Alignment question, Amount of toe after Turbo tie rod installation Options

[Bartlett 914]

I installed the turbo tie rods today. I made up a temporary string setup and here is what I measured. My measurements were made at the rim not the tire.
Drivers front. .062 toe in
Passenger front .070 toe in

Drivers rear .033 toe out
Passenger rear .062 toe in

I made no adjustments on the rear. I intend to make a better string setup. I will tackle the rear then. I am just unsure about where I should be measuring. If I am to have 1/8 total toe in the front and this is to be measured at the outer diameter of the tire, then I have too much toe. It seems there are so many different measurement methods, I get confused. Measure at the rim. measure outer diameter of the tire and of course degrees. I have been having problems with my car eating tires. The fronts would scallop. I had is aligned at a tire shop last year and it was better but not fixed as I am trashing some tires after 10K. These are on the rear now and good tires are on the front.

[Dave_Darling]

I personally would measure to the rim, but others use the tire. I think it matters more how consistent you are rather than exactly which you choose. Since tires can bulge and will be different for different brands and such, I would use the rims to measure.

That's another reason why most people talking about toe measurements are a bit vague, there are a number of ways to measure.

Make sure your strings are parallel to the chassis of the car. You get to define exactly what that means; more precise is harder but arguably better. Again, consistency is important.

The "Smart Strings" setup from the Smart Camber folks are some brackets you hang from the car itself and wrap strings around. You can fabricate something like that which hooks onto the trunks. Once you are satisfied that the string attachment points are parallel to the chassis, you have something that is very repeatable. Until something tweaks your car, at least.

--DD

[Bartlett 914]

I personally would measure to the rim, but others use the tire. I think it matters more how consistent you are rather than exactly which you choose. Since tires can bulge and will be different for different brands and such, I would use the rims to measure.

That's another reason why most people talking about toe measurements are a bit vague, there are a number of ways to measure.

Make sure your strings are parallel to the chassis of the car. You get to define exactly what that means; more precise is harder but arguably better. Again, consistency is important.

The "Smart Strings" setup from the Smart Camber folks are some brackets you hang from the car itself and wrap strings around. You can fabricate something like that which hooks onto the trunks. Once you are satisfied that the string attachment points are parallel to the chassis, you have something that is very repeatable. Until something tweaks your car, at least.

--DD

I was going to make something similar but there isn't enough time. I used strings tied to buckets of sand. I found attachment points on the buckets that were wheel center height. I did use the method from Smart Strings and it worked really nice. Better than I expected. I moved the car once and reset it pretty quickly. I plan on driving to NY tomorrow and I was afraid of ruining a set of tires. I carry a lot of weight on these trips. I plan on measuring my ride height and my toe after I am loaded. My main question is who much toe when measuring at the rim? I don't want to measure at the tire because there is too much variability.

[Bartlett 914]

Well here is the answer to my own question.

Alignment is measured in degrees so maybe it is best to keep it there. The manual calls for 20' Toe in. The amount is up to you. Some want zero toe and maybe racing wants some toe out. there are 60 minutes in a degree so 20 minutes is .333 degrees. You take the sin of .333 degrees and multiply this by the distance you want to measure.

My rim is 16".

20' = .333 degrees
sin .333 degrees = .058
16" X .058 = .093"

In my case the front of the rim would measure .093 more than the rear of the rim.

If you were to use the outer tire diameter or the edge of some panel (as in the Pelican write up) you would enter the different width.

For different angles (minutes) remember that 1 minute is .01666 degrees. Just multiply this my the number of minutes desired and find the sin for that angle and multiply that with your measuring width.

[jcd914]

I always measure at the rim for consistancy.
For street I typically would set the front to 1/8" total toe in (1/16" per side)

Scalloped wear is not caused by Toe, excessive toe creates a feathered edge to the tread.
Bad shocks is the most likely cause but could be ball joints, bushings, wheel bearings, etc... (anything that holds the wheels to the car).

Jim