Demystifying toe alignment specifications

[Helirich]

A large amount of toe in is used on some older cars but mainly trucks that have a lot of play inherent to the steering system. By giving them a lot of toe, when all of the play is taken out, the wheels run pretty straight. Modern cars run much tighter and have a lot less toe to have better road feel, go straighter, get better gas mileage, and tire life. Always try to align by the manufacturer's specs unless you are doing something custom like racing. Racing specs are a whole other world. When you start talking about corner balancing you are starting to get into that area of specialty. A typical 4 wheel alignment, that requires no parts (except shims and washers) should cost no less than $80 and no more than $150 and take less than an hour. On Deloreans the suspension was designed by Lotus, they are world renowned as suspension experts and have a rolling wind tunnel. Major manufacturers go to Lotus Engineering to have their cars fine tuned. If you are going to modify it you should be at least as knowledgeable as they are if you expect to improve on it. For the majority of owners that choose to have their alignment done by a shop, if the car is set to the specs given by DMC the car will perform about as good as it gets assuming no worn, bent parts and a good set of tires properly inflated. For the few owners that want to do it themselves, learn as much as you can before doing it and get the proper equipment or try to borrow it. Some of it can be made. A set of plates and some BB's can work as slide tables for example. Ride height is all important so take as much time as you have to to get that set first. All of your other measurements will be affected by that so you have to get that right. I do alignments but only so I can drive a car that I did a lot of work on till I can get it to a rack and have it done accurately. I get close but not perfect.

My 30 year old Bronco calls for 1/16" of total toe. And that's with TTB suspension. (Known for lots of play) I suspect the large toe in numbers on our car are due to the lower control arm pulling back on the sway bar bushings. Probably the wheels pull back to neerly zero. (Unless you have a brace) I'm wondering if Delorean Indutries advises to lessen that number when installing their kit. Normally toe is to account for tires, not suspension play. (Tall profile tires require more toe)

I do my own alianment on my truck, but it's not for high speed. Currently my car is driving great at high speed. Of course that doesn't mean the tires will ware correct. Time will tell. If I get a chance, I will see what I have for toe.

[FABombjoy]

To follow-up:

-KW coilovers set to "Klaus" rebound settings (12 r, 8 f)
-DPI gen 3 LCAs with caster adjust links
-Stock upper LCAs
-Custom chromoly adjustable rear upper links
-Superflex lower link bushings in stock links
-BF Goodrich g-Force COMP-2 A/S, 205/45-16 and 245/45-17 (installed 201

Made a toe measuring device using angle aluminum & engineering rulers. Provides a virtual wheel size of 780mm giving much more resolution for string adjustments. The rear is clunky with shims making fairly large changes, so not much to gain from precision back there. You could take readings at the wheel face and still get things close. The TSB says a single shim is 1.1 degrees but I'm not sure that is accurate.

To assist with caster, I printed sheets with 0, +20, and -20 alignment marks. A carpenters laser was fixed to the front wheel on a 3D printed adapter centered over the wheel face, and angle measurements were taken based on the old school method. Getting these measurements to be repeatable took the most time. Most camber measurement tool instructions will tell you to put down tape or a reference point and eyeball it but this never produced something repeatable. The paper & laser worked much better and I could go back & forth and get results within 1/4 degree. With the steering wheel unlocked & the tires on plastic cutting boards (with a layer of grease in between) to act as bearing plates, I could physically move the tires back & forth by hand without trouble.

Target toe degrees: 0.24 per wheel
Rear ride height set so lower links parallel to ground
Front ride height set with tie rods pointed slightly upwards (nose a little lower than tail)
Camber reads 0.75-0.9deg

Rear camber @ to 0.75 w/ custom upper adjusters
Rear toe set to 0.18 / 0.15. Wanted to err on the side of less toe as less toe will dial out a bit of understeer.

Front toe final measurement 0.22
Front caster equalized to 3.9deg on both sides

Preliminary results: Car steers like it has lane detection. Honestly it's pretty amazing - point the steering wheel and it just tracks straight as an arrow, it's never been so good for me. Ride quality is sporty but not punishing which was the main concern going to a coil over system. A series of progressively higher-speed figure-8s in a parking lot offered zero under- and zero oversteer with progressive tire noise from the rear giving feedback as speed increased. It just turned where it should be even threatening to put my passenger in my lap. I'm lucky the unsecured fire extinguisher on the parcel shelf didn't explode LOL

Between the spring rates & not slamming the ride height, I suspect the roll center is close to where it should be and body roll was surprisingly controlled for a rear-heavy car with no anti-roll bar. At full lock and under heavy throttle it just would not plow or oversteer.

I plan on making some longer trips soon but I'm a believer that with the right combo of hardware this old chassis has some surprises left in it. I'm on the hunt for scales & will properly corner balance at some point, maybe after I have a camber adjustable UCA solution in place.

[Delorean Industries]

Shameful product plug to accent your billet lower arms.

https://deloreanindustries.com/53-up...llet-aluminum/

[FABombjoy]

If you're looking to collaborate for a product review to further enhance product synergy and cross-platform promotion, with my dozens of social media followers I'm your man.
(just kidding, I f***ing hate these kinds of social media DMs)

[MrChocky]

To follow-up:

I'm on the hunt for scales & will properly corner balance at some point, maybe after I have a camber adjustable UCA solution in place.

"I'm not heavy, I just have big LCAs".

[Delorean Industries]

If you're looking to collaborate for a product review to further enhance product synergy and cross-platform promotion, with my dozens of social media followers I'm your man.
(just kidding, I f***ing hate these kinds of social media DMs)

Youtube videos of our products are literally the worst thing ever. By the time they are published there is already a new rev and it is most likely obsolete in presented form. When owners buy something it doesn't match the video and causes confusion. There is nothing wrong with what is in the video and it will fit and function exceptionally. But I run things with a heavy emphasis on iterative design. Rev's and gen's are only issued publicly when cross compatibility with previous rev's and or gens are not applicable.

Will be interesting to see how much you can dial in the camber once you take it to that step.

[Drive Stainless]

I'm on the hunt for scales & will properly corner balance at some point, maybe after I have a camber adjustable UCA solution in place.

Luke, you can use Lotus Esprit upper control arms, which offer adjustable camber and caster. They bolt right up with minor reaming of the steering knuckle.

https://www.sjsportscars.com/ is one possible vendor (or eBay).

[powerline84]

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[Josh]

Luke, you can use Lotus Esprit upper control arms, which offer adjustable camber and caster. They bolt right up with minor reaming of the steering knuckle.

https://www.sjsportscars.com/ is one possible vendor (or eBay).

If it was as easy as you say why doesn't everyone run these.

[Drive Stainless]

If it was as easy as you say why doesn't everyone run these.

Good question. Maybe reluctance to modify the front spindle? Why did it take 30 years for owners to begin using the Eagle Premier starter, which I advocated for on the DML in 2004?

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