hi there
i have jsut got the alk from s/mania. the only thing it does not come with any instruction as what camber settings it should be used with. i am getting it fitted on friday can someone who have already fitted it on a 99 car tell me what sitting should the camber be after fitting the ALK?.
at the moment i am running on -0.75 degrees at the font and 1mm toe in all round


cheers

sam

 

Sam,

I have fitted the ALK and am currently running it with -1.3 deg camber and 1mm toe-in all around.

I have also fitted the solid rear links - although if you do this you will need to replace the sway bar bushes - however the overall improvement is just superb - it is a great combination on the STi V - much less twitchy than the standard car - great confidence driving it - huge amounts of power possible in the corner.


If you have a UK car - do the solid rear links first - then if you want to go further do the solid front links as well. I am sure that Ben will also encourage you to do the sway bars as well!

Finally - I am about to fit 17in rims and will probably reduce the camber to around 1 deg, I'll let you know how this works out.

Rannoch

 

Sam,

With the ALK only static castor is improved. Due to the way it needs to be fitted an alignment is in place.

My suggestion is to go for -0.75 to -1 degrees of camber. At the moment I am running only at -0.4 degrees as we couldn't loosen the lower bolts on the shockhousing needed to adjust camber (with the higher bolts).

regards

Nico van Steen
Netherlands

 

Rannoch
how different is the stiV suspension from the UK MY99. ? DO you have any ideas.? I have driven a stiv and I thought it was very twitchy compared to the UK model but again you are carrying a lot more power so I could be talking rubbish.
What did you fit first? I like the fact the car understeers so I don’t want it to start oversteering. But what I am looking for is to reduce the understeer as much as possible with out eliminating it completely. I hope I am making sense. Basically if I wanted oversteer I would have gone for an RX7. L

nico
so you recommend around -1 degree. I didn't quiet get why are you only running -0.4 ? Do you also have the rear sway bar?

you see the garage that I am going to get the ALK fitted at is not the most helpful actually the verge on being sceptical about the ALK but the have good laser equipment for camber and toe setting. so I need to know exactly what I want!!

 

David, are you reducing the negative camber because the handling is not "right" or because you want to see if it improves. Reason for asking is that I run 1.4 negative front and 1.1 negative rear with 1.0 mm total toe fron and rear and have alk to fit. I didn't really want to alter the settings unless its absolutely essential as my car (STi 2 Wagon) handles really well like this.

I have driven a V with alk fitted on standard suspension and have to say it handled superbly, don't know what the geometry was though.

Bob

 

Sam,

the Sti is much stiffer - and this is why it feels twitchy on bouncy UK roads. I found that the combination of solid rear links and the reduced compliance at the front end has made the overall car feel more supple and 'glued' to the road. In addition the ALK gives fantastic bit at the front end.

Overall the suppleness as quelled oversteer somewhat and so the car is more neutral now than it was before.

Bob,

I was thinking of reducing the front end camber purely to see if the handling was the same but with reduced tyre wear on the inside edge due to the negative camber. So the change is purely experimental.

I have seen other comments regarding the ALK saying that the dynamic geom change reduces inside edge wear anyway, and that you also require less neg camber at the front. (It will also cure cancer, bring about world peace.... )

Anyway, I am currently so pleased with the ALK/Links set up that I have put off the investment into Leda etc as currently I am not convinced I need it. Yet

Rannoch

 

Thanks for that David, guess I will go ahead and leave it as it is and see what happens.

Bob

 

Sam,

I got the whole lot on our MY99. So ALK, steel endlinks front and rear, swaybars front 22mm and rear 18-22mm adjustable + rear camber pins.

What I was trying to explain (in my lousy english) is that for adjusting camber you need to loosen two bolts that are on the (I think) shock housing. The upper one is the bolt that actually makes the wheel have more camber and the lower needs to be loosened so adjustments can be made at all. Just take a look when they are doing the alignment, you'll then understand what I mean (hopefully).

At the moment I am running -0.4 up front, -1.2 in the rear and no toe. The zero toe makes the car a bit twitchy, so I just might want to change to a little toe in up front.

Nico van Steen