Good article with spec suggestions

Front-End Alignments - 5.0 Mustang & Super Fords


Guess I am curious to what tools many use now

 

Here's how I do mine at home. It's a lot easier now that eery smartphone has an angle-finder built in or in an app you can get for free, but I wrote all this a long time ago.
http://forums.corral.net/forums/handling/931155-how-do-your-own-alignments-low-cost-effective.html

 

Nice writeup.


Probably will copy the setup for toe, but I did purchase a tool for caster/camber.

 

I use a Longacre cas/cam gauge and a toe gauge similiar to MFE's. I bought 4 12"sq floor tiles and put grease between 2 and 2 so they can be used as turn plates.
Mine's an 87 street/strip garage queen. I use about 1/2* + camber, 3* caster ( (I think), and 1/16 or so toe in. (Again, I think thats where it is set. I'd have to check my records, if you're interested.) I believe I read that a Fox will push it to 0 toe at speed. MFE is good at this stuff. I have cas/cam plates and it sits low, which required some hole-elongating to get the camber.
I probably have 3000 miles on my own alignments, no problem on the street and smooth up to 121 at the track. One of the best things I ever did. I can fiddle with the car all I want and not have to depend on a stranger doing a "set the toe and go" alignment.

 

I did my last alignment at home with a digital angle finder using the same basic methods you can find most people using. My measurements were very repeatable, but I later found that I was not as accurate as I thought when I later took it to a shop to get a sanity check. I was dead nuts accurate on one side, but the other side I was off by 0.5 degrees of camber according to the before/after printout. The toe and caster else was what I expected. I don't know how I was off by so much on the camber for that one side. My final numbers were -1.5* camber, 6.5* caster, and zero to very slight toe-in. Track car that gets around 2000 street miles/yr.

 

If yuo do a home alignment, you must level the surface that the car is on for the alignment. If you don't do this, the camber settings are virtually guaranteed to not be correct. With a small stack of 1/8" 12" x 12" pieces of metal or wood and a laser level, this is easy to do.

If any of the wheels on your car are bent, then that will affect the camber and toe setting on any device that measures off of the rim lip.

I like using the string technique for toe as that allows you to know how screwed up your rear suspension/axle is also.

 

Also check "toe" at the front and rear of the REAR wheels....most just assume that the rear wheels on a straight axle are parallel, and sometimes they're not. You need to know that before you set the front off the back. Vinyl tiles at Home Depot (1/8" x 12" x 12") are really useful for leveling the car as Jack alludes to above. Tip - liberally sprinkle salt between two of those tiles and the top tile will easily swivel when you set toe.

 

Vinyl tiles at Home Depot (1/8" x 12" x 12") are really useful for leveling the car as Jack alludes to above. Tip - liberally sprinkle salt between two of those tiles and the top tile will easily swivel when you set toe.

Good call. I bought 4 of the aforementioned tiles for use as turn plates, but buying a handful more to level out the car is a good idea. I have a pretty flat spot in my driveway picked out, but the tiles will help dial it in.

Just realized caster in non-adjustable with factory C/C plates. Correct?

In the past, when I installed my SN95 spindles, I did the trick with the parallel strings and measuring to set the toe. I mistakenly set it with about 1 degree of outward toe, and the car was very twitchy and with the overboosted fox rack, I hated driving the car. Only realized my mistake when researching this topic and discovered I should have set toe in, so the movement in bushings and such causes the vehicle to have 0 toe when driving.

So now, i'll set it with about 1/8" toe in, and try to set camber to - 0.5 - .75 degrees.

In the near future, I do want to install C/C plates, and lower the car...maybe even coilovers....hence the interest in performing my own alignments.


Car's still up on jackstands for now Had to dimple the header and haven't had a chance to reinstall.