This was an unacceptable result for our team, who is used to being on the front row. Once the rectangle around the car is created it is time to start taking measurements to determine toe-in or toe-out settings. 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To adjust toe, simply turn the inner tie rod clockwise or counter-clockwise to move the outer tie rod in or out from the vehicle. High Travel Springs In, Street Legal Mario Kart! © 2017 Power Automedia. Ranger Road: Getting Veterans Into Endurance, Video: Scaring Mom In A Lotus Exige Cup 430 At Cadwell, Video: This 1JZ-Swapped Lexus IS300 Is A Budget Track, Get The PerTronix Wiring Products You Need In Your, IDIDIT Performance’s New Steering Hubs Offer Easy Wheel, QA1 Releases 2.5-Inch I.D. While the most popular and common method by Ray Scruggs use strings, I decided to go stringless . DIY Wheel Alignment Kits; Wheels; Accessories; Mustang S550 Spare Wheel; Project 6GR; QuickTrick DIY Wheel Alignment; Filter By Price Range; $100 or below; $100 to $900; $900 to $1,700; $1,700 to $2,500; $2,500 to $3,300; $3,300 or above; Filter By Brand; Project 6GR We made the adjustments we needed and made it to grid just in time for the race. The front and rear of the car each have a set of string bars, which come in two pieces. Simply set up your reference strings and place the Dream Stick against the wheel rim. We made the arm shorter to get to our 3.2 degree negative camber goal. Here you can see the string bars placed into the rigging hanging off the front and rear of the car. We did it! We only had an hour between qualifying and the race. A range of wheel alignment tools for DIY and Professional use. Craig Watkins invented Smart Strings and Smart Camber back in 1993. Here you can see our car has 4 millimeters of toe-out in the front (two millimeters each side) and three millimeters of toe-out in the rear (one millimeter on the right side and two millimeters on the left side). Video will open in a new window. This has proven to be extremely beneficial to our team. QuickTrick Portable Wheel Alignment Kit 4th Gen (13-18" Wheels) 4.2 out of 5 stars 5. DIY Precise Alignment (Toe-in): I had just finished installing all new tie rod ends on my car and was looking up how to get the alignment at least relatively close. At our last Honda Challenge race I was qualifying and the car suddenly wouldn’t allow me to go full throttle through Riverside corner (a long high speed banked curve at Buttonwillow Raceway). Overall, I rate this kit as 5 star. Camber settings, in my opinion, are the most beneficial in terms of cornering speed and grip. Here is what the Smart Strings tools look like once they are quickly assembled. I didn't really see any write ups that I liked and none of them really seemed to be too precise so I decided to writ… We wanted it set at 3.2 degrees so we will have to make an adjustment. Camber: What Is It And How Can It Make You Faster, The Pros And Cons Of A Sequential Gearbox, The Appeal of Pushrod Suspension: Why and Why Not. This method is used by professional racing teams and weekend track warriors. This is more than we want so we will adjust the toe-in slightly. Build your own custom newsletter with the content you love from Turnology, directly to your inbox, absolutely FREE! The Smart Strings take a little practice in setting up on a car the first time. In this tech article we provide a DIY guide to wheel alignment to show you how to align your car's front-end and set toe, caster, camber, and bumpsteer at home as … Loosen the two jam nuts at the ends of the control arm and then use an end wrench where the arrow is pointing to make the arm longer or shorter to adjust camber. Vehicle DIY Toe Alignment Tool -Off-Road DIY tool set is CNC cut for accuracy and to help save you money-Fit over the hub to help with setting toe alignment.-Unlike many other kits this does fit a 8 on 6.5 hub, where other kits have to be re-cut or ground to fit over … In order to create the box around the car, Smart Strings has adjustable rigging that can adjust to almost any vehicle’s shape to hold two strings bars, one at each end of the car. Long story short, we will never have to rely on an alignment shop again. Before doing your own alignment on a track car, its a great idea to talk to a few people who have experience behind the wheel of similar cars with the same chassis, and get some recommendations for a starting point, with regards to Toe, Camber, etc. Especially when it comes to lowered trucks and suv’s. Very happy with my purchase! Poor wheel alignment wastes fuel, damages tyres & increases your CO2 emissions carbon emissions. We successfully developed an alignment tool package that ACCURATELY measures TOE, CAMBER, and CASTER and only costs $200. and a template for setting up for caster adjustments. 