Slanted Body Lift

[D Farms]

I believe you have positive and negative caster mixed up. The factory toyota caster spec is +2.5-4 degrees. I am getting +1.25 degrees with my 3" lift and stock uca's. I've gotten used to it now and I think it drives ok, but it does feel twitchy at highway speeds and the wheel returns to center quite slowly. Ideally, I'd get aftermarket uca's and run at least +4 degrees of caster.

OK so now I'm confused, how does having positive caster make the wheel move forward?

 

[A.Wilson013]

Sorry for the rant in advance....

I believe you have positive and negative caster mixed up. ...

I also think you've got them swapped. I am not sure though, you could be right. I only researched for about 10 minutes before saying, "Yup, moving it forward."

As for my alignment measurements... (And for what it's worth, the tech said that my caster was nearly maxed at this value. I am running the Light Racing UCA's)

DRIVER----|----PASSENGER
Camber: 0.6|0.1
Caster: 3.7|3.6
Toe: 0.09|-0.12

Steer ahead: -.02 (No idea what this is)

OK so now I'm confused, how does having positive caster make the wheel move forward?

Here's the link I used to read up a bit... I think we should discuss alignment further elsewhere to save the OP's thread =p

http://www.nogripracing.com/forum/showthread.php?p=326209

 

[MStudt]

I'm really surprised this is still going. For the people that don't have person experience with body lifts not being equal on all ends. You really shouldn't be giving advice on something you're not familiar with. The is NO difference in running a 2" body lift all around vs. running a tapered body lift. There is nothing in the vehicle cab that needs to remain parallel to the frame. There is nothing tied into the cab from the frame that would require a body lift needing to be evenly spaced all around. As long as to you taper the pucks correctly, there is nothing wrong with doing this.

On another note, these might help with your caster/camber questions.

Camber


Caster

 

[csp]

I'm still unsure of why you think this won't work.

I see that, but I'm not going to beat my head against a wall because you don't see how the mounts on the body and frame need to be parallel with each other to keep from bending sheetmetal and having bolts go in crooked.

If things on the sheetmetal start to bend and bolts aren't in straight you're putting excessive and uneven loads on the body every time you hit the brakes and even more so in a panic situation. It's a leverage thing.

 

[JohnMc]

The body rests against a rubber mount. There will be a very slight angle introduced by having the body lifted 2" up front and 0" in back, but that angle will be very slight. You could taper the pucks, but there's nothing particularly keeping them clocked in any orientation. I think it's probably not worth the effort. The rubber mount will be able to take up the slight angle difference.

Getting the staggered heights right will be more important.

Using this: Right Triangle Angle And Side Calculator, 2 inches, and 160 as the length between the front and rear mounts (estimated, overall length minus about 8 inches front and rear?)

That gives us a length of the raised line as 160.01 inches, certainly nothing to worry about. And the calculated angle is 0.71616 degrees. If you think you can actually slice a spacer to something less than a degree of slant, and keep it from turning, feel free to try, you're mostly just making yourself feel better.

 

[SL28]

I'm really surprised this is still going. For the people that don't have person experience with body lifts not being equal on all ends. You really shouldn't be giving advice on something you're not familiar with. The is NO difference in running a 2" body lift all around vs. running a tapered body lift. There is nothing in the vehicle cab that needs to remain parallel to the frame. There is nothing tied into the cab from the frame that would require a body lift needing to be evenly spaced all around. As long as to you taper the pucks correctly, there is nothing wrong with doing]

THIS ^^^^

Regarding caster, alignment readings are based on wheel position. Adding caster moves the wheel forward while gaining clearance at the rear fender / well area. Confusion comes in when talking about adding caster to the top of the spindle (At the UCA) which will moves the wheel back.

I have aftermarket UCAs and asked for max caster while maintaining proper camber and toe. The alignment shop I use is one of the best - very knowledgable with lots of experience dialing in suspension lifted vehicles. They warned me against too much. I insisted and drove away with 3.8.

Lots of clearance but steering was squirrelly on mountain passes. I'm now at 3.2 with good clearance, and it handles MUCH better.