Superpro allignment kit

[buliarios]

I have a bit of a dilema with these bushes and i'm wondering whether its something that is a common occurance or the mechanics that installed the kit are on crack.

anyways, i took my car to spinning wheels to get an allignment and they found that the eccentric bolts were installed in the incorrect position, i.e. the off centered hole was not at the bottom center of the bush.

this meant that the range of adjustment for each wheels was different i.e. minimum camber on the rear right wheel was -2 deg while rear left could get to -0.5 deg.

anyways, went to hit the mechanics up about and they said they were all installed at the bottom center of the bush. They said the reason why the eccentric bolts had shifted position was that there was no force clamping them in the right position as the bolts were loosened due to the weight of the car.

has anyone experienced this problem? what i wanted was a setup that was a compromise between street and track but because of the range of adjustment i have, the only setup i can have is close to a full blown track setup. at the moment it is at 3 neg at the front and 2.5 neg at the rear which i think is excessive for a street car. mind you, it corners like its on rails when i took it to stanwell tops on the weekend.

[StanTheMan]

The palace i went to didn't say he had any issues.......but i'm running about -2.5 deg camber. I've only done a few hundred K'm at best since then. But i do recall someone having a severe bitch about these. Next day the post had been edited.

If your'e not running big camber on these.....no point having them. The reason I got these is (rightly or wrongly) was to have aggressive camber without having to compromise Castor.

[irwin83r]

i was told if the person doing the alignment wasnt carefull the offset pin could spin/rotate in the bush. having a reverse affect on the align-ability of the camber...

they then went on to say that to correct this they would have to remove the bush/pin and reset it

id be tempted to try some other methods first though... maybe a pinch bar or a jack to pull the arm away from the center of the car and hopefully spin the bush back to where you want it... but that could put strain on things you wouldnt want to..

[StanTheMan]

Getting the pin out is a piece of cake.......compared getting out the old bushes

But still a fair bit of work involved

[RaceSupplies]

From experience on these cars (helping set-up at least 2 track dríven MX5's), and having seen the effects of certain alignment specs, as well as get feedback on them, i can tell you that sort of neg camber is probably excessive.

The last time we aligned my friends turbo NA6, he wanted to dial in copious amounts of neg camber because he thought surely it would be better, but after doing a track day, i asked him how it felt. He certainly agreed he had gone too far with it.

Even before that, we aligned another friends NB a few times. He went with the same sort of specs, big neg camber, large amounts of toe in on the rear, big toe out on the front.

He dialled out the neg camber, went with as much as he could get on the front (about 1.5 degrees with lowered PSS9's), and set it to the same on the rear. 3-4mm total toe in on the rear and about 2mm total out on the front. That was set based on experience from a few people who race their MX5's in prod sports. Worked a treat! He has since changed to a torsen centre, and may change soon to a Guru centre, but the alignment has stayed the same. Predictable, doesn't chew tyres, is fast and fun.

Just how it should be!

[StanTheMan]

speaking of massive & excessive camber


Massive camber FTW.

this is those offset bushes dialed out to the max...... have to admit.....it was a handful to drive.

yes I also admit If i was to get the bushes again.....I wouldn't bother with the offset camber set. For a road car there is absolutely no point.

I guess you live & you learn.

same with various alignments I've had where -1.75 deg was still wearing the outside of my tyres.
as far as my current wheel alignment's goes..... The jury is still out. It certainly feels much better & much more stable than the home driveway alignment I did. ( now there is a surprise). But Putty road is looming.

[RaceSupplies]

[StanTheMan]

and thats not photo chopped either.

here is something else for your amusement.


Seriously Dodgy

[buliarios]

thanks for the replies, it does seem logical that the eccentric shafts would turn.

might go back to spinning wheels and get a re-allignment, try and see if theres something they can do.

[manga_blue]

Centreline in Melbourne did my alignment. It took over 2 hours.

Every time we loosened an adjusting bolt the bush would turn in its hole. This happened whether we had the weight on or off the wheels, though weight off was slightly better.

There was no possibility of fine control. The only way we could get anywhere near what we wanted was hit and miss.

Glenn said that in his experience eccentric bushes are normally fitted to the upper arms so that these remain locked while you do the adjustments on the bottom arm. He couldn't understand why this was different for the MX5. This was one of the worst alignment procedures he'd ever had to do.

In the longer term I can't see anything that could positively hold the bushes in position. Apparently they mostly (but not always) stay in place when on the top arms because there's not much load there, but the bottom arms have to take the full weight of the car through the springs.

