Got the 00 S re-aligned today to a mix between the UK specs and what another local member reccomended.

Came up with:

Front-
-1.3 Camber (UK calls for -1 but we added a bit more)
0 toe
5.5 driverside caster, 5.7 pass side caster

Rear-
-2.0 Camber
.25 toe in each side (.5 total)

My question is this: Why were we not able to get the caster all the way out to the reccomended 6.45? The passenger side would go as high as we wanted but the drivers side caster seemed to be limited by the amount of - camber dialed in. When the front camber was -1 degree on both sides we could get the driverside caster to about 5.9 but when it was increased to -1.3 it would only go as high as 5.5 before starting to go down again.

The mechanic suggested that a higher neg camber limits the adjustability on the caster. Any ideas on why the drivers side wouldn't go above 5.5? Car has not been wrecked so everything should be straight. The bushings also looked to be in good shape. Car has the Mingster X brace and Muz whiteline front sway bar if that makes a difference.

 

Try a different alignment tech for an answer.

 

I don't think a different tech would help. I sat there and watched him do it and I know he's a very competent mechanic. The eccentric bolt used to adjust the caster basically spins until you get the max caster available then once you get past the point it starts going back down towards the minimum.

We spun the bolt all the way around once and it went to 5.5 before going down to 3. something. I just wanted to know if everyone else actually was able to get 6.45 caster on each side with more than 1 degree of negative alignment or if the drivers side always has less max caster.

 

I don't think I've ever had over 5.5 degrees caster in my car. I'd have to go back and look at my alignment results to be sure, though. But I think that's pretty typical for our cars.

 

[QUOTE=Elistan,Feb 9 2006, 08:11 AM] I don't think I've ever had over 5.5 degrees caster in my car.

 

OEM spec for USDM is 6 degree's plus or minus .75 degree's.

 

I think UK spec is the same

Minimum is 5.15, normal is 6 and maximum (optimal) is 6.45. I guess 5.5 and 5.7 isn't too bad. We set a .2 split to account for the roads all crowning towards the right so it will actually steer straight on the street.

 

This sounds like a normal chassis characteristic.

 

In the rear, are you running 0.5" total toe or 0.5 deg. total toe? I hope degrees!

Also, the caster values look about right. I could get close to 6.0 deg., but never much more than that. And yes, increased camber reduces the ability to dial in more caster.

 

I'm pretty sure it's degrees, I don't know of any hunter alignment machines that measure in inches. The official honda UK alignment bulletin called for .20 on each side and .40 total. We just did .25 each side instead with .50 total (pretty sure it's degrees). I imagine if you somehow went to half an inch toe in it would be way off the chart on the alignment machine?