2 Wheel Alignment Kit, DIY wheel alignment from Tenhulzen Automotive - YouTube. Race cars are driven extremely aggressively. (Tire Bags, Durometers, Markers, etc), Radios and Student/Instructor Communication Systems, Track Night in America and Starting Line Participant Benefit Program, Track Night in America and Starting Line Participant Benefit Program (Starting Line), Longacre Part Number 79501: Standard Toe Plates w/Magnets & 2 Tapes, Quickcar Billet Caster Camber Gauge - Choose your Adapter, SmartStrings 4 Wheel Toe Alignment System by Smart Racing, Longacre Part Number 79505: Deluxe Toe Plates (Set). Dual scales read the distance from your string to both the front and back of the rim at the same time. The wheel's toe and camber settings are precisely adjusted in 1/32-inch to 1/64-inch increments, making it necessary for the home mechanic to have complete control over the tire position. All Rights Reserved. In addition to what comes in the box, we suggest few other items to help with your alignment: two fishing line reels, sidewalk chalk, a yard stick, a degree wheel, a small aluminum measuring tool (in millimeters), a flat plane, and wheel center caps. Video: How Does One Build Confidence In A Race Car? Once these pieces are threaded together they are of equal distance. Robby was also racing Indy cars at the time and Craig went to hang out with him at Laguna Seca for an Indy car race. Double Nickel Nine Motorsports uses Craig’s tools exclusively on their National Champion NASA  Honda Challenge cars. Conversely, racers understand there is a lot to be gained in alignment so they change their settings quite often. 3. Or take it to a shop if you’re really stumped. Efficient + Effective Alignment Tools for Virtually Any Vehicle, Anywhere. Straighten Your Steering Wheel. For instance, if your left front wheel is toe out by 1/4", and your right front wheel is toe in for 1/4" as well, the toe plate would give you a total of 0" toe, which is not very useful, and misleading. 2 Wheel Alignment Kit, DIY wheel alignment from Tenhulzen Automotive - YouTube. Simply hold it against the wheel and the digital display will tell you what your camber angle is set at. This Pro System works on 13" - 22.5" wheels up to 38" tire. Here you can see how we determined if we had positive or negative caster and how we calculated how much caster we had. It does not require an expert, but some mechanical ability and some time, Numbers and Letters: I need help selecting what material will work best, Numbers and Letters: I need help selecting what size will work best, Numbers and Letters: I want individually cut numbers and-or letters with no background, Numbers and Letters: I want numbers and-or letters on a background, Numbers and Letters: I want vinyl numbers and-or letters than are permanent. Video: This 1JZ-Swapped Lexus IS300 Is A Budget Track Beast. Fits almost any wheel and folds for compact storage. We use large white boards in our shop to track our alignment as we are going along. In addition to the tools you need to measure caster , camber , and toe angle , Summit Racing carries all the specialized wrenches, sockets, and other tools you need to make adjustments to your front end. For this reason when doing alignments there is a specific order of operations: The two separate assemblies hang off of the vehicle (one on the front and one on the rear) to create a perfect rectangle with strings. Tire Misc. The front and back track width on cars are generally not the same so the measurement between front and rear will differ. I also won the race all thanks to Craig Watkins and his tools. Kit Includes: Aluminum Toe-In Plates w/ Magnets Longacre® 52-78260 Caster / Camber Gauge w/ Magnetic Adapter Aluminum Toe-In Plates w/ Magnets Here's the quickest and simplest way to measure toe-in. I was radioing in to my spotter the car wasn’t handling right. All rights reserved. Steinjager Rod Ends, Cables, Threaded Tubes, Etc. Luckily we brought our Smart Racing Products tools. We use white boards on the shop walls to track our alignment progress. The goal then is to get the right front at the same number. 