70-81 F Body Negative Caster Issue

[Dragnknights]

I have a 1974 Firebird with basically stock suspension and subframe. It has 2'' lowering coils and Non Adjustable QA1 Upper Control Arms. When I align the car, I can't do ay better than 6deg. negative caster. I talked to QA1 and they thought maybe I put the control arms on backwards, and to check how the bump stops lined up. I did and they appear to line up fine, ad the car shows no sign of collision damage. Has anyone ever experienced this? Thanks!

[Skip Fix]

Stock arms should get about about 2-3+ caster along with .5 neg camber. Something is not right. Pictures!!

You did not use and offset upper shaft and have it backwards did you?

[dutch55]

I would like to see a picture of the left front wheel and tire, with the steering wheel turned all the way to the right. I am interested in seeing the angle with the floor. Would you please take one and post it.

[Dragnknights]

Thanks for the response guys. I have attached a couple pics. According to the alignment shop. They had to add all those shims on the passenger side to be consistent with the drivers side.

[Dragnknights]

Also,
I just used the QA1 supplied cross shafts, and I will pull it out of the garage tomorrow to get that other picture of the wheel turned all the way

[Dragnknights]

Ok,
Here are the pictures of the left front wheel and tire with the wheel cranked all the way to the right. Hard to tell in the pic, but the positive camber is outrageous!

[hotrodalex]

Did you give any specifications to the alignment shop? A lot of times, they'll just put the make/model/year into the computer and it tells them what to do. Except the alignment specs from back then are NOT what you want. You'll need to tell them that you want -0.5 to -1 degrees camber, as much positive caster as you can get (usually 2-3 degrees for stock, 4-6 if you've got good control arms), and 1/16" to 1/8" toe-in for street driving.

To get those camber and caster numbers, you'll probably need a lot of shims. The rear bolt should have more shims than the front, in order to get positive caster.

[pitts64]

No wonder you have negative caster with all those shims on the front bolt.. Find another alignment shop that's not afraid to go away from the stock settings..



Try transferring all the shims from the front bolt to the rear bolt on both sides and see how it handles...

[Dragnknights]

Ok, Thanks guys. It looked strange to me too. I'll try another alignment shop, but wanted to first make sure that it wasn't an install or hardware issue. Thank you .

[Skip Fix]

No wonder you have negative caster with all those shims on the front bolt.. Find another alignment shop that's not afraid to go away from the stock settings..

Try transferring all the shims from the front bolt to the rear bolt on both sides and see how it handles...

Exactly!

[Dragnknights]

Hey guys, thanks for the advice. I pushed all the shims to the back, and added just a couple to the front just to see if I could get some more negative camber out of it, . I took it for a ride, and it's way better. I don't know if it's right, but it sure feels better.