TommyG
Viper Owner
Almost a year ago I brought my 04 srt10 red vert from DFW to SA. Some of you may recall my issues with the car darting all over the lane and me being terrified to drive it over 75mph.
A new right front upper control arm and steering knuckle was in order and tamed the crazyness down a tad. Shortly after, I had Moton CS put on with 500/800 lb springs. I also had the ride height adjusted as I wanted the car lower.
I knew I needed an alignment soon so I took it elsewhere for this and drove it home with the steering wheel a bit turned to teh right while going straight down the hwy? I then took it to a dealer to correct and gave them the specs I wanted which consisted of the negative 1.5 camber up front and an over all agressive street set up.
I forgot to mention that where I got the crooked steering wheel alignment, I also asked them to lower a tad bit more prior to alignment and make sure rake was good.
I play around with the comp/rebound and psi as I have the fill kit from Tom. I notice more space between the top of tire and fender up front compared to in rear, but the car does look lowered. I end up with 190 psi front and 200 psi rear with 2 comp 3 rebound all around.
Everything feels ok for the most part until I have a pretty bad understeer situation a few weeks back. My learning curve did not help the matter at all, matter of fact it made it worse, however, the car began with the understeer was what it felt like anyway.
All this to say, this week I took it to a shop I work alot with on my other cars. Mark J gives me the specs for success for alignment and rake and moton settings. The shop tells me the rear was a bit lower than the front and the before alignment specs for the front were pretty much stock and rear was a slight agressive street alignment.
The shop gave the car 4.5 front 5.25 rear rake measured at centerline of wheels and a very nice 1.8 negative camber front and I think negative .8 rear. "Don't have all the other specs handy right now". I reduced psi to 175 all around and gave the rebound 3 stiff clicks all around and compression 3 stiff in front and 4 stiff in rear.
Holy Cow the car has been transformed. It almost felt like a C6 Z06 on the highway headed out to the track. I am so so so happy and my feelings of love for my car have doubled. The car handled so much better at the track and the turns where I uses to exp understeer where so much more managable. Like Mark said, "when the rear goes up, you will have more oversteer at corner entry". I did have that. The car is so well planted and much more predictable than before.
Where as before, I would not fathom take the car much over 100mph, I can see that it is certainly do able. It took almost a year of fiddling around but it was worth it.
Thanks for all your help Mark. Thanks also to Tom Nader for a kit that makes it so convenient to use and make the adjustments to your cannisters.
A new right front upper control arm and steering knuckle was in order and tamed the crazyness down a tad. Shortly after, I had Moton CS put on with 500/800 lb springs. I also had the ride height adjusted as I wanted the car lower.
I knew I needed an alignment soon so I took it elsewhere for this and drove it home with the steering wheel a bit turned to teh right while going straight down the hwy? I then took it to a dealer to correct and gave them the specs I wanted which consisted of the negative 1.5 camber up front and an over all agressive street set up.
I forgot to mention that where I got the crooked steering wheel alignment, I also asked them to lower a tad bit more prior to alignment and make sure rake was good.
I play around with the comp/rebound and psi as I have the fill kit from Tom. I notice more space between the top of tire and fender up front compared to in rear, but the car does look lowered. I end up with 190 psi front and 200 psi rear with 2 comp 3 rebound all around.
Everything feels ok for the most part until I have a pretty bad understeer situation a few weeks back. My learning curve did not help the matter at all, matter of fact it made it worse, however, the car began with the understeer was what it felt like anyway.
All this to say, this week I took it to a shop I work alot with on my other cars. Mark J gives me the specs for success for alignment and rake and moton settings. The shop tells me the rear was a bit lower than the front and the before alignment specs for the front were pretty much stock and rear was a slight agressive street alignment.
The shop gave the car 4.5 front 5.25 rear rake measured at centerline of wheels and a very nice 1.8 negative camber front and I think negative .8 rear. "Don't have all the other specs handy right now". I reduced psi to 175 all around and gave the rebound 3 stiff clicks all around and compression 3 stiff in front and 4 stiff in rear.
Holy Cow the car has been transformed. It almost felt like a C6 Z06 on the highway headed out to the track. I am so so so happy and my feelings of love for my car have doubled. The car handled so much better at the track and the turns where I uses to exp understeer where so much more managable. Like Mark said, "when the rear goes up, you will have more oversteer at corner entry". I did have that. The car is so well planted and much more predictable than before.
Where as before, I would not fathom take the car much over 100mph, I can see that it is certainly do able. It took almost a year of fiddling around but it was worth it.
Thanks for all your help Mark. Thanks also to Tom Nader for a kit that makes it so convenient to use and make the adjustments to your cannisters.