10% coupon applied at checkout Save 10% with coupon. In order to set the thrust angle correct and have the car track straight, both the front and rear of the car need to be set relevant to one another. What caster is was covered well in TURNology before. We'll send you raw engine tech articles, news, features, and videos every week from TURNology. Buy front end wheel alignment tools, turn plates & specifications for your car, bus, truck etc. What would be much easier for racers is to have a simple portable alignment system that provides repeatable results they can use in their own shop and at the race track. Camber Copyright © 2000-2019 Solo Performance Specialties, LLC. We were able to get 5.1 degrees of positive caster on the left front (maxed out). I will use toe plates to check a car quickly to see if it is off, but I will make final adjustments using Smart Strings every time. Offerings include a 2-Wheel System, Camber Gauges, Toe Plates, and a 4-Wheel Alignment System There was no time to put the car on a trailer and tow it to an alignment shop (not that we would find one open on a Sunday). QuickTrick Alignment offers portable wheel alignment tools and machines for manual use at home. A Longacre Aluminum Caster Camber Gauge, Dunlop Style Wheel Adapter (manufacturer may vary) and Longacre Aluminum Toe Plates allow you to accurately set your camber, caster and toe while in your garage and avoid the hassle of finding a shop to set your car to your specs. For Double Nickel Nine Motorsports not only do we complete our own alignments at the shop with Smart Racing Products tools we verify our settings pre- and post-session at the track. PMD Products 14-1/2" Steering Wheel Holder Stand Fix Tool for Front End Wheel Alignment. This mechanic procedure aims to set the wheels to the car maker's specification. You will need a way to level the car and a little patience. How to getting your car straight, including toe in and out, positive and negative camber, steering and vertical axis. The Smart Camber tool is very easy to use. There Craig saw Robby’s team using strings to align the Indy car before the race. Caster 215 points will be rewarded to you when you buy this item. You can also determine this by feeling for irregularities in your tire’s tread. When doing an alignment one setting usually affects another setting. To make camber adjustments on our Honda Challenge car we simply lengthen or shorten our Hardrace upper control arm. - The gauge mounts to the small gap between rim and tire, it's universal, but it does not mount very well. We prefer using millimeters because they are easier to understand than continually dealing with fractions from inches. One of the greatest advantages of Smart Strings and Smart Camber are their portability. Craig said, “It was so simple, it made sense.” Craig went home and designed Smart Strings. Before he was engineering race cars at Le Mans, Craig was a desert racer competing in Baja. Using Smart Camber and Smart Strings to get our car aligned is great for doing things at the track and in your own garage, but I was curious how close and accurate we were getting our alignments. Your friend will receive an email from you with a link to our site. These tools are very portable (pro tip: buy the carrying bag for the tools –sold separately) and you can make adjustments in the paddock. With positive caster the steering wheel tends to self-center while going down the track. Toe is the direction the tires are pointed from longitudinal center when the steering wheel is centered straight. Everything you need from to complete an at home alignment in one money saving kit. He is an engineer by trade and was formerly the chief engineer for Flying Lizard Motorsports. I chose the digital gauge with my purchase. Easy, Accurate, Inexpensive, Do-It-Yourself Vehicle Alignment By Rob Krider May 09, 2019 One of the easiest and cheapest modifications a racer can make to his or her vehicle to try to find more performance and speed is by changing alignment settings; simply adjusting camber , caster and toe can radically improve a car’s handling ability. One of the easiest and cheapest modifications a racer can make to his or her vehicle to try to find more performance and speed is by changing alignment settings; simply adjusting camber, caster and toe can radically improve a car’s handling ability. When we align our cars we either have the driver sitting in the driver’s seat or we place the driver’s weight in the seat using workout plates. - Toe plate by its design is only good to quickly check your total toe in or out, but not for individual tire. do i need an expert to use it? For example camber and caster can affect toe settings. Two end wrenches get the job done easily here. © 2020 Power Automedia. Video: Touring Car Ace Slides 1,000-HP Skyline GT-R Around Goodwood! These measurements are made from the edge of the rim at string height to the fishing line. The item you are trying to purchase is currently out of stock.Please enter your name, email, and phone number below. He’s sold over 20,000 units which are used worldwide by everyone from pro racing teams, to autocrossers and even aftermarket shops. The next setting to measure and adjust in our order of operations is caster. For our road racing cars we try to dial in as much positive caster as the vehicle will allow us to. Rob Krider will race absolutely anything. 