VIN 2706's 20 year nap

[DMC-81]

Good to hear you are back in business.
That's a weird failure.

[powerline84]

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Weighed the car today. 2800lbs on the dot.

[powerline84]

So I am probably up to about 3000 miles on my car and have always felt the car is a little to darty and unpredictable feeling at high speed and i suspected alignment in error. All the suspension is new. So I checked the alignment manually and as suspected it's way off. Question now is, who to take it to in the nashville area for an alignment.
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[Lwanmtr]

I would think any competent shop should be able to do an alignment.

[powerline84]

You would think but....

[DMC-81]

Hi Jimmy,

I called around when it came time to do mine and found that for most shops, if the car wasn't in "the computer " they couldn't/wouldn't do it.
I eventually found a long running, old school (pre-computer) alignment shop that could do it. I brought a printed copy of Service Bulletin ST-34-1/82 with me and hovered around/coached the seasoned techs on the ins and outs of the car. They did a good job. Here's a couple pictures:

[Lwanmtr]

Pretty funny how shops will hear the word 'delorean' and suddenly get scared to work on it...when in reality its no different than any other car..lol

[powerline84]

Hi Jimmy,

I called around when it came time to do mine and found that for most shops, if the car wasn't in "the computer " they couldn't/wouldn't do it.
I eventually found a long running, old school (pre-computer) alignment shop that could do it. I brought a printed copy of Service Bulletin ST-34-1/82 with me and hovered around/coached the seasoned techs on the ins and outs of the car. They did a good job. Here's a couple pictures:

Thanks. Can you send me a copy of that service bulletin? I am sure it's on the forum but I am feeling lazy lol.

[powerline84]

Have alignment shims on the way to get the car driving correctly . In the mean time just ordered swisstrax ribtrax fir my new 3 car garage. Pretty excited but you'll have to wait till dec to see install pics. Screenshot_20180924-174902_Gmail.jpg

[powerline84]

alignment.jpg

Got the Car aligned today and it confirmed all my suspicions. Let me start off by saying I am not Intending to attack any specific vendor but I am gonna give my honest opinion on the cars suspension and drive-ability after a year of real world driving and testing, including a 900 mile road trip. First of all if you buy lowering springs or coil overs from a vendor and you actually objectively look at the cars suspension performance its going to drive like shit by modern day standards if you lower it for many reasons. I am not gonna get into a debate about how the Deloreans suspension was great for 80s standards....great its not the 80s anymore and I am not satisfied by that. If you lower your car to make it look like what the original design was intended for, its gonna look cool and drive like garbage because there simply is not enough adjust ability in the suspension. If you think the car drives great stock then don't read any further.

My Setup:
QA1 Coilover Kit from DS.
Ed Udings Brackets
Toby's poly sway bushings
new regular bushings everywhere else
Delorean club UK billet lowers
DMC Midwest NOS uppers
Delorean Midwest front Sway Bar
All Brand new NOS style brakes.

probably good enough for a standard owner but I am not normal I guess. drives way better then stock... but room for improvement.

QA1 setup
-Under developed. Pissed me off that I paid 1200 bucks and got 2 different color springs ( front and rear springs are different colors. something that should be disclosed to buyers, and I don't think is acceptable for something that expensive.
-I don't think the spring rate and or valving in the shocks is right for the car. Needs further development.

Ed's brackets are awesome but you have to be careful about how you shim/Washer them for spacing. They will affect your alignment and the alignment shop just looks at them and says there is no adjustment so you'll have to do that yourself. But make sure you have even washers on both sides of the brackets on the left and right front of the car and then you'll have to go from there and measure your caster and spacing against the fender.

I cant stand the brakes.. they are terrible by modern standards. I wont be wasting money on the stock brakes anymore...i'll be upgrading to something else.

In my opinion the car lacks sufficient adjust ability in the suspension for a lowered car.

my cars ass end wants to pull right as soon as you accelerate due to camber and the front end wants to go left due to caster. You can see how this can be a problem at highways speeds or bumps.

If I had to do it again I would either fabricate my own system or buy a system with more adjust-ability like DPI's spec kits.

-car really just needs a double wishbone front suspension that is adjustable .

In the mean time Josh is building me some adjustable uppers and lowers for the rear on monday to at-least fix my camber issues and the rear end pulling issue. I will do some shim adjustments up front to fix the castor.

Again not meant to offend, just my honest opinion on my car and the way I want it to drive. Other peoples results may vary lol.