when you modify your suspension afterwards we always recommend getting an alignment
what is an alignment you take the car in you get a sheet back with a bunch of numbers on
it so what do those numbers mean you know a lot of people are confused about them
today we'll talk about the basic parameters of an alignment including camber caster and tow
so we're going to start off by discussing camber camber is the vertical angle of the wheel
in relation to the vertical angle of the body so basically the side of the body using this rc
car as an example it's going to be the angle of the wheel so let me remove the body here
to get a closer look at what the wheels are doing so like i said camber is measured as
an angle so zero camber your wheels would be perfectly up and down negative camber
the top is going to be pushed in and positive camber the top is going to be pushed out now for
most applications you're going to want negative camber now people think well zero would be perfect
because my tires are going to wear evenly the problem is cornering when you go into a corner
and the car is turning it's going to put a lot of stress on this outside which makes the wheel roll
over so if you had zero camber when you go around a turn it's actually going to go outside on the
tire and wear the tire on evenly giving yourself a little bit of negative camber means when you
push the car into a corner you get the flattest part of the tire and get the best contact patch
so obviously on your average street car you're going to want some negative camber because again
when you're pushing into the corners you want the flattest contact patch now how much is too much
well whatever car you have whether it be a mustang whatever else there's going to be alignment specs
set up by the manufacturer for that particular vehicle but if you use the vehicle for different
purposes you might want different alignment settings now let's look at those cambered
cars you've all seen them the wheels tucked in like this barely on them that's obviously
too much negative camber that's being done for looks for fitment whatever but it's not really
safe because you're using too little contact patch and you're gonna wear out your tires now if you're
talking about a car that's set up for autocross or road racing you're gonna want more negative
camber because again that car is gonna spend a lot of time pushing into the corners drifting
is gonna be the exact same way it's a little bit different though because basically they have a lot
more camber in those wheels because the wheels are turned so far when you're drifting sideways
you want that lead wheel to have more contact patch and it's going to have a lot of strain on
it which is why they want more negative camber now if you get back into drag racing you look closer
to zero camber because your front wheels you want to have as little rolling resistance as possible
so the more [ __ ] up and down you have the better it's going to be now when talking about camera we
talked about the front but it also affects the rear if you have an independent rear suspension
car basically it's the same kind of rules as the front you want a little bit of negative camber
so when you lower the car you'll actually see you're gonna get negative camber automatically
so if you lower your s550 these wheels will tuck in now we do have camber arms that'll make
that adjustable so you can average it back out and there is a little bit of adjustment in the factory
basically you don't want to have too much negative camera though because as you go down and the car
squats even more you're going to get too much on this inside tire so you want to control the
camber in the rear of the car and again there's camber bolts that can do that there's camber arms
you can do that as well but the lower you go the more you're going to lose that the gunner when the
car also pushes forward it's going to lift that rear suspension too so you don't want to have too
much positive camber because it's going to push the car outward so again usually with the back
of your mustang you want just a little bit of negative camber which will balance out with the
ride height and the force of the car moving forward all right so we talked about camber
now what is caster caster is a little bit more difficult to explain but basically caster is an
angle based on your steering pivot joints and if that angle is backwards it's positive it's forward
it's negative so imagine this car had a steering column our steering joints are like this in the
car so if you shoot straight down and that angle would go in front of the tire that's going to be
positive caster if an angle went back behind the tire it's going to be negative caster now all of
your street cars are going to have positive caster basically because if they didn't they'd be nearly
impossible to drive we're actually going to leave the table here i'm going to show you another way
to really kind of explain how it works so one of the easiest ways to show casters honestly with a
bicycle because everybody's ridden one understands how they work now if you look you can see the fork
which would be the steering components of the bicycle is facing forward and away from the
steering wheel which is the handlebars in this case so what that means that is going to be
positive caster so you can see if you follow this down that will actually go in front of the tire to
be front of the contact patch which is going to be positive camber now for steering to work properly
you basically need positive camber but too much isn't any good either we'll get to that in a
minute but here we give you a quick demonstration of positive versus negative caster so we've all
ridden bicycles back in the day and you know if you're like me you love riding your bicycle and
you can probably ride no handed the reason you do that is positive caster keeps the steering firm
when you roll the bike forward it's going to go nice and straight but when you pull it back you
can see it immediately tries to turn do that again here get it balanced go forward it goes straight
when you come back it's going to try to turn so basically when the bike is moving forward you're
getting positive caster in your steering when you bring it back you're getting negative and you
can see it makes it want to turn sharply so the reason you want positive caster in your mustang
is basically so the car goes straight down the road so just like with camber when you
get your car aligned whoever does that alignment is going to have specs from the manufacturer for
caster now caster won't have as much adjustment as camber does but you will have some and they'll be
able to dial that in now you don't want too much caster which is why they limit it because the more
positive caster you get the looser that front end is going to feel it's going to make it harder to
steer as well so definitely it's one of those things that you want to have set up within the
factory specs that'll make the car a lot better to drive so the last parameter of alignment we're
going to talk about is going to be tow and just like camber tow has a lot to do with tire wear and
how well the car actually drives now what tow is going to be is a measurement of the wheels
whether the front of the wheel is forced inward or forced outward so you've got toe in when the
wheels are in or toe out when the wheels are out so basically in a perfect world your toe would
be even you'd have no toe in no toe out your toe would be set at zero but if the car ever turns or
ever does anything that's just simply not going to work so if the car is towed inward basically
the front of the wheels are going to tuck in and point inward like this if you have toe out it's
going to be adjusted outward like this now again depending how you use your car and also depending
what drive lines in your car is going to depend how you want to set up the tow now for most of
your street cars you're going to want a little bit of toe in the reason being is tone is going
to create make the car basically ride nice perform well and have minimal wear on tires
now if you're talking about a road course car or a drift car in that case you want to actually have a
little bit of toe out it's going to make the car turn faster with those cars you're pretty much
drift you're always going to be sideways and road courses you're turning most of the time so having
that toe out will make the car respond a lot faster and make it handle better on the track
drag racing again you're shooting for zero toe because the goal is to go straight with as little
rolling resistance as possible so i'm gonna have it at zero now i said it's gonna matter on your
driveline and as far as setting up a car front wheel drive rear wheel drive and all-wheel drive
you're gonna set the tow a little bit differently so the front wheel drive car these front wheels
are gonna basically pull the car so what happens is they tend to pull inward so when you're setting
up a front wheel drive car you want to set it with a little bit of outside tow so you're getting
traction pulling the car your toe changes inward rear wheel drive is gonna be the exact opposite
rear wheel drive you're pushing the front end as you push it it tends to go outward so you want to
set a little bit of toe in when the car is pushing basically the tires even out and go back to closer
to zero toe now all-wheel drive is going to be completely different in a perfect roll with a
perfect all-wheel drive car you'd want the tow set at zero the problem is most all-wheel drive
cars are going to have a dominant axle whether it be the front axle or the rear axle so you
want to set them up similar to a front-wheel drive or a rear-wheel drive car so they react
accordingly now obviously like i said we discussed three parameters being caster camber and tow of
alignment and basically we gave you the very very basics there's a lot more too when it comes to
chassis setup especially for race cars and stuff like that but now at least if you get your car
aligned you get that sheet back you can take a look at it you'll know what those numbers mean
you