So back on black Friday I bought myself a bunch of goodies for the Z:
- SPL camber arms
- White line sway bars
- White line rear end links
- SPC toe bolts
- 25 row oil cooler
And didn't get around to installing them until mid December. I ended up not putting in the toe bolts because I was running low on time and needed my car finished right away. Mind you I was doing this in my parent's garage which is an hour away from where I live, so I had to mind their time.
Long story short, after the install I knew I had to get the car realigned so I booked one at a local shop the next week. I drove home in the car (40 miles) and while it felt different, it wasn't good. I knew the toe must have been pretty off as it was very uneasy over bumps. On smooth pavement it was fine though.
I brought it into the shop the next week only to find out their hunter machine was broken, so they'd have to try and do it by hand (gave me a major discount). I thought i'd might as well get it closer to spec before I could do a proper alignment with a functional, laser hunter machine. They went through the suspension parts I installed to make sure they all looked good and did help correct the toe a bit, but not by much since we tried to eliminate as much camber as possible first. Should have done something more balanced thinking back.
So again I drove home and the car still felt sketchy on bumps and was unnerving. I was starting to think the sway bars weren't worth my $ or time. I wasn't able to schedule another alignment until just yesterday. I only drive on the weekends for fun, so it wasn't a priority rush item for me.
I finally brought the car in, the reduced the rear camber from -2.6 to -2.0 (I'm dropped on Swfts which is why there is so much camber) and were able to bring the toe back into spec without having to install the new toe bolts....
MAN fixing the toe made my car an entirely new beast. This thing is amazing now! I spent 2 hours after the alignment just attacking random mountain roads and it was glorious.
Moral of the story: get your alignment done right, right away! Toe will **** **** up.
Thanks for reading
