Front end question

[BracketNova]

I'm wondering what I should do about my front end. Maybe it's just the way it has to be and I should leave it alone. My car is to the point where it is pulling the front wheels an inch for a split second and carrying the nose of the car rather high the rest of the way down the track. I can see in sde shots of the car going down track the nose is up probably 8 inches or so. Anyhow, with stock A arms this is doing fun things with the alignment and I'm scrubbing off the outsides of my tires. Should I use limiting straps to stop how far the a arms are allowed down? Will this cause the tires to unload? Never messed with straps before...don't want to waste my effort if they are useless.

TIA
Greg

[DOTracer]

Unless the car is wheel standing very high or very long, DO NOT limit the front end travel. You will regret it as it will no longer hook consistently.

[BracketNova]

What to do then...I checked with an alignment shop and they were totally against putting my car on the rack and jacking up the front of the car a few inches then setting the alignment. But looking around the net the 1001 tips book says to do just what I was proposing.

[DOTracer]

I'd venture to guess it was not an alignment shop familiar with drag race alignments?

I gather your talking about the front suspension being extended while going down track? Perfectly normal as it's a function of how the front and rear suspensions work for the most part.

[John_Heard]

Find a different alignment shop, take it to a chassis shop, or learn how to do it yourself at home.

[BracketNova]

I am not adverse to doing it at home...if some one would do a bit of a write up for me. I am familiar with all the terminology etc...just unsure how to get things accurate. The specs I found on the net say to set toe and camber to zero at race altitude and caster 3 to 6 degrees. Are these settings generally acceptable?

[bert]

That sounds good, I set mine up at +2" from static ride height throw 180 LBS weight in the seat, 1/32 toe total, 0 camber, 6 degrees caster.

[BracketNova]

Ok...but how is all that measured?

[BracketNova]

I think I've found a good way to do the toe and I can use a level it looks like for the camber. But, what about the caster?

[John_Heard]

You'll have to buy a gauge to do the caster.

On the toe, #1 thing you don't want it to do is go from negative to positive toe in as the front end moves through it's arc - and don't forget to include compression when the front end sets down from a wheelstand, or when you're on the brakes hard.

Toe needs to stay negative the whole time to avoid instability. Ideally, it would be set to provide the least amount of drag where it runs going down track. But you'll find that stock Nova suspension isn't all that great with bump steer (toe in change) through travel so you'll have to settle on a compromise amount of toe in to cover the different swings as it moves through the suspension travel.

I screwed around with string lines, tape measures etc setting toe & bump steer and hate them all. I never could get it to repeat the measurement to my satisfaction (especially when trying to do it by myself). I finally bought a laser setup to measure toe. It was expensive but the sucker repeats every time, making me far more confident in what I'm doing. If you can do it with a string line, or whatever method and get it to repeat your measurements several times after moving the front end around, good job!

[ytnova]

Also, set the toe LAST. Caster and camber angles both effect the toe of the vehicle, but toe does not effect the caster or camber. I would put as much caster as possible in it, it will drive much better at speed, but it will be a little lazy at slow speed. Like john said, you kind of have to find a sweet spot or split the difference for the bump steer, if you make it perfect while fully extended, it gets spooky when you get on the brakes and vice-versa. Most alignment shops will not jack up car and then align it because most of the newer techs can't align a car unless a machine is telling them how to do it and most do not fully grasp what angles have what effect on a vehicle. Personally, I would do it myself or find a old school alignment shop, a heavy truck shop, or even a circle track racer. They usually have the portable caster-camber gauges, a toe bar, and some pivot plates to put the front tires on. Most of the stuff is pretty resonably priced from most of the circle track mail order companies.

[BracketNova]

You'll have to buy a gauge to do the caster.

Ok...I was wondering, didn't know if there was a trick or something.


I'll play around with it this weekend. The front tires have a season on them and have almost scrubbed the tread off the outsides of the tires...more prominently on the driver's side.

Thanks guys for your help!

[BracketNova]

Isn't there a handy tool you can get to move the turnbuckles for the tie rods? Mine weren't cooperating today. Toe was 1/2", if I'm not mistaken that's pretty excessive isn't it?

[Dave Morgan]

I have a couple of thoughts for you. First, the oval racers have a caster/camber gauge that is very tidy and sells for about $40.
You don't need a set of turntables, which can be very expensive ($250 +). Instead, use a couple of large garbage bags and place them under the front tires so that you can make your caster sweep (turning the steering wheel from left-to-right and right-to-left.)
I've attached a jpeg of the tool you'll be looking for to adjust toe.
I hope this helps,
Dave

[Speedster]

How we did it on stock cars was to set caster and camber and toe was we bought a good magnetic gauge (ours was from longacre)
we set the air pressure then set the toe (to get it close) then we start the car if power steering and turned the wheel to the right 20 deg then set the bubble to zero and then turn the wheel back the other dirrection 20 degpast the straight position and read what the gauge says pos/neg and the number and that is your caster.
Camber is easy just have the wheel straight level the gauge and read the bubble pos/neg and the number is what you have.
After you have made the changes to your caster and camber and have the number want go back and reset your toe.
I have done it so many times that it is basically as easy as checking timing.
on your nova if it's rear steer or front steer will determin how you set toe.
We made a toe bar in the beginning and it was simple you use a tape measure to find toe in or toe out.
Later we bought toe plates wich really made life easy. you put one plate on each side and with a helper you run measure tapes on the front and rear of the plate and if both numbers come out equal you have zero toe. If the front has a larger number then the back of plate you have toe out and if the back number is bigger then the front you have toe in.
I hope this helps?