Contact Aftermath, Getting Back to Where I Was

[Supercharged111]

As some may know, myself and Derek shared more than a near death experience on Friday's rainy practice session. My right front connected with his left front after his off in T5 in R3. My camber got pushed in a little and the caster all the way, so I was a deal or 2 off and just came into tech. For R4 I got symmetrical camber and reset toe, the car went .6 seconds faster too. Now I'm in my garage checking caster, because the car pulls to the left. Lo and behold tonight I find 3.8 on the left side and 4.8 on the right. I also find, via a possibly erroneous method, that the left wheelbase is 1/8" longer than the right. I dropped a plumb bob off the rear of the front tire and the front of the rear and measured that distance, with the straightness of the front wheels eyeballed. I'd really like a more scientific method than that, but can't seem to find one. Same with caster, I eyeballed the center and marked 15 degrees off of there either way to measure my caster. At this point, both caster bolts are maxxed but I'd hate to dumb the right side down to 3.8 just to make the car track straight. I'm kicking myself now that I never checked my caster before so my baseline now is on a possibly tweaked car. I've already hogged out the UCA mount holes on the left side and I still had to max out the lower adjustment slot to get 2.2 degrees of camber. I suppose I could loosen the k member and try pushing it to the right to decrease my lower camber adjustment in an attempt to gain some left caster? If all the frame goodies are OK and it turns out I bent a spindle, well, it seems to have made my caster better so to change or not to change is the question?

[Supercharged111]

After a couple days of derr, I'm going with plan A: align the car and run it. I just remembered the left side has camber to spare, so I can use some of that range to put more caster in the car via the hogged out UCA mounts. If it doesn't feel right, I'll get the frame pulled later in the year but for now, I'm leaving town for a couple months after the Pueblo race and don't really have a lot of time to horse around with it up until then. So hedge your bets that my car will suck and come on up to Pueblo for the weekend of the 4th.

[Pranav]

Have you not considered your spindles may need replacing? They bend easily. Mine got bent this past weekend, maxed it out and only have -1* of camber as opposed to 2.2* with room to spare on the LCA slot.

Sadly this is the third vehicle on which I've bent a spindle.

[Supercharged111]

Not dismissing that possibility, but have no idea how to check. If it's bent and gave me more caster, maybe the left side needs a good whack too.

[Pranav]

Probably a good idea to pick up one or two and check before jumping to conclusions, they make for good spares.

[Supercharged111]

Yeah, there are a couple V6 mullet-mobiles in the local pull and pray. Those cars are too slow to crash, so decent bet they're straight. I guess I have to expand what I consider to be consumable.