Alignment Process for the 818S

[Harley818]

I just did my wheel alignment, and had to search through a lot of info to get ready.
So, I thought I would put it together in one place for those who still have to align their 818S.

Please comment if there is something that is not right. Hopefully I have it, otherwise I will have to make corrections myself.
I never thought of doing my own alignment until I read up on the forum here that others were doing it and I just wanted to thank those who have provide info and motivation to do it myself.
I like learning new things, so now I know how to do a wheel alignment.
Also, I will try to give credit where it is due... and mention those I have used as a reference. Thanks to you all on the forum who have contributed.

First, I re-read as much as I could to determine if I was ready.

Then I pulled off all the body panels to make the alignment easier. I wanted to neaten up all the wiring and heater hoses, AWIC lines, coolant lines anyways, so this was a good opportunity to clean everything all up.
I don’t know how easy it would be to do with panels on. Body panels off the car was really easy.

1 - did I have the car set to ride height.... check. I had previously set mine to 5 inches. I have the yellow Koni’s that came with the 818S and Standard springs they send.

In Xusia’s thread Freds outlined the ride height process some time ago.
To set ride height for torquing the suspension bushings/mounts, you do not need any particular weight at all.

- Mount your wheels with about 10 psi inflation pressure.
- Make 4.5" or 4.75" (or whatever your target clearance number is) spacer blocks out of lumber and set them under the chassis at all four corners.
- Adjust the spring pre load collars to absolutely no load at all.
With the low pressure in the tires your suspension links will all be very close to ride height now.
- Torque up all mounting hardware.
And you are done.
Later you merely adjust the spring pre-loads to get the car to ride height. As you add weight you tighten the collars to get the chassis up to ride height, and the suspension components to their "neutral" condition.

2 - did I have the rear LCA mounts oriented with the "squiggle down? ....Check. (I had one upside down).
The squiggle tang is longer than the flat tang, so this positions your LCA with more caster, and gives the most tire clearance to the firewall. Thanks to Bob and Cincy and others who noted this.
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With the body panels off, it wasn't too hard to remove the LCA, flip it over, and re-secure.
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3 - check orientation of the lower shock mount. For aluminum LCA's, this is recommended by FFR to “point outwards”, for steel LCA’s, to "point inwards”. As someone pointed out, the distance is the same for either orientation, so to many of us engineers, make your own judgement as to which orientation is right. Someone calculated stress levels to be well below failure for either orientation.
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4 - Were my trailing links set to the right length? I set them so the wheel would be in the middle of the wheel well. I checked that they were the same. I bought the adjustable ones, and they were set to 20.75 inches.

5 - I set the rear lateral links to 15.75 per the stock subaru length. Someone on the forum mentioned they were 15.75. I have wagon links and they measure 16 1/8 centre to centre. Which is correct?

6 - set tires on slip plates. I used two sheets of ABS plastic with grease in between. This allows the suspension to settle without residual binding due to friction with the floor. Make sure any wrenching you do doesn’t move the car. I was wondering why the jack stands moved when in fact my torquing of bolts was moving the car on the slip plates….. LOL.

String Set up.

You can google or youtube many versions of how to align your car with string. Hindsight and others mentioned on here that they used this technique successfully. I picked the version that sounded the most credible.

I set up two steel angles on jack stands about mid wheel height, one in front of the car, one in back. I marked 74 inches on both angles.
Then I measured the distance between the front angle and the rear angle to make sure they were parallel.
I stretched some thin string on the right side marks front to back, and same for the left side marks.
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Next step is to measure from each front wheel hub to the string on each side to make sure its set at an equal distance. Slide the angle right or left until the string distance to wheel is the same both sides for the front.
Do the same for the rear angle sliding side to side until the distance to the rear wheel hub is equal on both sides.
The distance from the string to the wheel hub will be different front to back because of the difference in wheel track front to back. As long as they are the same for the front or same for the back you are OK.
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I re-checked to make sure the strings were still on the two marks for 74 inches on the front and rear angles, and re-checked the distance between the front and rear angles.
You now have the strings parallel to the wheels on both sides and ready for alignment.

The alignment I was trying to achieve was recommended by Wayne for the 818S when by tmorreta for something between the 818R and 818S. (see "front suspension alignment" thread). Hindsight also had similar numbers as his goal originally, but has changed to higher caster.
Rear toe in 1/4 in total.
Rear Camber -0.75 degrees
Front toe in 3/16 total
Front Caster 3 degrees
Front Camber - 1 degree