Front end alinement

Just curious, when you guys aline the front end on your race cars, do you have the rear suspension preloaded or neutral?  

I have always had mine preloaded, but was told that is wrong.................  It don't drive down the track neutral.

I can leave off the trans brake and when the front end touches down it does not move left or right. And drive straight as an arrow.

If it drives good, straight, and no tire wear . I would not touch it. You get to moving it around could cause it to drive funny or loose et.

whitefield wrote:If it drives good, straight, and no tire wear . I would not touch it. You get to moving it around could cause it to drive funny or loose et.

^^ I concur ^^

The front don't have nothen to do with the rear.I wouldn't touch it.JMO

[list][*][/lis. I'm not going to, I just wondered how everybody else did it. Before or after you did the rear.

rear shouldnt effect the front enough to matter. Main thing is the caster is good enough to make it stable, and there is no bumpsteer.

The rear should be square in the chassis but that's it as far as alignment goes.front end dont know what the rear is doing and ideally the rear shouldn't be changing if set up right. Camber and toe will change on front the most when you jump on the brakes.

I have mine at 1/16th toe 0 camber and all the caster I could get. I think it was 7 or 8 degrees, returns to center very quick.

The shop told my customer to carry it back home and take all the pre load out of the rear before he would line it up. The car hooks great and I don't want to mess with it.

Tell the shop what Albert would say.....

richter69 wrote:Tell the shop what Albert would say.....

Well, I didn't use Alberts exact words , but it was close..................  

Go to another shop.  

Don talked to him and he went ahead and did it with the pre load in it.

-3 on camber is sometimes good, on a SB so if the front end has a little lift down the track, it works out around 0, when the wheel hang. BB may not need this, as they weigh more. Of course this way is set unloaded.

supervel45 wrote:-3 on camber is sometimes good, on a SB so if the front end has a little lift down the track, it works out around 0, when the wheel hang. BB may not need this, as they weigh more.

I try to keep my nose down after the tires set back down..............

I hear you Blake.

Only time the rear end is ever a factor when aligning the front end (regardless if it's rear preload, or the housing being square, or the housing being staggered) is when a 4 wheel alignment is done on a generic daily driver, and not on a drag car. A drag car front alignment only references off it's self and/or the car's nose-to-tail centerline, the rear housing is never factored into the picture. If an alignment shop can't deal with, or isn't smart enough, to correctly align a drag car just off the front end they have no business touching the car.  

If a race car having some small amount of rear preload gets this alignment shop all flustered & pulling their hair out, just imagine how much they would bitch & cry (and probably fuuk up the car) if they had to align a drag car that had the front struts staggered 1 or 2 inches.   

Ive never took a drag car to a shop, Ive always broke out the tape measure and strings and done it myself.

WHat he said... all the caster I could find. Put a jack under the nose to duplicate ride height, zero toe. ON the starting line, a little toe'd in.......... she don't weight the nose much all the way through the lights.