I got the trailing arms in yesterday from Eric, and they look great! What a time saver. This will complete the 5 lug conversion on YellowDog. Now, the alignment is the next question. I am looking for some suggestions for settings, front and rear. The car has 7.5" wheels, 205/50/15 Falkin Azenis, Bilstiens,21mm hollow front bars and 180# rear springs. It is primarily a Auto-x car with little street driving. Anyone care to make some suggestions?
Thanks

As much camber as you can get front and rear. As much caster as you can get up front. 3/16-1/8 toe out in the front and zero toe in the rear.

You are running radials so you can run as much camber as you can get. The toe out will make the car twitchy but it will turn in like crazy. I would run 1/16 if you anticipate lots of street driving.

If you have a 21+mm front sway bar you got way to much T-bar in the front. You will have a heck of a time balancing the car. If it is an autocross car I would step up to 225-250 rear springs and make the suspension almost solid.

The torsion bars are 21mm, not the sway bars. I think the sway bar is a 19mm? Does that seem right? I can't get to it to measure, the ends that come out into the wheel well are squared off to fit the droplink bar. The car was originally a 1.7L car and the front and rear bars appear to be stock. If not they are a really a clean instillation. Any way to tell if they are factory?
Thanks for the info.

post a pic, we'll let you know!

Hear are pics of the front and rear bars. I hope someone can tell if they are factory or not.
Thanks

Well, that didn't work. How do I post pictures?

I think that factory front bar is only 16mm. An adjustable front anti-sway bar would be better.

stock bar = 15

Pics of the front and rear bars:







The rear bar measures 16mm. Can't get a mic. on the front bar.

Can anyone tell if they are factory?
Thanks

Mike,

Your rear swaybar looks original, but your front bar does not. I would suggest you remove the end linkage & cover plate so you can measure the bar. I bet it is larger than a stock bar (which is 15mm). I also see that you can move the attachment location to the outermost hole on your link which will provide a "softer" setting (if desired). Below is a pic of the stock swaybar I removed from my 75.

with what Brett has presented as a basic starting point for your alignment.

However, part of your suspension alignment is car height. For AX you will want it lower than stock settings. Do this BEFORE you do any alignment settings, or you will be doing them twice.

Seems that many from this board that autocross have their height set around 4" to 4.75" at the "doughnuts". A-arm needs to be equal height, or higher at the chassis than at the wheel. Mine is parallel to the ground. This only leaves you about 2" of travel. I drive mine on the street but keep a sharp eye for potholes, etc.

Most drivers prefer slight oversteer at slow speeds for AX so the car will "rotate" nicely in tight turns. If your current setup produces "push", you can go to 250 springs as Brett suggests to achieve some oversteer.

Of course once you achieve a "basic" setting, you're really just ready to start the real process of endless tweaking to find what works for you and your driving style.

Ah, yes...."endless tweaking"...... sigh.

Mike,

I am running almost what Brett suggested... 1/16th toe out up front, 0 in the rear, max caster, -1.5 camber up front, -2.0 camber in the rear. And the ride height set at 4.75" to the donuts...The car is a little twitchy on the road, but controllable, and it does rotate nice.

I was running 21mm torsions, 22mm front sway, no rear, and 180lb rear springs...the car plowed like crazy...I switched back to the stock torsions and set the front bar to 3/4 hard...alot better...rides nicer and rotates alot better...good luck with the setup process, I still need to get some "real" tires before I touch anything else.


HTH...
Tony

The front bar in the pic is a H&H , dont know if they are still around, it will be bigger than stock.
jeff

That's pretty much my experience also.
Presently running 225 lb rear springs and it still pushes.
I'll get sets of 275 & 300 lb rear springs & get back to ya

I figure I need the 21 mm Tbars with the car set low. Running on the bump stops don't cut it. I see raised spindles in my immeadiate future. The ride height will remain the same, however.

I made the mistake of putting in 3/16ths toe in at the rear after a track session....and never did the track again. Going to 1/8th toe out.

Endless tweaking......duh.

