Local pro shop for alignment and corner weighting a 355 is $375. Almost an afternoon.
Darrin and his son are the best. Darrin did all my alignments until I invested in my own equipment and scales. I tweek my racecar before every race, track dependent. It starts with new tires, ride heights then corner weights at predicted fuel load for that track and that race and what I need to weigh after the race. Then alignment settings always starting from the beginning...thrust. It can take me a full day. The more important the race the longer it takes. A race shop will do this for its best customers. A car repair shop never. Joe's alignment rarely has the guys with this level of expertise. They mostly use "idiot proof" machines (NOT) to do "4 wheel alignments (dinking around all 4 wheels as your car sits not caring about what is in your car, how much weight it is supposed to have etc) or 2 wheel alignments ( dinking with toe trying to get your car to track straight and steering wheel to be straight).
Alignment is trying to get the wheels pointed in the right directions (plural). Corner weighting (balance) is trying to get the correct amount of weight onto the tire's contact patch. Get the corners evenly weighted and the wheels pointed in the right directions and your tires last a whole lot longer. In addition, you don't have to rotate the tires anymore (except for race track use). Back to alignment:: In order for the alignment to be "proper" one wants the heat profile of the tire to have a 20dF spread from inside ring (hotter) to outside edge (cooler). To measure this, you want a probe tipped tire pyrometer. This can be used to set caster, camber and toe without looking for numbers in the book, once you know what you are trying to do with the alignments.
This is a timely topic for me. I just completed some work where I had the outer tie rods off. I did the "count the turns" method just to get things close. I have access to an aforementioned Hunter alignment machine. It does list 355 specs which RD's comments have now made me question. All I want to do right now is set the toe and have a straight wheel. I will get a full on pro alignment with CW when I am done with all my DIY tinkering. My questions are: Do I need to bother with loading the ballast for this limited alignment? Can I rely on the pre-loaded spec for adjusting toe? Thanks
I was under the impression the Hunter specs are for stock car with stock height wheels and tires? If you have more going on, I wouldn't rely on those specs for a "proper" alignment. "Setting the toe and go" is pretty much 90% of what the Just Tires $99 special is. Just because the car goes straight doesn't mean it is aligned properly. You can still suffer from uneven/premature wear. If you just want the car to go straight, the pre-loaded spec or pretty much any spec anyone gives you on here should suffice. Look up some of Mitch's old threads on calibration.
How do the 348s and 355s look after corner balancing? In the BMW world, we would only corner balance our track cars and just align the street cars. A corner balanced BMW could look really goofy with ride heights being noticeably different at each corner.
I can tell you from my first experience with ballast in a car for alignment. Was when the Porsche 928 came out. All of the early ones had a vibration that started at 110 mph. In a nutshell after several weeks we were able to trace this to bad suspension design. The fix was to preload the car with different weights in the drive and passenger seat and torque the wheels correctly along with altered alignment specs. This corrected it and quite a bit was learned. I am a fan of preloading the suspension in some conditions. I have not messed extensively with a 355 alignment at this level,,,yet
A half turn or so on the spring collar shouldn't make much of a visual difference but can be a noticeable change in handling characteristics. In the past, I adjusted mine so that they were all equal (street use) instead of asymmetric settings.
Corner weighting or scaling does not make a cars stance look funny unless it is bent. The goal is not to balance weight on each wheel. The goal is to equalize the ability of the car to turn left and right by achieving a 50/50 cross weight. It is not possible to take a streetcar and move weight around to equalize. It is even difficult in a purpose built race car. I can't feel 1/2 a turn on a spring perch. A typical motio ratio is around 70 to 80% and typical turn on a 1.5 pitch metric body is 1.5mm in height. So if anyone but Michael Schumacher can feel 1-2mm change in ride height I would be surprised. If you want to make more left turns then the car is setup different for that.
