[Travishksar]

I've got a KW v1 suspension installed recently. When I went for an alignment afterward, here's what I got from Firestone. It seems off spec, right? What should I do?

Thanks,
Steve

[kevin@bavarianx]

Sorry but Firestone can't do lowered alignments for S***. What kind of driving do you do so I can help you with an alignment spec.

[Travishksar]

Originally Posted by sales@bavarianx

Sorry but Firestone can't do lowered alignments for S***. What kind of driving do you do so I can help you with an alignment spec.

The firestone dude said he could only match the oem spec, unfortunately. Even though they tried to match, the numbers are still off the standard. I don't know why..

By the way, what do the numbers actually represent in my case? What causes the left side's values to be smaller than the right sides? What should I do with the negative values? After driving in NYC for about two days, my car starts to pull to the left when the steering wheel is dead center.
The car is used mainly for local streets though.

[IN54NITY]

FYI. I just had a corner balance and alignment done. I have V3s and Vorshlag Camber Plates. As sales@bavarianx said, yours is way off. Left and right camber difference is unacceptable. Heres mine:

Left Front:
Camber: -1.9 deg
Toe: 0.09 deg

(Caster is full forward on both)

Right Front:
Camber -1.9
Toe 0.09

Left Rear:
Camber -1.8
Toe 0.12

Right Rear:
Camber -1.8
Toe 0.11


Corner Balance (in lbs):

1062 | 1007
--------------
945 | 911

Total weight, 6/10 tank, 180 lb driver: 3925 lbs (Ugggh, tain't no e36 !)

[The HACK]

When you say "dropped," how low did you go?

Because, without camber plates and camber arms (CAN the E9X even use camber arms? Does anyone design them?), factory eccentric camber bolts in the rear only has a limited range of adjustment. Like maybe up to 1/2 degree one way or another. And as you lower the car, it increases negative camber. It may be entirely possible that you have "dropped" your car too low for the eccentric bolts to be able to compensate for the additional negative camber that resulted from lowering the car. Same goes for the front, there is only so much adjustment you can get out of factory camber. The front has even less range than the rear, but since the front typically starts out from the factory with much less negative camber than the rear, after "slamming" the suspension you're now only within the upper range of camber adjustability.

[subieworx]

Haha. Worst alignment ever. They didn't even try to adjust the rear.

[Travishksar]

Originally Posted by aleckzandr

FYI. I just had a corner balance and alignment done. I have V3s and Vorshlag Camber Plates. As sales@bavarianx said, yours is way off. Left and right camber difference is unacceptable. Heres mine:

Left Front:
Camber: -1.9 deg
Toe: 0.09 deg

(Caster is full forward on both)

Right Front:
Camber -1.9
Toe 0.09

Left Rear:
Camber -1.8
Toe 0.12

Right Rear:
Camber -1.8
Toe 0.11


Corner Balance (in lbs):

1062 | 1007
--------------
945 | 911

Total weight, 6/10 tank, 180 lb driver: 3925 lbs (Ugggh, tain't no e36 !)

Is Camber plate necessary to correct the numbers?

Originally Posted by The HACK

When you say "dropped," how low did you go?

Because, without camber plates and camber arms (CAN the E9X even use camber arms? Does anyone design them?), factory eccentric camber bolts in the rear only has a limited range of adjustment. Like maybe up to 1/2 degree one way or another. And as you lower the car, it increases negative camber. It may be entirely possible that you have "dropped" your car too low for the eccentric bolts to be able to compensate for the additional negative camber that resulted from lowering the car. Same goes for the front, there is only so much adjustment you can get out of factory camber. The front has even less range than the rear, but since the front typically starts out from the factory with much less negative camber than the rear, after "slamming" the suspension you're now only within the upper range of camber adjustability.

The fronts are lowered all the way down while the rears have about 1.5 turns left. The firestone guys said he couldn't adjust my rear since the rear was too low. Seriously, would that happen?

[Express]

thats not even an alignment.

[kevin@bavarianx]

Camber is hard to correct on stock components unless you have camber bolts or camber plates. Your camber and toe should be close to each other. Tell me your driving style and I will help you get a spec for an alignment because OEM is garbage that will just make your car eat tire by giving inner camber wear.

[Travishksar]

Originally Posted by sales@bavarianx

Camber is hard to correct on stock components unless you have camber bolts or camber plates. Your camber and toe should be close to each other. Tell me your driving style and I will help you get a spec for an alignment because OEM is garbage that will just make your car eat tire by giving inner camber wear.

Hmm, I don't do track. But I drive aggressively almost every single day. Therefore, anything that makes the car stablize through concerning is good enough. Thanks!!!

ps. I don't have cambers bolts or camber plates.

Does anyone know if Firestone aligns cars with non-OEM spec?

[IN54NITY]

Originally Posted by stevechan

Is Camber plate necessary to correct the numbers?

Camber plates give you camber range. You can still wiggle within a degree without. Yours is complete slop, IMO. I would ask for a refund.

Originally Posted by stevechan

The fronts are lowered all the way down while the rears have about 1.5 turns left. The firestone guys said he couldn't adjust my rear since the rear was too low. Seriously, would that happen?

The source of the problem. You're beyond slammed. Expect rubbing. You can raise it at least an inch, still get your slammed look. One thing I noticed in the rear is that my spring perch is almost at the limit the ~other~ way (perch/collar is at very bottom) of the mount and I have 3/4" to 1/2" of clearance to the tire. In the front, almost an inch.

Edit: I think the pivot ratio is like 6 to 10, i.e. move the spring perch 3/5 of an inch, and expect an inch difference at the wheel (to fender distance). Someone chime in if I'm wrong.

[The HACK]

Originally Posted by stevechan

The fronts are lowered all the way down while the rears have about 1.5 turns left. The firestone guys said he couldn't adjust my rear since the rear was too low. Seriously, would that happen?

Sure. Like I said. As you lower the car, you increase static negative camber. There's only about .5 degrees of adjustment either way in the rear, and it starts out with a lot of negative camber from factory (certainly a lot more). The result of lowering a car past its roll center is that the negative camber increase dramatically and when you go past that point, .5 degrees one way or another is not going to bring it remotely close to stock.

For your sake, I suggest about -0.7 to -1.0 degrees of negative camber up front, and no more than 3/16" total toe-in. The rear you need about -1.5 degree of negative camber with at least 1/8" toe-in and you should be fine, even with your "aggressive" driving. This should give you fairly even wear all around.

But judging from the initial read-out from Firestone, you're probably going to need camber plates in the front to make this work. I don't know how camber can be added on the back of an E9X...On the E30/E36/E46 and their off-shoot (Z3/Z4) rear suspension adding or subtracting camber outside of the normal adjustment range can be done with camber arms. I suspect, based on the diagram:

http://www.realoem.com/bmw/showparts...30&hg=33&fg=30

It would appear that and adjustable replacement for part number 11 would serve the same purpose?