Good to know, definitely can't see the body/bar contact with the angle of the video. I did not see anything on the red paint on the swaybar though. It may be more straight and not leaving a mark like the camber spot. I will check again tomorrow, had a passenger this weekend so there should be some marks if the body is still an issue. I am very happy with the looks of the drop currently but I'll switch to a thicker spring pad if that will help with the issues.

 

Airscape I like your innovative way for seeing whats really going on with your phone. I had no idea there was that much lateral/horizantal movement with the sway bar.

Mike, how many of these (camber and sway links) have your customers installed and used by now?

I am getting a set and would like to do some before and after pictures, measurements, etc, if it will help. I just need to know what should be used as a baseline and what to measure?....

 

Think the first two are a little deceiving. I believe the bar goes mostly up/down the rest compresses up and towards the inner well so it looks like the bar has more lateral movement than it does ( if you check the third video you can see the link going up/down mostly. Once the 2 connect though It may be going out wider than it should. I'm tempted to put the stock camber and sway back in to see what the movement was like.

 

Jesse,
There are about 25 sets of camber arms installed and about 18 sets of sway bar links.

 

Strange how airscape is the onl one I read that is having the contact so far.

Here is an article that I found quickly that helped me iron out terminology with alignment and tuning suspension;
GTVault -

I can't wait to get my camber arms and links. Slotted/drilled rotors should be in next week, wheels and tires should be in tomorrow. Will be cutting my stock springs in a week or so.

 

The first thing I found out about lowering is that rarely are two XFs the same. Between the differences in spring pads from the factory, different sized tires/wheels, 5+ types of springs available plus cutting SRTs, driving style, etc. everyone is going to get something fairly close, yet unique. Someone a lot less lowered than I was at the Dragon, not driving hard was rubbing/bottoming out, he had different tires and rims than me. I did not even rub and drove HARD

 

Mike the Rods come today they look awesome so much better qUALITY that the ones I was running ,,Thanks again...


Howard.

 

Thanks Mike! Almost seem too nice to stick under there with all that road grime

1 set of stainless adjustable camber arms and 1 set of adjustable sway bar links both with complete color installation instructions.

Arrived one week after ordering, quick and Top Notch!

IMG_0463.jpg

Oh yeah, packaged better than most things I have received in the mail too!

 

Great job Mike surely I thought the adjustable end links were over-hyped but they most definitely softened up the rear end of my car. Great product. Plus it definitely grips better coming out of low speed corners. I haven't moved them from your pre-set length because I was pretty happy with the ride as is.

 

Thanks guys.....
I am still tickled with how well the car rides now... my lady friend was commenting on what a big difference it is again last night... points for me!

 

Mike I thought I would share the Distruction of alum. camber rods .I took these pictures ,I still can't believe I was able to repair enough to get home....zoom zoom

 

Howard,
you were lucky on two accounts, you were able to get it back together to get home and you had the tools on hand to do it..... the new arms will take care of that problem....make sure the jam nuts are tight....

 

John, I forgot to ask... how did your wife(or is it girlfriend) like the ride???

 

Just got mine in the mail today. Installed them in about 15 minutes (including tire removal, etc.). I set them to stock arm length for now til I can get ahold of a square to make some measurements to adjust off of. They are very nice and I was quite pleased to see anti-sieze preinstalled on the threads. They were overly packaged lol, not that it is a bad thing by any means. Just did a quick spin around the block to settle the rear end down to normal height again. Wish I had it in the budget to get the sway bar links at the same time but thats the way it goes.
Very fast to ship, very high quality too. I would recommend these to anyone!

 

I would say you did more than get home, you drove fantastically with no hesitation, even after the quick fix, you got some ***** on you, Howard LOL

She commented more than a few times that she was incredibly glad we did it. Thanks again, Mike, and it greatly improves day to day driving as well...

 

Sorry for no updates been busy lately and have not messed with it for a while. Last weekend I pulled the spring out on the passenger side to change the spring pad but the dot 3s I had were fronts not rears. Ordered the rears and got em on Wednesday. Hope to get those on today after work or tomorrow to see what happens. My thoughts are raising the body up a little will mellow out the angle of the camber arm and provide a bit more of a gap between the sway/camber, hopefully enough. Looking it it again last weekend I am still getting body contact on the sway as well. If this does not give me enough room I will have to do the Les notch on the body to see what happens. I am pulling pretty hard to the left after all this playing so will need to find an alignment place as well but want to get it right first. Front could be the issue there though as I don't think the dealer did a propper front end after replacing my ball joints a while back.

