Ok, after having my car out of commission since late October, I finally got it all back together and down to the alignment shop. I had just finished completely rebuilding the entire suspension:bushings, koni sports, t-bars, tt rods, Tarett sway, and most importantly Tarett monoball strut mounts.
Anyway, we hook it up on the machine and can only get 3.6 degrees caster and -0.5 degrees camber on the right side maxed out, while the left side is at 6.0 caster and -1.7 camber with a little adjustment left..WTF?????? The alignment guy says to just drive the car for a while and see if it settles out (I had only put about 30 easy miles on it since getting it back together), that may help a little, but those are some big numbers to be made up....What am I missing?

Could the spindle be bent?

Is the tub bent? (The car was wrecked at one point in its life-side hit to passenger door)

Did I put something back together upside down and backwards?

Will it indeed settle out over a little time to achieve the numbers I want?

Is there that much variation in the 914 chassis that this is a normal thing?

I am leaning toward the bent spindle theory, does anyone have some measurement info( I don't feel like disassembling everything to check one against the other)

Sorry for the long post, this was a bit of a downer after a long winter of wrenching, cleaning, painting and reassembling.....Thanks for your help!

I have a similar problem on my car. I was doing a home alignment but I could only get -1/2 degree camber on the driver side and +1/4 degree camber on the passenger side. My mechanic thinks that it's the struts that have problems. I'm going to get a set (sometime soon) and see if that helps.

I would love to hear other theories, allthough replacing the struts/spindles sounds like the best case.

Just a quick thought off the top of my head:

The numbers you are referring to are just for the FRONT of the car?
(The rear uses shims to set camber)

Do you guys have sway bars (anti-sway bars)? Try disconnecting them to see if they are effectively jacking one side of the car up. Sway bars (anti-sway bars) should have zero preload.

Have you had the car(s) corner balanced? If one of the front wheel/tires is holding up significantly more weight than the other, this could have an effect on your alignment settings. In liew of corner balancing, you could check ride heights from side to side. Make sure the car is resting level side to side. (Do not measure to body work {fenders, etc}, but rather measure to suspension components).

I have bent struts before, but that was after a significant impact. (One was hitting a missing portion of an aligator strip on a track {i.e. HOLE}, the other was a much larger hole after dropping 2-wheels off the track at a track-out at another race track). When I bent the struts, it was obvious that something major had changed, you could visually see a difference side to side and the tops of the struts had not moved.....

Good Luck

John-

The numbers for me are just for the front of the car, -0.8 was max camber out back..

I have not corner balanced the car, but the ride heights were set with the sway bar disconnected, then when it was reattached, I adjusted it to have no pre load (no binding). I am leaning toward a bent strut as everything looks the same from one side to the other at the top and bottom. There is no obvious bend in the strut housing, so I guess I need some measurement info to compare mine to.

This car had suffered a pretty healthy impact to that side at some point in its life, maybe the strut was bent then?

Take a look at the struts, especially the collar that connects the ball joint/wheel stub to the strut (don't know the name for the part there). Check to see if the gap between it an the strut looks even. If not, that could be the problem.

How's about a pic of the strut mount install....it is possible to put them in backwards (switch left to right). Do they look like this?

JP- Yes they do look like that, I studied 'em carefully before they went in.....Although....this is highly unlikely, but maybe Ira accidentally sent 2 lefts and I didn't notice???
Worth a look anyway......

JP, what was your max camber with those nifty monoballs? Was there any adjustment left? Looks like I may get around 1.8-1.9 out of the left side if I want it...Seems I've heard those v-racers like about 1.5...Gotta figure out what is going on..

I'm now at 1.75 neg camber & 6 deg caster in front,
-2 at rear (no shim on one side, one skinny one on the other).
I had to do some grinding to get that caster.
I raised the ride height a bit & lost some camber.

Which brings us to ride height.
From your discription, you have "maxed out" front & rear. To get the camber I wanted, I lowered the car
as much as I could.....prolly got .75 neg just by lowering...a good thing.

I am gonna need some coil-overs in the rear to get any lower, I have the perch located as low as it will go on the koni sport rears, but lowering may have to be my option to get that camber I need up front...0.75 is a lot to gain.
I would like to figure out why there is such a split...1.2 difference in camber and 2.4 difference in caster...Gotta be somethin' bent or backwards.

Sounds like a bent front conrtol arm,the end of the arm (where the balljoint is) was bent downward effectivley reducing the amount of camber on my car, of course I only found out after a complete suspension rebuild......

Hadn't even thought about the control arm........Great suggestions all....

Was it a group buy?

It is definitely not a case of incorrect strut mounts. Yes, Gint, group buy, haha..I wish I hadn't even questioned it on here, Ira was super helpful throughout it all. I had left him a message with a question I had about installation, and left for the weekend. When I returned, I found 4 messages from him trying to track me down to answer my question. Stand up guy for sure!!! Other notable vendors: Chris Foley (racerchris) answered any silly question I had and provided all the materials/help/expertise I needed, and Jason at Paragon stepped up with great advice and customer service...I should probably start another thread commending these guys....
Anyway, back on topic, Got a great suggestion at the bird board to loosen all the control arm bolts and try to pry/knock it out and forward...seems like a good suggestion to make sure I have all that is allowed there...But does anyone have any other ideas? Check for bent tub? How? Bent Strut? How? I need some camber.....

The Pleican site has a drawing with boby dimesions,this would be the starting point for checking how straight your tub is,unfortunatley I have never had the pleasure of meeting a 914 that wasnt wrecked before

Any other ideas? Suggestions??