Rear Alignment has excessive negative camber - HELP?
 

I've got a v8 kit from Martin at Monster Miata and the kit just has the user swap the front springs to the rear. It's that simple as the rest of the suspension essentially floats. Per the instructions, I've cut one complete coil from the spring and the car is perfect (no squat or raised butt).
That is the only change to the suspension (at this point) that I've made.
I've got the toe correct and the positive turned all the way up but i'm still seeing excessive negative camber. I've tried fussing with it but i'm stumped. Bushings look decent.

Any thoughts. The process seems simple but I might be missing something very obvious. :bang:

Thanks for the feedback team.

Mine sat way too low with the cut springs. With that being said, you must set the rear camber first before setting the rear toe. After setting the camber, it will change during toe adjustment. Unless you have been doing alignments for 30 years, like myself, you will find this to be VERY frustrating. Take your time & see where you can get it. Good luck.

I set mine at 0* camber & 0 toe.

I havn't gotten that far in my build yet. But, looking at the stock set up, adjustment there seems to be somewhat limited. For an easy and relatively inexpensive fix, you could consider offset bushings. https://www.flyinmiata.com/support/i...c_bushings.pdf

And, have you seen FM's new rear control arms? Although more expensive, certainly the trick answer. Flyin' Miata : Chassis : Control arms : Paco Motorsports adjustable rear upper control arms I'v already ordered a set of these arms.

The secrete is to start with the adjustment cams set at the most positive setting, adjusting the 2 cams on each side until the desired camber is reached. It should only take very little fine tuning to set the toe.

Thank you! Thank you! :bowrofl:
I greatly appreciate the feedback. I am especially indebted to tbone heller for your input.

I'll let you know the outcome.
As a side, I may not have made my plans clear but I just want to get the car running and driveable (lightly). This spring will involve a purchase of proper wheels and coil overs likely from FM. (Thanks .Bob).

R,
Chris

Glad I could help.

I was wondering how much is excessive and what's causing it. Is it because the springs are so soft with the coil cut out or something?

Still having trouble
 

This is a really good question. I've wrestled with the rear alignment for almost 2 weeks. I finally took it to alignment shop. They couldn't get it right...even after the tbone hellers guidance. I got mad and had my car towed to another alignment shop and they could not get it right either. I've spent quite a bit on this one issue shuttling it around and paying for services. I'm starting to get pretty annoyed. My only solace is that once this is resolved i'll have a car I drive around.

In summary, per the Monster Miata Kit from Martin you take the new springs as part of the kit and put them in the front to support the much heavier front end. You take the front springs out and cut one complete coil from them and put them in the back. That is it. The car measures almost 13 inches from the center of the wheel to the fender lip (which is normal by my research web & phone calls). I'm using the OEM coil overs that came on my 1995 R-package miata (yellow Bilstein with 62K on them). They still have quite a bit of life in them.

Flyin' Miata makes/sells rear upper control arms that are adjustable for 240 a pair. I have that amount easy in this alignment issue but i'm not quite ready to throw in the towel and buy the upper control arms from FM.

Does anyone have any other possible suggestions???? Is there anything I need to check with regards to the cap, perch, bushings etc that I might have overlooked.

Thanks again in advance for your input.


I'm

Wow this nuts! I feel your pain for sure and sorry you are having so much trouble. But I still want to know how far off it is and what spec you are trying to get to. The shops must have given you a print out what's the best they could do?

How far out is it?

-2.25
 

-2.25 on both passenger and driver side rear. The adjustment is all the way to the positive side. I'll scan a copy of the full report later this week if you feel it would be beneficial.

I think I am resigned to the fact that I am going to order this guy with new bushings. Kinda bummed but what else can I do.

Flyin' Miata : Chassis : Control arms : Paco Motorsports adjustable rear upper control arms

This is kind of a long shot, but you might take a close look at the adjusting bolts. If they are original, they may have loosened in the cams and not really giving you the adjustment range you need. The design was changed somewhere along the line, I think '94, but some of the old design may have been used in later cars.

At any rate, the bolts/cams can become worn and affect the range of adjustment, so you might take a look.

Mike

I'll take a look at replacing the bolts. I have a new theory. I'm also going to take a look at the subframe bolts. I remember having to loosen them. I had a friend suggest that if they were over tighten they could cause this kind of issue.

R,

Yeah over 2 is a tad more than I would want to run on the street but not by much. I wouldn't worry about driving it like that at all. I know everyone has a different recipe for alignments but I usually run 1.6ish in back and 1.8 or so in the front. A lot of guys do the opposite and have more in the back than the front. Even the pros flip flop on that depending on which theory you adopt.

Those control arms should not be needed to get you where you need to be. Usually guys go with offset bolts or control arms like that to get more camber not less. Something is wrong back there and fixing what ever it is I would think would be cheaper than those control arms. What you are facing is for sure not normal.

Autocrossers have trouble with the front adjusters doing just as Mike said and need to change them from time to time. Also like any other bolt they stretch out after being torqued over and over and that's a bad thing. That might be a starting point and it's sure not going to hurt anything.

So what is your new theroy?

Are your bushings worn out? Did you install new ones? Have you tried to "force" extra camber to it with a large pry bar while it was on the alignment rack?