 

Put the dot 3s on, gave it a couple days to settle (didn't need to, was pretty much settled as soon as I was done) Feels better and I do not think there is anymore contact (maybe at the extreme) I did a quick video run and it is very hard to tell if there is any contact, there is a noticeable difference in the gap though. I would have to get a different angle to be sure on video and was not willing to put my daily use phone in a risky spot I still have not put a new coat of paint in the contact area to monitor, has been a couple weeks now, need to get on it.

As far as the looks go I am not very happy but function trumps sexiness I guess. With the Dot 1s and full tank of gas I was just under 26" floor to top of wheel well. With Dot3s I am 26 1/2" which is acceptable. Once the tank gets low though its back to monster truck, not as bad as stock but 3 finger + gap comfortable, my flat stance is also gone and the rake is back. Front gap shrunk a bit but I did not take before measurements. I may be able to get away with dot 2s but will have to monitor contact first.

I also went to Firestone to try to get an alignment, I told the dude at the front desk I had the front bolts installed and the adjustable arms in the back and asked if they could do it. He said it should be fine, waited an hour got called up and told they could not align. Said they required special bolts up front (handed me a picture of the bolts installed) and that they needed a special tool to adjust the toe in the rear and could not do that either. Suggested I go to the dealer (where i got it done initially after ball joint work and was not happy as I am pretty sure they didn't do anything once they saw the drop, I also did not receive a print out of the specs) I was not about to argue with firestone though, the car was already off the rack and parked in the lot.

Readings
(safari - firefox)
IE


Not sure how to proceed from here, My guestimations on the rear camber were ok and I might actually want to tune a little more negative in. I have seen where people have done the toe but I have no clue how it was done. As far as front camber I can live with the right front but the left is a bit much. I put the bolts in myself so I could check to see if I did it the right way. I am pretty sure I did them both the same. If I put it in backwards I assume I am at -1.9 so turning it around should put me at -1.6 assuming the .3 degree adjustment is correct which I would be happy with.

 

I have the MBZ camber bolts as well, and all they could dial in was -1.6 max, won't get any better using the MBZ bolts as they only give you .5 degrees, come to find out. So, either a KMAC bushing kit might be in order, or camber plates (if you can find them... which apparently nobody can). Others can chime in, but at my KW-V2 lowering height with rake (1 finger in front, 2 fingers in back), I'm at -1.6 left and right front, and with MBArts' camber arms in back, I'm at -1.4 both left and right in the back. Rides great, no contact, no cutting or shaving. I don't track my SRT6 though. So you hard-core track guys might find it different for other in-use suspension setups and alignment settings.

 

I had the same issue at Firestone with rear toe. I told the young tech that I used a torx 55 socket bit to eyeball adjust my rear toe, but there is very little room to fit a ratchet and torx 55 socket bit. So I watch the tech as he tried to adjust the driver side rear toe for 45 minutes. He tried my method for 5 minutes and gave up, then he used vise grips and still could not adjust the toe. He then asked another tech for help, the older tech walked over and I mention that I used a torx 55 bit.
So the older tech got a torx 55 L wrench and was able to adjust both rear toe within 10 minutes.
At this point I realized that I had the wheel off and using the ratchet torx 55 socket I was able to adjust the toe, but with the wheel on and the car lifted this method is much harder.

So if Firestone charged you for the alignment and did not adjust rear toe, you should go back and get another tech to use a torx 55 L wrench to adjust rear toe. It should be easy for an experience tech, loosen nut and use torx 55 to move the eccentric bolt to adjust toe and then hold bolt with torx 55 L wrench and tighten nut. Done.

Shade

 

Many thanks, there was no charge for the reading, I will take a look and see if I can eyeball it this weekend if I have time and go for another reading, hopefully I can get it in spec or close to it myself first before trying the stealership again. I'll take notes of number of turns etc. and hopefully get a good idea of how much I need to do to adjust properly.