I know this is the wrong section to ask for help but it seems like the suspension forum has been dead for a while and nobody even looks there.

Anyway,

I just dressed my 08wrx with some Stance GR+ coilovers and I only dropped it probably about an "1.50 / "2 at the very most. When I did my alignment I made sure I zero'd my toe in front and rear and set my front camber at -1.0.

So now.. my car still pulls hard to the right in low speeds but not at all really on the freeway.. odd.

As for the rear the camber.. it is currently at -2.2 and I think other side had about a .2 or .4 split.. Would .2 or .4 of a split in rear camber cause a pull?? I am ordering camber correct bushing from whiteline in the rear but it will only help with .75 +/- adjustment.

If I am able to adjust my rear camber at -1.5 or -1.7 after the bushings will that be okay for even tire wear? Allowable max range I believe is -2.0 for stock height.


-Igor

 

If you have all your numbers balanced and your tires are inflated evenly then you will pull slightly right due to road crown. A lot of shops (including Custom Alignment in Mountain View) bias the caster to compensate for this.


Edit: You feel it more on city streets because they have much more of a crown than the highway does.

 

Yeah, I know about the road crown but it was never like this. Before it drifts slowly, now my steering wheel drops to the right.. exaggerating a bit but you know what I mean? Def big difference than before. I even made sure ride height is same everywhere

 

did you check the caster?

 

you did the alignment yourself or did a shop do it? I've done all of it myself before and without having the alignment tool, you'll never get it right...

 

I had this same prob aligining for a friend with these coiloves. The top hat bolts are at an angle so caster and camber are adjusted at the same time. You have to set the top hats in the same position and adjust the camber brom the bolts. At least that's how they were on a gd. Alighed it 3 times before realizing that it wasn't a true tophat camber adjustment it's tries to do both at the same time. I would reccomed a better top had that either only does camber or caster or a mrt that does true camber and caster. Good luck.

 

Did it at my work on a alignment rack, I had one of my techs do it after me as well

 

Wait, so your Front Camber is -1.0 both sides & the Rear Camber is -2.2 on both sides? That kind of Alignment is probably going to have your car Understeering like a Pig. You really should add more Front Camber and Dial down the Rear Camber (which it looks like you are planning on doing with the Camber Bolts).

The Toe looks to be 0 on all 4 corners. Which is good.

What is the Caster Setting on the Front?

1st - Check your Air Pressure in your tires. If you have a tire with low pressure it can cause a pull (you may have picked up a nail or something that is causing a leak so you may want to check for that.

2nd - Would be to check the Caster Setting. Since it isn't posted above I'm not sure what your setting are for Front Left, Front Right & Cross Caster. That would be helpful to see the numbers. Typically you are going to want the Right Front to be about 0.3 higher then the Left Front to accommodate for the Crown of the Road.

3rd - It could be caused by a Tire Pull. Not sure if you have Non-Directional Tires where you can transfer from Left to Right or not. If you do, then you may want to try that. If you have directional tires, then you might want to swap the Right Front & Right Rear tires and see if you still have a pull.

 

I will triple check everything and ill throw it on the rack again to post the specs. Tires are not directional, stock.

Do know what a brake pull feels like? How the steering just kind of drops to one side as you apply the brakes? That's kind of what it feels like now minus the applying the brakes part. My steering seems to be slightly and just very slightly turned to the right and its just so stiff there and pulling hard at low speeds

 

Hmmm ... I guess it could be possible to that you have some part of the braking system that is not fully disengaging, but if that's the case then that's a whole different can of worms. That could get in to things like: Brake Fluid Level is Low, e-Brake is not disengaging, brake calipers are not disengaging and therefore dragging, ABS is not properly functioning and things such as that. Since your car is an '08 I doubt you have that many miles on it yet to where you should be having braking issues though.

Outside of that, then it could be something is loose, damaged, broken, bent in the suspension (maybe something got moved out of place with the coilover install).

However, I'd check the alignment, tires first as those are typically the most likely culprits and the easiest to fix.

 

You think if dampening is off on one side on the front would cause a pull?

 

I'd honestly be shocked if that was the case. I've never really encountered something like that happening before and since you have NEW suspension components it really shouldn't be a problem of one side is over or under dampened compared to the other (unless Quality Control allows massive variances in their strut dampening to ship out the door).

You may want to take some pictures from the underside of the car to help us see if there is anything else that may look "Off". You should still try to Rule Out the above stuff first though before looking for a much more intricate and hard to pinpoint problem as I believe one of the above is more than likely causing the condition you are experiencing.

If you really want to check other stuff, then you may want to check if there is any play in the wheels (with the wheel on do the side to side and top and bottom wiggle of the wheel to see if anything is loose). You could also check to see if any of the rubber components under the car look to be torn or damaged. Look for any signs of leaking, stuff like that. However, I rather doubt a lot of this stuff would be problematic at this point in your car's history.

BTW - You do have the car set at the same ride height on both sides correct? It's easy to be "Close" and not actually be "Even" when adjusting the coilover ride height.

 

i bet your caster is off on one side causing it too pull. its the top hats look at them

 

Top hat? Its just the strut and camber plate on top

 

Can you post up pictures of the Camber Plate orientation on your car? Even if it's just a Camber Plate it usually can still affect Caster as well (depending on the orientation of the plate).