1. During the race, after just small adjustments to the left rear wheel using our alignment tools, I broke the Honda Challenge 4 class track record at Buttonwillow with a lap time of 2:04.076. For a rear wheel drive car we like toe-out in the front and toe-in (tires turned in) in the rear. One of the advantages to using Smart Camber and Smart Strings is you can use them at the track. If caster is off between the left and right front sides, the car will start to wander under braking. Camber gauge also came with a slick suitcase! What we found after we had the car set up with the strings was that my left rear toe was off and my left rear camber was off. Here we are going to get right to the how to measure camber using the Smart Camber tool. Simply use two end wrenches (one on the tie rod, one the jam nut) and break the jam nut free. We like to keep things as accurate as possible so we weight the car as if the driver was sitting inside it. Here we are dialing in some more rear toe-in on our Z06 after some serious over-steer issues at an event. There he met fellow Baja racer Robby Gordon. This made sense based on the fact I couldn’t go flat through a right hand curve (putting a lot of load on the left rear tire). Autocrossers love Smart Strings and Smart Camber because they can make adjustments at the event after a long drive to an autocross race. Everything you need from to complete an at home alignment in one money saving kit. Laser level clamped to rear wheel, use the ruler to measure the front and rear edge of the front wheel to figure out the angle. Video will open in a new window. Our recommendation is to find a nice flat surface with good lighting to begin your alignment. The steering wheel can move during these adjustments. DIY alignment takes patience and practice to get right, but it ain’t rocket science, even if the wheel alignment shops would … Read more » Do it yourself alignment – at home for free – almost!! We promise not to use your email address for anything but exclusive updates from the Power Automedia Network. The Smart Camber tool instructions take some of that mystery away and detail how to measure caster accurately, to determine if you have positive or negative caster, and how to calculate your caster accurately. He is a multi-national champion racing driver and is also the author of the novel, Cadet Blues. Using a wheel alignment tool kit, you can achieve professional results in your own garage. If you see that the tread on any one tire appears lower on one side of the car, or lower on one side of a tire than the other side, you have an alignment issue. Using white boards on the wall of the shop is a very simple way to quickly track how your adjustments are changing the whole car. I ended up hand holding it against the rim when I need a read, the rest of the time I put the gauge away from the wheel. Then he made these tools available to everyone. He confirmed my suspicions based on my qualifying time of 2:04.364 which put me in P4, row two. I brought the car in and we immediately set up Smart Strings on the car. I ended up using old string method to get the front toe dialed in. To see how good Smart Racing Products alignment tools were we decided to align a car and then take it to a reputable alignment shop and compare the strings against the computer. Once our camber and caster are set it’s time to move on to toe settings. Here is a close up of our measurements for the left front wheel. To see if your work space is level use the Smart Camber tool to ensure your shop floor is level. Using his Watkins Smart Racing Products tools he aligned the Flying Lizard Porsches to be fastest enough to earn a pole position at Le Mans and a victory at Daytona. 