You sneeze on a scale and the weight will change When your balancing 3000lbs on 4 small areas the slightest thing will change it Would love a super magic scale that simulates downforce so you. For us poor folk that don't have a wind tunnel
Was there anything about Darrin's work you didn't like or were you simply looking for more fine tuning, convenience, or just trying to save $$ in the long run?
read through the thread here. I understand the basics but not crazy technical. I got brand new stock size tires and lowered the car down some during my major over the winter. not crazy low but not stock height anymore. just wanted to get it down a bit looked too high before. this time of year alignment shops are quite busy. but I know owner at one who aligned couple my other cars, 350z and BMW. and I was happy with the results. so he said bring car in to look it over and do an intial measurement. and then I come back another day. car was already pulling to the left slightly. but after getting on the machine the alignment was completely off. he said could get the car straight and lessen tire wear. but that there's not much he could do for camber? I told him that's what I thought the shims were for? he said yes, but from what he could see shims won't do much? I don't need the car to be race day perfection. so there's no way to adjust the camber on the 355, stock as is without buying aftermarket adjustable parts? he told me would be easy 2hrs+. so I know at least I'm not getting the $99 special as mentioned above. but yes I'm well aware I'm not getting a track ready job either. I just want the car straight and preserve tire wear that's all. the benefits of a 5-6 hr all day job, I'll never have the car to those extremes to ever notice anyways.
The shims do have limits in the sense that the bolts (suspention a arm brackets) have length limits. Meaning you can't add 2" of shims for example but you should still be able to achieve the proper camber unless you have radically changed your ride height which in that case I would suggest you undo some of that to get the alignment correct.
ok thanks... much appreciate the feedback.. after reading.. other related threads.. it seems the alignment of a 355.. all starts with ride height.. as soon as you lower the car down for visual/personal preference.. throws off the ability to align the rest.. obviously lowering any car.. throws the rest off too.. but with my other cars.. camber was able to be corrected fairly well..as is without any aftermarket add-ons. it seems the 355 is very sensitive in this regard. the car is visually/noticeably lower.. but nothing crazy aggressive.. looks like i'll have to sacrifice whatever it is, that i'll never notice, to keep the height looking the way I want.. so we'll see how it goes next week..
See these images and specifications. If you lowered the car aggressively, the camber would be too negative. So, the issue might be that you need to remove all of the shim and that might not be enough. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
The factory intended handling and alignment is an engineered compromise for performance and safety. Many cars are ruined by changing these parameters for "looks" and owners don't know it. Owners must be very careful especially on, twitchy by nature, sportscars because you can have a car that feels great under the limit but can put you in a ditch if you cross the line. All kinds of bad things can happen with a car that is lowered for looks or changed so the new wheels look better on the car. That is not the way to set one of the most important settings of your chassis. Anytime you can't achieve a factory setting you either have damage or you are way outside the wide envelope OEM's give and you need to have a real understanding of suspension math. Failure of that understanding could end in some very bad surprises.
I did not see it in the WSM Does Ferrari specify a Axis Inclination for the rear? I would love a chassis sheet on this car with full dimensions
No, WSQ specifies ride heights. Ride heights and some geometry measurements will tell you the roll axes and therefore the roll axis inclination. It just so happens I did this a decade and a half ago......At factory ride heights:: The front roll axis sits 0.66" below the road surface The rear roll axis sits 4.76" above the road surface Also note: the rear roll axis moves at 1.6X faster than the front roll axis for an equal amount of ride height adjustment.
It took about two hours when mine was done. Mine is pretty low due to h&r springs, but no issues achieving factory alignment.
well this is interesting.. given you are on HR springs.. your car is obviously well below.. stock height.. and youre saying you got the camber etc.. aligned within factory specs..? as Dave mentioned above.. I assume you had to remove all shims from the rear..? Oh I just remembered, your car came with adjustable arms, from the previous owner..? so this is why you were able to achieve proper camber etc.. otherwise without the adjustables, a 355 on HR springs.. would likely not be able to get within factory alignment specs..
And then how would one set the rear toe? Removing all of the rear shims is not an option if the goal is to keep the rear of the car behind you.
