B15 Alignment!!! [Long]

[Jon Pennington]

Brace yourself, the Cowboy wrote another book...

Jon Pennington (that's me!) said:

> [The factory alignment has been the]
> single biggest thorn in my side since I bought the car.  I could throw
> this f!ck!r down a mineshaft sideways, and it'd pull itself straight!

NO MORE!  For those that don't know, I just ordered a set of Falken GRb
FK-451s from DTD (tires.com), and I wanted to make absolutely certain that
the factory alignment didn't shred my new rubber the way it shredded my
Firestone Firehawk GTA 02s.  The biggest problem with a B15's alignment
from the factory is massive amounts of toe IN, which wears the outside
shoulders of the front tires WAY faster than the inside.

My car's alignment was in-spec when I put it on the rack today, but I got
a good tech that did what I asked instead of what the Alldata manual said.
;)  Just to make sure that he wouldn't give me too much flack about tire
inflation being the cause of my wear, I dropped the front and rear
pressures right back to factory spec at 33/30 PSI respectively.  This made
the wear pattern VERY clear (I usually run 38/35).  He didn't even ask
about my pressure though, and just asked me what I wanted to do!

I told him that I wanted him to set my toe to 00 left and right, and maybe
see if we could do something about adding some negative camber.  He
mentioned to me that he could use crash bolts, and I expressed to him my
distaste for that idea.  Then he says, "Well, I'll be picking metal
shavings out of my hands for a week, but I /could/ slot the struts to dial
in some more."  "SCORE!" says me.  He went to work immediately on that,
and later fixed my toe to my liking.  The final result by the display was:

  Front Camber:
  L  -1.030
  R  -1.040

  Front Caster:
  L   1.840
  R   1.430

  Front Toe:
  L  -0.010
  R  -0.010

Of course there were all sorts of red blinkey lights and warning Xes on
the toe settings, but neither of us paid any attention to those. ;)  The
Caster specs are just as they were when we put it on the rack, and the
Alldata-enabled system didn't gripe about the 0.410 of deviation, so we
just went on; it's not like caster's adjustable anyway. :(

The result SOTP is INCREDIBLE.  The steering wheel doesn't have a clear
on-center feel anymore, but that makes initial turn-in much easier (less
effort, more result).  At speed on the highway, the car isn't "squirrelly"
or "darty," but I do have to concentrate a little more on keeping it
straight.  Rotation is UNBELIEVABLE, though!  It's so much easier to get
the back end to properly follow around a turn.  I haven't even pushed that
hard yet, and I can see a day and night difference between the factory
alignment and my new "performance" setup.

It cost me about $110 in labor to have the work done, but even in the
first hours it has been worth every penny.  I HIGHLY recommend this to ANY
B15 owner who prefers being a driver to being a passenger. :)  I REALLY
can't wait to see what happens when I get my new tires mounted.

If you're in the KC area, and need an alignment, call Harrington
Automotive in Lee's Summit, Missouri, at (816) 525-4399, and talk to John
about having Mike work his magic on your suspension's pivoting parts. :D
They're even talking about building me an axle/ARB bending jig (like West
End Alignment in Gardena CA has) to get rid of some of that rear-end
toe-in...

--
-=|JP|=-        "Stew my foot and call me Susan!"

'01 B15 SE/PP  |   http://members.cardomain.com/cowboydren/   |  <//><
'95 SL2 Auto   |         cowboydren @ b15sentra . net         |