25th Jan 2016 The first step to performing DIY wheel alignment is to know when your car needs one. Trackace DIY laser wheel alignment tracking gauge. The setting probably changed after bouncing off of the curbing at Buttonwillow. We also like the thinness of the fishing line for accurate measurements. The inner tie rod will have a spot where an end wrench can be used for this adjustment. Tenhulzen Automotive produces a series of wheel alignment tools that are ideal for the home hobbyists. The first time you attempt a DIY alignment, you'll likely end up spending a few hours working away at it because changes to a wheel's camber setting also results in … Camber and toe adjustments are pretty easy to measure and adjust, but caster has a bit more mystery to it. I actually ran into this exact situation when I used it, the car was pulling to the left. In this photo you can see we are 121 millimeters out. We did it! But sometimes (inconsistently) it would take very long to start up. how does the equipment work? Alignment Kits and Tools. My preferred method of setting up a quick alignment is a set of Toe plates. Perfect for DIY and Home Garage Economical and Easy to … Please complete the fields below to send your friend a link to this product. Not telling you anything you don’t already know, but alignment is very important! These calculations were done in accordance with the instructions on measuring caster which came with the Smart Camber tool. In our case, 11.75 inches high. Chassis and Suspension. We are going to go through step by step how to use the tools to set an accurate performance alignment. But front-end alignment, which usually requires fancy machines and/or real money to have it done in the shop, seemed do-able without all that— at least according to my own research on the topic. Video: Scaring Mom In A Lotus Exige Cup 430 At Cadwell Park! Why build this box with strings?” The answer is simple: Toe plates work great for setting toe at one end of the car, however, they don’t recognize what the other end of the car is doing. Even though the tool is called Smart Strings, we use “smart” fishing line. The goal of this post is to demonstrate that a DIY guy like many in this forum could perform 4-wheel alignment at your garage (home) using this simplified method. What a normal road car that is traveling down the freeway trying to get 30,000 miles out of a set of tires requires in alignment settings is very different from what a race car trying to get 100 miles out of a set of tires needs. Most of what you see here comes directly from Watkins Smart Racing Products when you order their Smart String and Smart Camber tools. 95. Do-it-yourself wheel alignment guide. The chalk lines on the floor are for setting caster (we will get to that in a moment). At an average shop's 4 wheel alignment cost of $89.95, you'll pay for this kit with less than 3 changes in your alignment! The trail measurement (rear of the wheel) is 86 millimeters. Strings connecting the two string bars at the front and rear of the car create a perfectly square parallelogram (rectangle) around the car. We lean the piece of aluminum against the wheel to accurately display if our steering angle is lined up with our 20 degree steering chalk line. Craig Watkins knows how to setup successful racing cars and he made adjustments at the track using his Watkins Smart Racing Products tools on the Flying Lizard Motorsports Porsches. Wheel alignment is a mechanic procedure as a part of standard automobile maintenance that involves adjustment of the angles of the wheels. Using our handy little aluminum millimeter ruler along with our center caps, we can determine how far from the center of the wheel our strings are. By holding the Smart Camber tool against the wheel, you can see our wheel is at 2.9 degrees negative camber. This has proven to be extremely advantageous competitively. Wheel Adapter:  Upgrade to a Longacre QuickSet Billet Aluminum Wheel Adapter for up to 17" wheel(+$30.00), or up to 22" (+$40.00). I’ve been asked before, “Why not just use toe plates? This is done using strings creating the parallelogram for the entire car. Toe. Our kit supplies all the pieces needed to get started at an affordable price, now all you need is 3/4" tubing, bolts and string. We use chalk lines on the shop floor to measure the steering angle. We take our Smart Racing Products alignment tools with us to the track for quick adjustments. At those different steering angles we re-measure our camber to calculate caster. The kit is made from durable PETG and comes in light green. Get it as soon as Thu, Jan 21. It is sensitive and accurate. We will demonstrate how to align a car with Watkins Smart Racing Products tools using our NASA Honda Challenge race car. The string alignment method is one of the easiest and cheapest ways of making adjustments to your wheel alignments toe. What