While the poly bushes themselves are great I really regret buying the eccentric bushes. I already had more aggressive settings with standard bushes and it was just too hard to get back to them with these beasts.

[irwin83r]

From experience on these cars (helping set-up at least 2 track dríven MX5's), and having seen the effects of certain alignment specs, as well as get feedback on them, i can tell you that sort of neg camber is probably excessive.

The last time we aligned my friends turbo NA6, he wanted to dial in copious amounts of neg camber because he thought surely it would be better, but after doing a track day, i asked him how it felt. He certainly agreed he had gone too far with it.

Even before that, we aligned another friends NB a few times. He went with the same sort of specs, big neg camber, large amounts of toe in on the rear, big toe out on the front.

He dialled out the neg camber, went with as much as he could get on the front (about 1.5 degrees with lowered PSS9's), and set it to the same on the rear. 3-4mm total toe in on the rear and about 2mm total out on the front. That was set based on experience from a few people who race their MX5's in prod sports. Worked a treat! He has since changed to a torsen centre, and may change soon to a Guru centre, but the alignment has stayed the same. Predictable, doesn't chew tyres, is fast and fun.

Just how it should be!

toe out on the front?? you wouldnt happen to have the spec sheets of that alignment would you?

im pretty happy where mine is now but am always willing to give different settings a go.

at the moment im toe in front zero toe rear.

[StanTheMan]

Toe out on the front gives better turn in but the car will have tendency to tramline.
Also your tyre wear will be harder.

I personally prefer a little toe out. Last alignment was zero........It felt a little lethargic to me

[manga_blue]

I used to have a bit of toe-out and the car felt much sharper but the tyres were disappearing at an alarming rate.

The best thing about a lot of toe-out is that you can do wolf-whistles on tram tracks. Just run a front wheel onto and off the track for a sec at the right speed. With a bit of practice you can get it almost perfect.

[RaceSupplies]

From experience on these cars (helping set-up at least 2 track dríven MX5's), and having seen the effects of certain alignment specs, as well as get feedback on them, i can tell you that sort of neg camber is probably excessive.

The last time we aligned my friends turbo NA6, he wanted to dial in copious amounts of neg camber because he thought surely it would be better, but after doing a track day, i asked him how it felt. He certainly agreed he had gone too far with it.

Even before that, we aligned another friends NB a few times. He went with the same sort of specs, big neg camber, large amounts of toe in on the rear, big toe out on the front.

He dialled out the neg camber, went with as much as he could get on the front (about 1.5 degrees with lowered PSS9's), and set it to the same on the rear. 3-4mm total toe in on the rear and about 2mm total out on the front. That was set based on experience from a few people who race their MX5's in prod sports. Worked a treat! He has since changed to a torsen centre, and may change soon to a Guru centre, but the alignment has stayed the same. Predictable, doesn't chew tyres, is fast and fun.

Just how it should be!

toe out on the front?? you wouldnt happen to have the spec sheets of that alignment would you?

im pretty happy where mine is now but am always willing to give different settings a go.

at the moment im toe in front zero toe rear.

I can ask for specifics if you wish.

Spoke to the guy who is running these specs the other night and it has worn his track tyres a bit, but that's not surprising considering he's done probably 5000km street driving (most of it hard, with many trips through the national park) as well as about 5 track days. You'd expect a set of semi's to be a bit average!

If you're worried about tyre wear, run 0 toe front. I run 17 inch Enkei RP-F1's and RE55S on my Mazda2 (stop laughing ) mini delivery truck, it runs 2mm total toe out on the front, approx 5mm total toe in on the rear and 1.5 degrees neg camber all day everyday, usually 6 days a week to and from work, has done 3 track days on those tyres and they look almost new! I have the advantage of working in a workshop so i keep my tyres at the right pressure at all times, have the opportunity of rotating them front to rear when i like, so it does make it better.

It does tram line, but even with a stock alignment, no change in suspension, and fitting my Enkei's and RE55S's, it instantly changed to a tram lining animal. It's mainly the tyres. I then fitted my Cusco coil overs, and it didn't change that much. Noticeable, but it now feels like a go kart. Has surprised *many* people on the street and at the track. Some may have even seen it last December at the MX5 Mania track day at Wakefield?

Anyway, toe out isn't for everyone. Some prefer neutral toe and that's ok. Some don't find the responsiveness is outweighed by increased tram lining and wear. It's not like someone running the same set-up as you but with 2mm total toe out is going to go 'round the outside of you like you are standing still. It's not that effective, but it does help i feel.