jwalton

New (obviously) to the forums, so thanks for all the future help.

I just came back from getting a little more agressive alignment put on the car. I lowered it on the stock bolts a little over 1/2" and tried to get -1.5 deg camber in the back and -1.25 deg camber in front. Got the front done without much effort but the back was something else. It seems as if the rear subframe is shifted towards the passenger side of the car. With the alignment cams on the left rear at maximum (but still good numbers for caster and toe), the right rear were only about half way used up. I'm sitting at about -1 deg camber in the back. My tech guy said that he could probably get at least another degree or so if he wanted on the right side, but the left could obviously go no further.

We looked at the subframe and it looks as though it's located with dowels, so it ain't moving. I'm the 2nd owner, my dad was the first, and neither of us have hit anything that would have bent any suspension components.

Is this common? I'm guessing not. Can the rear subframe be centered with those monster dowels or am I pretty much done with the alignment short of spending stupid money?

Thoughts?

Thanks,
Jim

FRCTony

Sometimes you can remove shims from the upper control arms.

MrEracer

I had this problem on my road race car... -1.5* on the left and 0* maximum on the right. My solution was to remove the aluminum bearing carrier (knuckle) on the right rear and I milled the bearing surface with -1.5* cut. This gave me an even -1.5* camber on both rear sides which is what I wanted.
Shirl Dickey

Dan_the_C5_Man

I can tell you from experience having R&R'd the rear subframe myself, that absolutely, there IS side-to-side and front-to-rear play within the mounting holes / pins.

Those pins are there to help locate the subframe on the assembly line. It’s not like you have an interference fit between the hole in the frame and the pins.

So yes, if you loosen the 4 carrier bolts, you can shift it around a bit, re-tighten. Just make sure you know which direction to go.

jwalton

Thanks guys. Live and learn with this thing I suppose.

I just sold my 3rd gen RX-7 to get this (the guy literally drove off in the 7 about an hour and a half ago <sniff>) and was totally in tune with all the little idiosyncracies of that car and am having to start all over again. Nice that it'll at least be reliable!!!

Thanks again,
Jim