is handy about this setup is you can roll the car back and forth to settle the suspension with the Smart Strings rig on the car. But after a while they get easier and easier to use. It is important to be able to verify a car’s alignment before and after a session to ensure it is set at optimal positions for peak performance. This is how to make wheel alignment at home by using just simple tools. When it falls, it could damage the internals of the gauge. We will contact you as soon as this product is available. Trackace Is A … Center your wheel, remeasure your alignment, and go from there. here’s a unit in use in by a race team in Great Britain. Out of necessity he built Smart Strings and Smart Camber so he could align his own car. This way front and rear adjustments are done simultaneously on the same longitudinal plane. Things could be improved: Whether you’re at home, the shop, or at the race track, using SmartStrings along with the SmartCamber Gauge , you can perform a full four-wheel alignment precisely and quickly. It would fall down after staying on for a few seconds, at most minutes. The Dream Stick by ART is an innovative tool used to measure individual toe at each wheel when using parallel strings. - Gauge would turn off after a few minutes to save power which is fine. This allows us to do two things with Smart Strings: 1. find the height of the center of the wheel (11.75 inches) and 2. to help center the string box around the car. But towing a race car to an alignment shop during business hours and convincing the technicians there to set the car at unorthodox racetrack alignment settings is often a challenge. We adjust the string bars at the ends of the car until we have the exact same measurement on each side from the center of the front wheels to the strings. This is done using a small ruler. Here is how to measure it using the Smart Camber tool. Craig Watkins is not your typical weekend racer. Perfect for DIY'ers or shops who don't need to perform 4-wheel alignments (where rear measurements are parallel to the vehicle's centerline). To ensure we had our car at exactly 20 degrees worth of steering angle we use a small piece of aluminum as a plane. The easiest place to align a car is a level space with a smooth floor and lots of lighting. But if you’re like us and enjoy a DIY approach and want to be able to fine-tune the alignment at the race track so that you can make the alignment adjustments the tire temperature data you’re collecting using that probe-type tire pyrometer we urged you to buy in our latest Just The Tip video, then you’ll need to invest in a few simple tools including a camber gauge, toe plates, a string box setup … QuickTrick Pro Series portable wheel alignment system for the home garage and DIY. To keep braking nice and straight we work hard to get our caster equal between both sides, even if it means dialing in a little less positive caster, so the two sides are the same. 4.7 out of 5 stars 4. We offer several of Longacre's popular wheel alignment tooks to upgrade your kit to fit your exact needs. I am guess it needs to re-calibrate itself from time to time? Craig Watkins, working on his own Porsche race car, thought the same thing. $299.95 $ 299. Street Legal Mario Kart! Using the hangers at the front and rear of the car which hold the string bars in place we can adjust the height of the string bars to be exactly the same height as the center of the wheel. Here you can see we nailed it. There have been some really informative articles here at TURNology about what camber is. This settles the car’s suspension to the actual weight when being driven for more accurate alignment. Both camber gauge and toe plates were made in high quality. All rights reserved. But again, this has nothing to do with the quality of the toe plate, just how it's NOT designed to do. Alignment Kits and Tools Home. This front end alignment kit gives you the complete tools to keep things straight! We can either do that by having a driver sit in the seat (a very boring job) or add weight to the seat to replicate the driver. We will safeguard your e-mail and only send content you request. The lead measurement (front of the wheel) is 83 millimeters. For accurate measurements for caster we want to ensure we are turning the front wheels exactly 20 degrees in each direction. We successfully developed an alignment tool package that ACCURATELY measures TOE, CAMBER, and CASTER and only costs $200. These measurements will indicate if you have neutral toe, toe-in or toe-out.

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