Tips for measuring and adjusting ride height, camber & toe on my SRA

[rbuckingham]

Hi all,

I have a 2012 SRA and about 1800 track miles on it so far. There's definitely been some change in the way it handles recently, I'm a total noob at all things mechanical (I can bleed the brakes and change oil etc but thats it) so I'd like to take a look myself at the car setup and maybe experiment with it a little to see what differences I can feel.

The SRA "manual" (which is 3 pages) says it is supposed to be set-up as follows:

Ride Height: Front 115mm, Rear 110mm
Toe: Front 1mm In, Rear 2mm In.
Camber: Front -2.0 degs, Rear -1.5 degs

I decided to go and buy a camber/caster gauge and toe plates, they were cheap enough so why not right? Problem is I don't know how to use them once they arrive so my questions are annoyingly basic and for that I apologize in advance

Why/how is Toe measured in mm? High school geometry was a long time ago but 1mm makes no sense to me without it also referencing more data points. Is there a 'standard' toe plate length that this is assuming I'm going to use here?

Any tips for how best/easiest to approach measuring & adjusting camber & toe on the Atom? (Should the car be jacked up always, sometimes, never? What's your preferred procedure for doing this?)

Also what affects what? If I adjust camber then should I always reverify toe again and vice-versa? If I adjust ride height do I risk screwing up my corner balancing (I don't have scales.)

Pointers to internet references you've found useful/reliable also appreciated, there's a lot of info out there I know, maybe too much.

Richard

[smokin]

Hi Richard,

I've just had my car corner balanced and the geometry set at a local garage that does some race support so whilst I've not done these things myself I'll give you the info I picked up during the procedures.

The guys had to go to the internet to convert degrees, minutes to mm as I had the former and their equip used the latter. Check this out for conversions http://www.trackace.co.uk/Manual/Conversion%20Chart.pdf

Do toe first and then camber then recheck toe. The camber adjustment can effect toe but didn't in my case.

Always check settings with car OFF the jacks and bounce the suspension before checking to remove any sticktion

I set the ride height myself using some blocks of wood some time ago. I have also had the suspension fully dismantled and rebuilt so had no idea where the corner balance was at. We put it on the scales and it was perfect. I suspect if you get the ride height right then the car is naturally balanced (or I was just lucky). But yes, setting ride height will effect corner balance.

The guys charged me £20 for the corner balance for the time taken to get the equip ready. They charged me standard alignment rate plus 2 hrs labor as it's a slow process especially at the rear. My advice, get it done by the pro's the first time and watch and learn.

Hope this helps

p.s. although I didn't DIY here's some links I found during research

http://www.atomclub.com/forum/index.php/topic,14103.msg252396.html#msg252396
http://www.elantragtclub.com/id554.html
http://robrobinette.com/corner_weight.htm

p.p.s. your signature would now appear out-of-date