Installing new coilovers....when I unhooked the upper control arm(s) the spacers fell on the floor. How many go where? Passengers side had more spacers than drivers side??

 

When I upgraded to Johnney O'Connell Stage 1 package awhile ago for mine '09, both sides has same # of spacers - 2 spacers in each mounting bolt. Total 4 spacers per side.

 

Thats what i was thinking....but passenger side had 5....??

 

Would there be any known issue as to why the 05's might be different?

 

Every individual car is different, they use those spacers to dial in the alignment. If you remove the washers, you will get more negative camber. They will have to straighten out your Castor a bit.

 

I didn't think it's the year, every cars alignment will be different. Yours happen to need an extra washer. Nonetheless, I still had to get an alignement afterward. Good luck.

 

So....wondering if I should just do 2 for each and just keep the last one if they can't align it without it....?

 

I would remove them completely personally. If you're going to track the car. If you just want an aggressive Street set up I'd probably leave one washer per arm.

 

90% street toy....want an aggressive alignment though

 

2-2 and take the extra washer with you when you go have it aligned (all 4 corners).

If the tech knows anything about Vets, will know that he will need to add in another washer if you can not get it dialed in correctly that it sits when you take it in.


As for odd numbers of spacers, makes me wonder if the car was in a wreck, and why it requires an extra washer spacer per side.

 

I'd pull them all out then. It's common for new Vettes to have mismatched numbers of washers.

 

If you plan to run SCCA Solo events in the "Street" class (SS or AS, depending on engine, year and submodel), you must have one spacer on each post.

Quoting page 236 from the SCCA Solo rules (in Appendix F, "Clarifications"):
You're allowed as much negative camber as you can get by removing the shims, but you aren't allowed to remove the spacers.

The spacers look like thick washer.

The shims, if any are present, look like these:

Alignment shims

I have no affiliation with the source of the image (nor claim to copyright). It was one of the first to come up in a Google image search for "Chevrolet Corvette alignment shims".

Whether you can "get away with" removing the spacers depends on how many other Corvettes run in your local events, and how knowledgeable those drivers/owners are about the technical rules.

I'm not sure why anyone (well, anyone competent) would put an extra spacer in the thing. The alignment shims in the picture are standard for making adjustments. The spacers/washers are part of the overall design, and not supposed to be used for adjustment.

 

If you plan to run SCCA Solo events in the "Street" class, you'll need to keep the spacers (washers) in. This is from Appendix F of the Solo Rule book, the "clarifications" section:

The spacers are the thick washers (complete circles). The shims are open at one end, and usually have a tab off the closed end with markings showing how thick the shim is. Here's a picture I found in a quick Google Image search for "Chevrolet Corvette upper control arm alignment shim".


Alignment shims for use at upper control arm mount studs.

Whether anyone will notice the spacers being missing depends on how many other C4 or later Corvettes show up at your local events, and how well those folks know the rules.

I doubt it would fly more than once at our local events. They'd probably let you run Time Only or a class which allows more modifications, but you wouldn't be in the "Street" class long with the spacers removed and serious/excessive negative camber.

Also, unless you corner like a maniac 100% of the time, running that much negative camber will wear your tires on the inner shoulders. Negative camber is something you have to use fairly constantly to achieve anything resembling "normal tire wear." It's not a good thing for long distance cruising or tooling around town.

PS. I hope this isn't a double post. When I first signed up, I answered this one, and it was "pending approval." I see the mods now allow me to post, but my reply here didn't appear.

 

C5 and up Corvettes don't have shims, and no one can prove how many washers your car came with. Back on topic though, you must have lost one. You would have 6 on that side, not 5. It would never be an odd number. Chances are there were 2 on each of the front mounts and 1 on each rear mount , rotating the upper rearward for additional castor

I never remove them, I just move them outboard of the control arm in case I need them later

 

Pretty sure my car had 3 on each side. 2 in the front bolt and 1 on the rear.