Mike,

The H&H bar doesn't look like it has it's mounting bracket "welded" in. I would make it a point to weld this in unless it already is from the backside. Bolt in conversions can rip out.

Something is wrong with that rear bar as well (if it's stock).

That plastic cap at the top of your rear bar photo is where the factory mounting brackets are supposed to go. That mounting bolt going through the trunk looks like another rip waiting to happen.

Check with Engman for the proper factory mounts for both front and rear.

The front bar mount has a plate on the backside (I noticed that when I had the tank out about two years ago) and the rear bar mount has a plate in the trunk also. The rear bar is not currently used (drop link won't clear the Bilstien lower spring perch) and will be removed.

Got one driver's side trailing arm one today along with the brake and all the brake lines. Everything went great! It's really nice to work with 'new' parts. Thanks Eric for offering such a well put together set-up! We got the pass. side all out tonight and hope to finish up the job tomorrow and get it over to the alignment shop so we can run Sunday.

Film at 11:00.

Thanks again Eric for such a nice set of arms/5 lug converted hubs. To anyone thinking about doing a 5 lug conversion, give the 5-lug-in-a-box-trailing set from Eric a look, makes the whole conversion a LOT easier.

Thanks for the plug Mike

I have another set available right now if anyone wants to go 5-lug bolt-on.

Next: You're gonna hate me but... I'd pull that tank and weld Engman plates in there. Do the rears as well. Seriously, both those mounting setups are torn sheet metal waiting to happen.

Anywhooooooooooo... good luck with the remaining install. Can't wait to see the pics.

JP you running toe out on the rear? how much? what does that do to the handling?

Howard:

I thought you were off to the races.

Presently I have 3/16 toe in at the back, but I'm going to about 1/8 toe out. It'll prolly make the car twitchy as hell.

I had high speed stability problems last year with 0 toe at the rear, but there are no long straights at an AX and with slicks we are off the streets......cept for some "tuning passes"

JP, flying down tomorrow. Car is already there. I don't know about the toe out on the rear. It will twitch something fierce. I've got .5mm toe in each side on the rear and about .2 mm toe in on the front which is about the least I find I can use and still have the thing turn in well and have reasonable top end stability.

I've reached the point where my car is gonna be an AX only car......I fought it as long as I could, but

I'm going to set it up like an F-16....directionaly unstable....and hope my personal computer can guide it thru the cones.

Good luck on your race....again.i

Thanks JP. I'm now at the office (Sunday) doing a week's work in advance. Such a joy being self employed. I will have a report for you when I get back on 22 nd.

JP,

1/8th inch toe-out at the rear... Now that's a gutsy move!

Could be the "secret" setting we've all been chasing - I think it's an idea whose time has come.

I am MOST interested in how this "turns" out for you!

Please post the results!

Yeah, and it could be a clusterfuck.

Once again I'll be changing a bunch of "stuff" at once, ....as my co-driver says "I get to drive a different car every year"


I shoulda changed the toe bout halfway thru this last season.
....lazy, stuborn, stupid....pick one.

Going where no man has gone before...Toe-Out - the FINAL tweak.

Make it so number 4!

Well, it took 4 days but I finally found a shop here in town that had an alignment 'pit'. The car is too low to fit any of the 'drive on' alignment racks out there.

The guy that did the job (and actually let me in the pit to watch and help)got the rear toe to 0.00 and camber to 2.00 on left and right! Cool beans...

The front was able to be tweaked to 5.30 and 5.29 on the caster and 1.5 on camber. I decided to start with 1/16 toe out.

Ride height is 4" at the front donuts.

The car is an absolute kick in the ass to drive now! Turns in like mad yet still has good straight line on the freeway. Maybe a little twitchy, but nothing as bad as I was expecting.

First auto-x with the upgrade is this week-end.

Got both front seat set-up with a harness (pic attached) in prep for it's frist trial since the 5 lug conversion. Weather today is cool and wet. Hopefully tomorrow will dry-up and be nice.



A special thanks to Eric for the well turned-out five lug trailing arm kits and to all for the allignment tips.

Mike