Lowered today (pics), type of alignment?

[RobZ]

I added Eibach springs today. I'm going to get it aligned tomorrow but what should I look for in an alignment system/technique? Is there a specific computerized system that I should seek out? How much will an alignment be able to change the camber?


This morning:




This afternoon:

[Mike_Yi]

Looks great!

[9eighty6]

Love the stance on the car. Looks great when lowered like that. I am sure it'll handle incredibly!

[RobZ]

Thanks. It actually feels a bit tighter yet overall it is pretty similar to stock. I kept the original suspension other than the springs. I'm a bit concerned about getting it aligned here (not a lot of quality shops). Last time I had my Excursion aligned, they actually worsened my alignment.

[kabel]

New stance looks great!
there has to be a decent shop reasonably close to you. Expect to pay up to $150 for a good alignment at a independent.

Any of these places near you? They may be able to suggest a reputable place to go:
http://986forum.com/forums/showpost.php?p=82056&postcount=6

^From the Find your local mechanic/porsche specialist thread.

[jmatta]

Car looks great...I added H&R sport springs as my first project when I bought my Box S. You'll find that the shop doing the alignment can no longer get the camber into spec; it's just something you'll need to live with. My car is set at -1.25 front and -2.5 rear camber, which will wear the inside of the tires a bit more, but they'll turn to hockey pucks before I wear them out. The handling is much improved, let alone the appearance.

[Kirk]

Hmmm.... it honestly doesn't look that low to me personally. I've got a lot less of a gap between the fender and tire with my Gemballa springs, but they may provide more of a drop. Still my springs did "settle" too over the first couple of weeks. I would not install new springs and then go get it aligned the next day. Let the car settle for a couple weeks first so that it's at is final ride height before the alignment, unless you absolutely need to drive it now. I drove mine a bit too before getting the alignment.

As to what to look for... well a good laser alignment depends much more on the technician, how much experience they have, and how much time they devote to your car. Give them clear specifications for what you're looking to get (I used the lower ROW M030 alignment specs), and then make sure they actually align it to those specs and provide you a print-out of the final results.

A lowered Boxster is not easy to align. Especially in the rear because rear toe and camber are related. To get the rear toe slightly in/negative you'll probably have to run with more negative camber than what's recommended. That is unless you get adjustable toe bars for the rear.

Again though, I'd make my expectations to the shop clear and then insist that they get it right. My shop spent two hours on it and still couldn't get the camber even good enough in the rear. They then dropped the job for other work that was lined up and gave me back my keys. When I saw the print-out and knew it wasn't "good enough", then I just scheduled another appointment and brought it back again and gave them another two hours to work on it and get it right (no cost to me of course).

Of course your alignment specs will depend a lot on what YOU are looking for. Do you want a street setup or street/track/AuotX? With a more aggressive AutoX setup you actually want more of the negative camber while for a street setup the alignment shop will be struggling to dial that negative camber out.


>How much will an alignment be able to change the camber?

You can go about -1.5 degrees of camber in the front and as much as -3.0 degrees in the rear - or thereabouts.

Kirk

[Kirk]

This is what I'm talking about.... with my Gemballa springs and 18" wheels I've got very little tire to fender gap in the rear. I don't think it was like this when I first lowered the car, but eventually settled into being this way.

[RobZ]

Kirk, great advice. I'm going to let it settle and in the mean time I'll ask around for shop recommendations. It's only a daily driver car (500 miles/ month) and I doubt I'll take it to the track very often. Do you recommend the adjustable toe arms for street use?

[tjgalati]

I took my car to a reputable shop here in town, asked for an "autocross" alignment (along with adding new gt3 front stab bar + droplinks and rear lower stress bar.

The bill looked like this:

Install bars: 200
AX alignment (camber/toe etc): 300

OUCH!!!! Seriously? 300???

[Kirk]

Originally Posted by RobZ

Do you recommend the adjustable toe arms for street use?

In the front they should be able to adjust the car to within spec, about -1 degree of camber. The problem is in the rear. I think the spec is around -1.5 degrees or so (I'm just guessing). The first time around the guy aligning my car could only get -2.5. Later with more work he got it down to -2.0. If you want to actually hit the spec, you'll probably need the adjustable toe arms. Without them you'll run too much negative camber in the rear. Is that a bad thing? Well not really. It won't hurt the handling any but you'll get a lot more tire wear on the inside. So maybe you'll eat up tires more, but that may not be a big deal to you. It kind of depends on your priorities. Plus you have to weigh the cost of tires versus ~$400 for "good" adjustable toe arms.

Right now I've got -3.0 degrees in the back, -1.5 in the front, and I recently bought camber plates to get more negative camber in the front. Why? Because I'd rather have an aggressive autocross alignment and say screw the tires.

Kirk

[brp987]

I also have eibach/bilsteins. I brought it in for alignment requesting oem angles. They could not do it, and I have -2.8 rear camber. I even had tarett adjustable toe arms at the ready and said put them on if needed to get oem angles. They didn't put the toe arms on. The camber eccentric is max'd out.

Just to add a little confusion, when the car is lowered the toe arms angle down towards the center of car. They are no longer in a neutral angle, with the result that loading the suspension in hard cornering causes toe angle changes (bump steer). For this Tarett also sells adjustable rear toe links that also compensate for lowered suspensions. Whether this effect is noticeable or not I don't know.

[RobZ]

Now I'm wondering if I should even have it aligned at all. I doubt shops in my area have experience aligning P-cars.

[Gary in BR]

I had alignment problems on the Elbachs I had and with my current KSports.
Once I went with adjustable toe arms the alignment is very close to OEM specs.

With the toe arms I get more than 3000 miles out of the rear tires. Going on 8k as of today.

[RobZ]

Ouch, 3000 miles? I'll likely order the toe arms then. The spring settled more and it looks like it dropped another 1/2" or more front and rear. I hope I don't end up like this: