so I got re-cornerweighted with Darin over at west end alignment in gardena, CA since I did a lot of weight reduction mainly in the front and was happy to see that I finally got the car to 60/40 weight distribution and 50/50 from side to side which shocked even the alignment guy (Darin) since my #'s when I first got the car were terrible, I also managed to shed 100lbs off the car, bringing me to 3265lbs with me in the car (I am about 175/180lbs) so less than 3100lbs without...which is not bad for a fully loaded 5th gen...I plan to shed another 100 pounds before I am done bringing me to 3K lbs without me in the car...should be a lot more difficult than my first hundred, but I will manage nonetheless...

I also had my front toe increased to 1/8" toe out for better turn-in and 2.3 degrees neg camber for less understeer...I noticed an immediate improvement going from 1.75 deg and 1/16" toe out before this...we also made sure the LCA's were parallel to the ground as macpherson strut type suspension as we all know gain positive camber while cornering/compression if lowered too much due to the LCA's being angled...before this they were off...can't wait to try these new settings out on the autoX/road coarse...! finally got my 2 piece 6th gen slotted rotors from matt blehm too which should be nice to shed some unsprung weight from the front suspension compared to the extremely heavy 1 piece 6th gen rotors!

 

I hate you....I want those rotors...

That's an awful lot of camber to be running on the street though....you're going to kill your street tires..

 

u got there address? i'm gonna make a trip down there once i get my truck running. the truck will then be my daily driver so i don't eat up my MX's. what did you do for weight reduction?

 

How much did you pay for the whole thing? (corner-balancing & aligmant)

Also, what exactly did you do to make it 50/50 from side to side?

 

it was $170 for the front alignment and cornerweighting...Darin is one of the most honest guys you will ever meet...! he doesn't try to rip you off like other alignment shops by telling you that you need a rear alignment as well since it is non adjustable...his pricing for alignments is very competitive and reasonable and he will give you suggestions and input as well, it's the cornerweighting that is expensive. Lastly, he will spend about 2-3 hours to do everything and won't stop until he can get your car as balanced as possible! You should feel very confident with his work, as when you go there a lot of times he is finishing up a spec miata national champ cars, formula lolas, and fully dedicated road race lotus exiges...

he is also one of the craziest excessive compulsive perfectionists you will ever have work on your car, but when you want the best performance it's worth it to have someone as tenacious as him work on your ride...!

he also charges about $150 to have your rear beam bent to zero out the toe (one of the few guys in the country that has a "jig" that can do this safely without breaking things on our cars!) I had that done a while back...but I am pretty sure that is the price, but fair warning, that is for experienced drivers, not noviced as the rear end will finally be a little lively!

call him this morning and see if you can get an appointment, he books up really quick! if you call now, you won't get an appointment for 1-2 weeks...(310) 808-9233 it's in gardena, ca--search for west end alignment if you want the address...it's on vermont ave.

irish, yeah after leaving the shop I kinda regretted putting in so much camber...I might have him dial it back down to 2.0 instead of 2.3...but considering that I only put 7-8K miles a year on my car, and I X rotate my tires religiously, it shouldn't be much of a problem...atleast I hope..!

as for weight reduction, I got a CF hood, battery relocation in the trunk as close to the back seat as possible but diagonally aligned from me to offset my weight, which helped in the side to side balance as well, cattman headers/y pipe save a lot of weight in the front, 2 pc. rotors, cattman catback/straight pipe, and progress/cattman gen 3 coilovers all save weight, lastly, stillen flywheel, and UR SS pulley all add up, I also managed to take some misc things out like the huge metal plate with 20 bolts in it behind the back seat, all misc things in the engine bay out (all air boxes after I replaced with stillen popcharger), and some other things like plates and bolts and bars behind the dash/steering wheel...but none of it is visible...which is the way I like it, full interior is still intact and looks stock!

 

jack, are you going to the mcc dyno day that I put 2gether, look under the calendar or the west coast forums...

 

yeah i'll be there. i'm debating on whether to run my injen or my Bomz short ram w/ a JWT pop charger. i almost wanna dyno twice just to see if there's a difference.

 

no need...they will be very close...CAI would have more low end, and the short ram popcharger would have more mid/top end...

 

for that reason i'm thinking about running the short ram set up. i have yet to install it so no but dyno comparisons as of yet.

when we dyno we're running in 4th gear right? i have a gxe so i'll have to do the speed limiter removal mod to get a full run in 4th.

 

yeah...4th gear...

 

Michael, are you using the Summit batter relocation kit or something else. I was strongly considering relocating the battery to the back recently (especially with the Place Racing intake JUST squeezing by the tray), but wasn't sure what the best frame attachment points were back there, and what a good setup would be. The battery, of course, is best relocated as close to the rear axle as possible...dont' want to put it in the far rear of the trunk.

Also worries about fitting my golf clubs in the trunk with a battery box there.

Could you perhaps post some pics of your setup when you have a chance - would like to see how you did it, where you attached it, etc....

thx,
josh

 

I lost very little space back there after relocating my battery....I can certainly feel the 40 lbs shifted from the front left the rear right...but keep it as far to the right and over the beam of the rear suspension (towards the back seat as possible) as you already know I am sure...I can still fit an amazing amount of stuff back there as we already have rather large trunks to start...as far as attachments, you just drill through the carpeting directly through the trunk body and put bolts through there....nothing stronger! I need to put one more in as I only put 3 bolts in...but they are large, heavy duty ones...I used an optima red top so I didn't need a box, just a tray, as the optima's are sealed, so no chance of fumes from the battery or spilling...when drilling through the body, make sure you have it as close to the trunk walling as possible so you don't loose a lot of useable trunk space and to avoid drilling through the wood/fiberglass spare tire cover that goes under the removeable carpet...as that way you will still be able to easily remove that and the spare tire at a race/autoX...

I will take pics this weekend when I get a chance..the whole job just takes a lot of patience but is worth it in the end/in my opinion...!

 

sounds good...would like to see the pics. Is the battery mounted level, or is it "leaning'...I looked at that area and didn't look very flat...

 

about 2 inches away from the side wall...it gets dramatically more flat...it will be a almost unnoticeable angle...

 

Mike, I'm curious what Darin thought about your coilovers and adjustments. Like how many turns of preload he needed to get everything level. You're running the stock Progress springs right? The 450/350 rates or so?

 

yeah, I am running the stock spring rates, but I am thinking of going up soon, but for now, the max is my only car and I drive it everyday...

the spring collars are pretty high, maybe two or three inches of threading left above the collar, and a huge amount left below...he had to leave it sorta high so he could get the LCA's to be parallel to the ground....the threads on the progress CO's are of a very fine pitch in comparison to most other CO's as you know since your running them as well, which is nice since it allows very fine adjustment of ride height, but it just takes more turns/longer to adjust.

if we could figure out a way to relocate the LCA's even lower, then I could effectively lower the car even more--so I can lower my roll center/center of gravity as well which would be nice while still defeating the downside of macpherson strut type setup which handles best with the LCA's parallel, but any lower and handling suffers from increased positive camber under compression...

Darin didn't say much about the CO's, he liked how they have shortened strut bodies to maintain travel, which according to him is what plagues so many other CO's out there which handle significantly worse...

 

well bad news folks...my pda (what I use to take pics...can't afford a digital camera right now) the camera function doesn't work...so no pics until I get something else...