I am interested in getting some recommends for shops that do reliable alignment work for my s2k. I have done some 20-25 track events in my car now and would like to have the alignment setting tweaked a little on the camber settings and a good once over alignment tune up at the same time.

Thanks in advance.

 

Alan,

Eddie at AR Auto Service/Adrenaline Racing in Lake Oswego can now do alignment and corner balance...I would recommend them. They have great/friendly staff with ton of track experience. Here is their number 503-697-3311

Anyway, how was the Alfa day? The weather was perfect for the track event!

 

Thanks - I will check them out.

Today was a very nice day for a track day, but I was not very impressed with how the event was run. That was my first experience with an Alfa Club track day and I will think long and hard before I participate in another one.....

 

[QUOTE=AlanL,Oct 22 2006, 05:07 PM] Thanks - I will check them out.

Today was a very nice day for a track day, but I was not very impressed with how the event was run.

 

Take your car to Eddie, Alan. He's got the tools, and he actually knows something about track-focused alignments, unlike virtually every other shop I've been to in Portland (and I've been to a few actually, despite not living here but for 3+ years).

CB

 

Another guy that's track savvy is Travis at the Line-Up Shop on Sandy. He used to do some of the Audi folks including the yummy Leslie... which is where I got my recommendation to use him. He's done about 7-8 allignments for me all of which have been right on the money. Great guy, works "old school" and is a perfectionist.

834 SE Sandy Blvd
Portland, OR 97214
(503) 234-9797

Link...

 

I ended up taking my car to Matt's Alignment and Brake here in Vancouver and from what I can feel so far, they did a pretty nice job.

I had them add -0.5 degrees of camber to the factory spec in both the front and the back and also correct some issues they found in the process. I left front and rear toe at factory specs. It feels quite different in turns now and hooks up much better than before. They did find that one of the fronts (right side) was well out of spec for the camber (in the wrong direction) and well as the toe in the left rear being outside of spec.

Guess I will schedule this task up a little more frequently now.

Can' wait for tomrrow to try this out at the track.

 

Setting an alignment really isn't very hard, so any shop can probably do a reasonable job if they take the time to pay attention to what they're doing. Besides, remove the sensors from the wheels, reattach them, and you'll get completely different numbers.

I took my Elise to the Alignment Shop but I wasn't entirely confident that the Old School use of an alignment roller (as opposed to the use of sensors) was precise enough to adjust toe.

Just bring a pyrometer to the track next time you're there, Alan, as that's really the only good way of knowing if you've dialed in the right camber settings.

CB

 

And tire pressure as well. You missed out on an amusing dialog between Will, Pong, and myself about desired tire pressures given our own experience with various symptoms of traction (or lack thereof) with a given measured tire pressure and the solution with either higher or lower pressures.

We ended up agreeing that we really needed some honest temp info to resolve which way to go and why we might want to do that....

 

Glad to hear you say this. Most discussions of optimal tire pressures make me laugh. The Novices won't really notice the differences. The Intermediates don't have the skills to take advantage of the differences. Even a lot of the Advanced Drivers don't know enough to drive around the differences before they start chasing optimcal pressures.

And virtually all of the discussions center on seat-of-the-pants (i.e., not empirically based) reactions about getting optimal pressures to maximize traction at both ends of the car, regardless of whether that improves or degrades overall balance. In short, folks fuss over this more than it's worth and they don't even fuss with the right understanding of the issues or the right tools to get good answers anyhow....

CB