Looking for Good front end alignment tools for the home mechanic...

[bret]

The issue is to find an alignment guy who is smarter than the equipment they are working with. VERY difficult.



Alignment is NOT rocket science. The worst you can do is screw it up. The absolute worst you can do is feather a set of front tires. All fixable. If the car drives nice and doesn't wear the tires you are good. You can then sneak up on the little tricks that might make you .001 faster in an autocross.

I ran across a guy last year at RTTH in Pigeon Forge with an early camaro with an aftermarket subframe. It pushed like a dump truck. He "just had his alignment guy look at it" right before he came to the event, but it was VERY obvious that he had a metric ton of positive camber. I took my iphone out [i have a level app] and set it up against the tire...sure enough...about 2 degrees of positive camber. Me and Billy Utley did a hillbilly alignment with a couple of yardsticks, a couple of tape measures and my trusty Iphone...it was not perfect but it sure was better...the car picked up 2 seconds the next lap. And the owner said it had never driven that good before.
The point is...if it doesnt look right, it probably isnt. Dont trust the machine...its not as smart as you are. Educate yourself about alignment. Its almost as valuable as driving school!

AND...think about all the time and money you'll save!