Checked Front Toe - June 26, 2008
After installing the Energy Suspension steering rack bushings last Thursday, I've had to turn the steering wheel to the right about 45 degrees in order for the car to go straight. The most likely explanation for this is that the old bushings were worn out, which allowed the steering rack to move to a different position. When an alignment was done on the car, the technician simply adjusted the tie rods to get the steering wheel to be centered instead of moving the rack.
On Monday, I tried to fix this condition by adjusting the left tie rod to be slightly longer and the right to be slightly shorter. After adjusting the tie rods a few times and test-driving the car after each attempt, I got the steering wheel to be more or less centered.
However, the car pulls very slightly to the right (has always driven like that), and I wanted to check if this was possibly due to the front toe being off. To do this, I put a flat metal plate in the same position against each wheel and marked the direction of each wheel by taping along the bottom edge of the metal plate. Then, I measured the distance between the front and rear of the taped lines. Surprisingly, the toe was exactly zero. This is what I was going for since it will help the car turn at corner entry but won't lead to excessive tire wear.
The method I used is not too accurate since variations in camber, caster, and several other factors between the two sides of the car can affect the measurements obtained. However, I believe that it is a good estimate.
I'll be checking the rear toe in the same way soon to determine if it is responsible for the car pulling slightly towards the right.
In addition, I changed the rear tires to get ready for tomorrow's Club Loose advanced day. The last picture shows how the outside tread of the right rear tire got ripped off as a result of the fast left sweeper that was used in yesterday's Club Loose event. This Cooper Lifeliner tire actually lasted a long time, a total of 23 Club Loose drifting runs.