F355 suspension and alignment experts please help

Another consideration ^^^^^^^ Ferrari's are a weird breed sometimes. Having some knowledge of the project is always helpful. At the moment, they are learning on our dime.

Check the wheel offset....just maybe you'll get lucky and the offset is different than the one you replaced.

 

YOu need a shop with proper equipment

Not sure where you are but something must be available locally

You need a shop that has something like this to accurately diagnose the issue.

Sorry I am a snob with this stuff and I will not compromise a repair of this nature to a shop thats "guessing"



[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6H5CqBavB2w[/ame]

 

the question is, if all was perfect before the pothole
it would be safe to assume both calors on the rear shocks were more or less the same.

now after the pothole everything got out of line.

but how could the passenger side rear calor move up that high?
they can't move like that pothole or not.

 

At what point do you file a claim with your insurance company?

 

I say don’t panic. Hopefully you have given us all the information otherwise we are wasting time. For example it is 9 post later before you tell us you got a new wheel.

Anyway, first thing I would do is take the tires off the wheel and measure everything for sameness especially the wheel offset. Just measuring the offset alone is not enough. In this case you need exact dimension of wheel rim edge to hub face. That is easiest done with tire off. Maybe that’s hard for you but easy for me since I have tire changer. If tire is on you need a wheel caliper to measure.

Second realize that undamaged Ferraris from the factory often have misaligned body panels. You can have a perfect Ferrari that is fine with stock wheels until you fill the fender with tire and find ¼” off from left to right. Changing the camber is not the right solution. Alignment needs to be independent of the body panels.

Third lets say the wheels are the same. If so you either need to put your weight in the driver’s seat or the WSM factory weight of a person like 75kilos AND be at driven TIRE PRESSURES. Then you need to use a bucket of water, ruler, aquarium tubing, and 1/8” 12x12 flooring tiles to set up a flat spot in your garage. A properly done garage always slopes so water drains out the door. Once flat you put the car on those 4 pads. You then adjust the ride height to factory settings. Do NOT set the car by turns on the coils but the number of turns should be in the ballpark same LR RR and LF RF but it does not have to be especially because you got 75kilos in the driver’s seat.

Fourth, you scale the corners and adjust the coils so that you have 50/50 cross weight. Now you can align the car for factory settings. Whatever the look is whatever the look but your car will drive as designed. If you then have wacking looking coils some thing is wrong. There are all kinds of things that can be the issue some big some small. Look close at those lame rubber bushing. Those are now 20 years old probably never changed. They can have a huge impact.

So now lets say you want to lower the car it is best to do so with the same front to rear rake as factory. Changing off factory will alter the at limit emergency handling in perhaps a bad way. In racing we test to see the results of ride height. Lower is not better especially if lowering changes bumpsteer character or causes shocks to bottom out. Do not lower just for looks unless you don’t care about handling or safety. There is nothing that drives worse than a slammed car. It may feel good when way under the limit but slammed cars are often beasts to drive fast and are slow on track.

Lets say you don’t want to do any of this yourself. Skip the minivan alignment shop. That’s 90% chance where the Ferrari dealer would send you to. They probably do not have an alignment rack and would refer this out. Look for a race shop in your area who services the amateur racers. Racers are anal.

BTW I raced a 348 similar chassis to 355 and still race today. I align all the time with simple manual tools many racers use and we are just as accurate if not more accurate than the guys with the laser Hunters that rarely if ever get calibrated.

 

I'm with Fatbillybob.

Check the wheel first to make sure you got the EXACT same wheel. Especially, with SSR wheels, theyve been known to change up their offset offerings over the years not to mention they have a low disk, high disk, normal disk, hyper disk to add to the confusion

 

Redlyne, did you find time check the wheel for the correct size as mentioned?

 

Dam

 

can you post a clear picture (outside/daylight shot would be better) of both rear wheels so that one could see how the wheel sits in the wheel well?

 

the (5th) picture in this post is concerning.

 

Just for laughs, can you switch the coil/shock units side-to-side to see what difference that makes? You could also the try switching wheels too, again just to see if anything changes.

 

I was thinking of that last one. The shocks may be different and/or the sub frame bent just enough to add up to that amount of displacement. Also check the springs. Are these the same springs before and after pothole? How about sag and fatigue from use. How long have they been on the car? Maybe check the coil distances as they stack up on each spring. See a lag anywhere?

 

If swapping rear wheels left/right didn't change anything, i would start from scratch.
Set all 4 coils the same left and place an even amount of shims L/R as a baseline right take out shims if they appear to have more than a normal amount of shims.
Put it on a rack and take a measurement, attempt to align.

Ive never heard of coils being more different L/R more than 1 turn...and thats for balancing the car with scales

Notes. Lowering on these car will increase negative camber. When i lowered mine i gained about a half degree. the top of the tire was much more inboard then before as well.

The upper A-arm is fixxed if i remember correctly.
The lower has the adjustments where the hinge meets the frame. When shims are added evenly this pushes the lower a-rim out. This would cause the bottom of the tire to extend futher out and the top more inboard. (negative camber) You can achieve more 'tuck" by adding shims which is negative camber.

The only other thing i can think is to check if the hub is bent, get a new hub if all else fails.

 

You're getting some good advice (a few nuggets below), however I think in the end you ARE going to need to get back to basics.

I'm a bit suspect about the "original good alignment" given the L-to-R spring settings; it might have been to establish the right "look". Clearly, whatever you hit probably had a big effect, and whatever the guys changed to try and fix it has led them down the path of "getting lost in the setup".

The painful but likely path to take is to get the car up on a surface plate and measure it. Start with the static parts (tub, subframe, pickup points). Progress to the suspension pieces....ALL of them. Not just static positions, but dynamic. Work your way outward....bushings, suspension pieces....BTW is the affected shock straight? I've wailed curbs on race tracks, we could tell something was off, but everything looked good until we noticed the top of shock, or the rod itself, had tiny bends that totally screwed up the geometry.

I'd also agree with some of the comments above, the right tools and the right experience are required. I also like the idea of a race shop, just do your best to make sure they know what they are dealing with.

I had not thought about the body panel fit being variable, but I guess it's possible.

 

How about rolling the fenders? Saw this done once on a Ferrari... That would surely take care of the body panel differences. Body panels are never 100% square to the suspension, as mentioned above you will notice this in extreme offset, aggressive applications.

I would adjust the coil perches to be even after inspecting the shock, dial in your camber shims, then roll if the ride height is to your liking. Keep in mind driver weight and corner balance with the good alignment; ride height changes when people are loaded.
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Rolling the fenders is a case of treating the symptoms but not the disease. The question is what went wrong that now has the wheel against the fender, and how can that be returned to normal geometry.
Another thought; if you're due for a " major" soon anyway, would dropping the rear subframe out make examination and measuring of any discrepancies more accurate?

 

Wait. What???? Something isn't right here.

I thought you said the uneven coil over perches were that way before the pot hole.

 

Huh? WTF? Whats going on? Wierd , all this thread for nothing

 

Sometimes an OP will unknowingly leave out some details which can be the difference between diagnosis and confusion. It happens every day here.

 

Like I said a few posts up, level off the perches and see what happens..... On some cars the ride height will still be even, this car isn't factory sprung any more and running custom specs.

Nice car glad you got it sorted. No need to total the car out and lose sleep about subframes, amen.

 

This is something i naturally took for granted, i would have thought the shop he took it to would have done that as a basic check, seeing the car came in lop sided to begin with, and was still lop sided when it left

 

Post #8, First response he had.....

Just amazed it went on like this if that really was the answer all along. Whatever.