Hunter alignment, what advice would you give?
Discussion
I use the same independant tyre bloke for all my tyres, preferring to buy at the right price online & go to him.
He now has a Hunter 4 wheel alignment set up & I have asked him if he can do it for me, what he said next surprised me. He said, (talking about my e36 track car) you know your car & what you want better than me, come down when I am quiet, I will get it set up & you can play with it yourself!
What can they do, are they easy to use, the car is fully adjustable for track & camber at least, so what advice would you give me in my ignorance, as I do not know what to expect?
He now has a Hunter 4 wheel alignment set up & I have asked him if he can do it for me, what he said next surprised me. He said, (talking about my e36 track car) you know your car & what you want better than me, come down when I am quiet, I will get it set up & you can play with it yourself!
What can they do, are they easy to use, the car is fully adjustable for track & camber at least, so what advice would you give me in my ignorance, as I do not know what to expect?
QBee said:
Machine is brilliant. He will hang a sort of GPS device off each wheel, which communicates wirelessly with the computer and tells it where the wheel is in space.
All the readings show on screen at the same time, and you can see the effect of adjustments as they are made. The computer will have the standard settings for your car pre-programmed, and so you can correct any existing errors in toe, caster and camber first.
A track car needs more camber, as I am sure you know. Mine isn't a BMW, but as I use it on the road as well I have a compromise setting of -1.5 degrees of camber from standard. You will probably want quite a bit more.
In summary, it's the dog's danglers in set up equipment, have his arm off and take advantage of his kindness - and then reward him for it.
Thanks for that, I will certainly be thanking him financially for his extreme generosity.All the readings show on screen at the same time, and you can see the effect of adjustments as they are made. The computer will have the standard settings for your car pre-programmed, and so you can correct any existing errors in toe, caster and camber first.
A track car needs more camber, as I am sure you know. Mine isn't a BMW, but as I use it on the road as well I have a compromise setting of -1.5 degrees of camber from standard. You will probably want quite a bit more.
In summary, it's the dog's danglers in set up equipment, have his arm off and take advantage of his kindness - and then reward him for it.
paulmnz said:
I have a mate with a garage who has one of these - they actually use reflective pads with lasers to calculate the relative position of the wheels.
Doing a geo isn't as easy as it might sound as every adjustment you make to camber, castor and toe will impact all the other wheels, so you can end up chasing your tail - get one thing set to what you want, only to find something else goes out and around you go.
I tend to start with the back of the car, do the cambers first, then rear toe. try to get them reasonably balanced across the axle, some times you will find something is bent and you can't achieve the setting you want - use the bend corner as the reference and use the wider range of adjustment on the other corners to counter act it. after the rear is done, do the front camber and caster and do the toe last. then check the back again
It will probably take a good 2-3 hours if you have to adjust everything on every corner, you might be lucky and find one axle is there, or there abouts.
Some tips:
lubricate all the adjusters with penetrating oil the day before.
put weight in the drivers seat equal to 'you' before you start. take everything you don't normally drive with out of the car
The stored factory settings are there to just make the 'gauges' go green when you get them within factory tolerances for an unmodified road version of your car. on a race or track car you'll probably have them all red as your ride height is likely lower and you'll be wanting much more toe and camber than factory settings.
other piece of advice - don't spend ages trying to get them exact, very doubtful you can notice 0.02 of a degree although the printout will look pretty at the end. getting the corners fairly even is important across the axles though.
Sounds like good advice to me, many thanks for the insight, exactly what I wanted to hear.Doing a geo isn't as easy as it might sound as every adjustment you make to camber, castor and toe will impact all the other wheels, so you can end up chasing your tail - get one thing set to what you want, only to find something else goes out and around you go.
I tend to start with the back of the car, do the cambers first, then rear toe. try to get them reasonably balanced across the axle, some times you will find something is bent and you can't achieve the setting you want - use the bend corner as the reference and use the wider range of adjustment on the other corners to counter act it. after the rear is done, do the front camber and caster and do the toe last. then check the back again
It will probably take a good 2-3 hours if you have to adjust everything on every corner, you might be lucky and find one axle is there, or there abouts.
Some tips:
lubricate all the adjusters with penetrating oil the day before.
put weight in the drivers seat equal to 'you' before you start. take everything you don't normally drive with out of the car
The stored factory settings are there to just make the 'gauges' go green when you get them within factory tolerances for an unmodified road version of your car. on a race or track car you'll probably have them all red as your ride height is likely lower and you'll be wanting much more toe and camber than factory settings.
other piece of advice - don't spend ages trying to get them exact, very doubtful you can notice 0.02 of a degree although the printout will look pretty at the end. getting the corners fairly even is important across the axles though.
Nabu said:
Spot on.
All readings apart from maybe toe should be red if you are going for a track setup.
Also, one good piece of advise if you can do it.
When you think you are all finished and done.
Take the targets off, go for a small drive around the block, return and have another measurement.
It's not rare for some bolts to have moved a little bit, changing the car's geo, when proper forces from the weight of the car are applied.
Once again, good advice indeed many thanks.All readings apart from maybe toe should be red if you are going for a track setup.
Also, one good piece of advise if you can do it.
When you think you are all finished and done.
Take the targets off, go for a small drive around the block, return and have another measurement.
It's not rare for some bolts to have moved a little bit, changing the car's geo, when proper forces from the weight of the car are applied.
Humour said:
Sounds like a really nice bloke. Any chance of sharing his general location? With that type of attitude regarding track car specific needs he might be worth doing business with, provided his bread and butter is not being tampered with and he is within reasonable reach of course.
Most places (even those with Hunter systems) are just working on the turnover of vehicles, god forbid after paying 80 quid you want to come back and have a check and re-adjustment done.
Humour
The guy is in the Leeds area, if this is of use to anyone PM me & I will tell you more, but please remember he needs your business firstly & I am sure he would be just as helpful to others, do not abuse the nice side of people like him.Most places (even those with Hunter systems) are just working on the turnover of vehicles, god forbid after paying 80 quid you want to come back and have a check and re-adjustment done.
Humour
iguana said:
Is great to be able to fiddle, but the problem is when you change everything you never know quite what what the sweet spot is that you have found is down to, or what the horrible handling is down to.
On the e36 I'm sure you know front end lots of camber works well & very needed, its a track car already do I assume you have a good 3.5neg or more on?
Rear I've only ever run maxed out stock rear camber, no extenders, always been happy with that, others run far more than me tho.
That's the simple bit, the caster & toe in/out is far more personal & where your fiddles will be best done vs where it is at present & what you want to achieve.
I know what you mean, that will always be the potential issue with doing this type of thing.On the e36 I'm sure you know front end lots of camber works well & very needed, its a track car already do I assume you have a good 3.5neg or more on?
Rear I've only ever run maxed out stock rear camber, no extenders, always been happy with that, others run far more than me tho.
That's the simple bit, the caster & toe in/out is far more personal & where your fiddles will be best done vs where it is at present & what you want to achieve.
As you say 2.5 to 3.5 at the front seems to be the norm on track for these, also 1 to 1.5 on the rear.
These will be my starting point, I will also (hopefully) be able to find these settings & mark the next point up & down to allow a degree of adjustability away from the machine if I see fit.
One of the other things I want to achieve is to make sure there is a balance between left & right & of course to reset the tracking.
As per the list higher in this post, I will then have a base-line to work from & adjust things to suit.
Gassing Station | Track Days | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff