strength or is there advantages in geometric angles or brake kits?

Not sure if this it true or not but logic would tell me if I stick with a modified "stock" steering set up I'll have less issues with headers and clutch linkage clearances as well.

I also have a feeling I'll soon be regretting having my 16x8 Torque Thrusters...

Lastly is there a common or general tire size you guys run? Staggered set up or same all around?

 

Yeah, there is some old data out there that I measured in '05 in this thread:

It really comes down to just putting on the Bear tracker, setting the heim as low as you can and starting there. Lower than their design would allow would be better, especially if/when you switch to the '70 drum spindle for the stronger pin/bearings.

Then again, I use the Pro-Motorspoorts kit because I liked the quicker steering it offers, but I have a slower than stock steering box.

It's all about tradeoffs.

I had Maier leafs and a Maier panhard with Bilsteins. It worked great for what it was. I really think the theoretical discussion about competing roll centers is a bit overblown in it's seat of the pants impact. I never had problems with it. One trick to make it work is to put in a stiff front bushing and really soft stock shackle bushings. That way, if the panhard wants to control the position of the axle, it can push the shackles around, but you still have a nice fixed trailing arm condition with the poly front bushing. Maier had the front bushings iirc.

Personally, all of that is off the car and I'm in the middle of upgrading to the Street or Track 3-link, but I was also involved in developing and tuning it.

Being able to set individual ride height and have an easy to adjust rear roll center has proven really valuable in the two ESP cars ('99 Camaro and '12 Boss 302) that I autocrossed and trophied with, so I'm excited to get my old polished turd of a '65 to the same level of adjustment.

 

Looks like I have a ton of trial and error to do. On my 04 GT I run 7.5 caster and neg 1.8 camber. Believe it or not on 200 tread wear tires I get perfect wear on them with mostly city driving and a few driving events. I do rotate them every other oil change. The 66 is a complete different beast, I know what I want and how to do things but I have no idea what to do or what works on old Mustangs.

Do you guys have any suggestions for a rear set up? I'm quite fond of pan hard bars and watts links but I'm freaked out having two roll centers. As far as I know they aren't recommended when used with leafs but I have no personal experience with them on older cars.

GT289, when you refer to pitman and idler for BS have you successfully made adjustments by modifying those components? This is one reason why I'm considering a rack and pinion set up. But, who is to say the rack is at the proper height and location to improve BS and Ackerman. I suppose a RP set up seems appealing because it looks like a simple set up but it might be a whole new can of worms.

Applejack I read some good info you wrote on another web site about BS, very interesting, I think it was on corner carvers...?

 

GT289, when you refer to pitman and idler for BS have you successfully made adjustments by modifying those components? This is one reason why I'm considering a rack and pinion set up. But, who is to say the rack is at the proper height and location to improve BS and Ackerman. I suppose a RP set up seems appealing because it looks like a simple set up but it might be a whole new can of worms.

A long time ago we bumped Rocco Gioffre's '65 in that manner. It was in CC mag's
Real Street Eliminator. That was the very last car I touched at Global as far as BS.
He had all the GW stuff and 70 or 71 drum spindles supporting a B302 T/A front
disc setup......and pretty significant BS. We slotted the idler arm bracket for
easy adjustment, built a custom pitman by sectioning, reinforcing and welding.
When we got all the numbers right, we welded up the slots in the idler bracket and
called it a day. It was a zero bump setup when we finished.

Rocco Gioffre: Los Angeles, CA | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Most of the RP kits are compromises. Reduced turning circle, etc. The only one
I saw that was an excellent setup was Danny Bahn's (DB Performance), but it's
definitely not a DIY kit.

ex-Global West GM
1991-1995

 

I had an old '88 Cavalier Z24 ice racer that I couldn't get to track correctly until I purposely made one side's camber positive and the other negative. I'm not sure what was ever wrong, but it taught me a good alignment lesson.

 

Some of the front wheel drive cars I did way back when speced split castor,up to 2 deg on some. That was to fight terrible torque steer I believe.

 

With less than a degree of caster, the car will feel unsettled. Caster makes the car track straight down the road. More is usually better until you run into the tire catching the front lip of the fender and/or steering effort increasing too much. Really, crank it up!

Really, don't come to any conclusions about your setup until you re-set it to -1 deg camber and at least +3 to +4 caster.

Also, your side to side spread is pretty far. I try and target +/- .25 camber and +/- .5 caster side to side.

Believe it or not, but uneven camber can lead to the car pulling to one side all on it's own.

 

Believe it or not, but uneven camber can lead to the car pulling to one side all on it's own.

My wife's Toyota did that with the cambers off.

 

Shaun at SoT runs like 5 degrees of caster. have you tried that much?

 

Yes, I wasn't suggesting using caster to adjust it, just saying that I'd start with correct/final caster #'s before trying to dial in bumpsteer.

 

That's an excellent plan of attack.

One of the cars I have is the second car they did back in 1985.
I ran it at open track events from 1994 to 2005 and truth be told, didn't
see a big issue with bump. We routinely fixed bump on lots of stuff too,
some of which could be documented with a tape measure at the start.

For jmn444- As far as caster and bumpsteer, you can't "adjust out" the
bump but you can make the car more liveable. BS has to be addressed
by alterations in the pitman/idler, draglink, etc.

ex-Global West GM
1991-1995