Thanks Ron@AIM Tire & Tim@TFB Performance
07-17-2009, 11:16 PM
#1
Safety Car
Thread Starter
Thanks Ron@AIM Tire & Tim@TFB Performance
And thanks to John@CCW! As anybody that can tolerate reading my threads knows I've had 18x11 front wheels on my C6 and had some issues with them rubbing fenders and tie-rods no matter what I try to do. The fronts are near two years old now, but John@CCW is doing me a solid and working things out with 18x10 front wheels. As always, they're beautiful pieces of aluminum!
John recommended I call up Ron@AIM for a pair of 275/35r18 R888 to replace the 295/30r18 I had been running on the 11in rims. And Ron was able to handle that no problem. I replaced the 305/35r18 rears at the same time. Traffic getting to Infineon kind of sucked this morning so I rolled up a little later than I had intended. The guys looked at the car, parked me near the doors, I told them about the wheels in the hatch and went to chat with Ron -- before you know it they're done. No muss, no fuss. Even taped the wheel weights for me. Great price on the mount and balance, and the rubber.
I've been doing home alignments for a while and the car has never been corner weighted. So off around the corner is Tim Barber. Everybody I could find loves working with Tim and I can see why. Put the car on the scales, started working our way around it. Explained the HardbarUSA camber plates and stud kit -- which brings me to my many thanks to Gary@HardbarUSA who I cheated a bit and called for a reminder on the spacing change per degree of camber.
Car w/o driver 3239# and started with a 49.0% cross weight. After fixing up camber/caster/toe front and rear and throwing the equivalent of my butt in the drivers seat we land a 3444# total with a 49.6% cross weight. Front rang in at 52% with a little over 1/2 tank of gas.
Tim worked the alignment for me in tenths of a _millimeter_ (1/256") and hundredths of a degree and took near 6 hours to get me out of his shop even though he had a Porsche GT3 to get ready for Sunday and a Spec Miata that was due for pick up this evening. And he didn't even get pissed when the car drew some blood... fender arch bit his nose pretty good!
Huge thanks to Randy@DRM for helping me work out some suggested alignment settings, and most of all for providing the Bilstein coilovers as I pulled some funds out of the C6 to shift to the RX7 racecar. I simply cannot believe how well these things work. I don't care if DRM is the only Corvette company recommending the softer springs, and toe-in up front... the grip it provides is just phenomenal. I can't wait to put the car through its passes on the new setup.
And, yes, for the record, my driveway alignments were enough off to be noticable by Tim's precision, both in his work, and with his machine... at the same time he said it was pretty damn close, much closer than most... but I sure wish I could get the toe as precise as he does!
John recommended I call up Ron@AIM for a pair of 275/35r18 R888 to replace the 295/30r18 I had been running on the 11in rims. And Ron was able to handle that no problem. I replaced the 305/35r18 rears at the same time. Traffic getting to Infineon kind of sucked this morning so I rolled up a little later than I had intended. The guys looked at the car, parked me near the doors, I told them about the wheels in the hatch and went to chat with Ron -- before you know it they're done. No muss, no fuss. Even taped the wheel weights for me. Great price on the mount and balance, and the rubber.
I've been doing home alignments for a while and the car has never been corner weighted. So off around the corner is Tim Barber. Everybody I could find loves working with Tim and I can see why. Put the car on the scales, started working our way around it. Explained the HardbarUSA camber plates and stud kit -- which brings me to my many thanks to Gary@HardbarUSA who I cheated a bit and called for a reminder on the spacing change per degree of camber.
Car w/o driver 3239# and started with a 49.0% cross weight. After fixing up camber/caster/toe front and rear and throwing the equivalent of my butt in the drivers seat we land a 3444# total with a 49.6% cross weight. Front rang in at 52% with a little over 1/2 tank of gas.
Tim worked the alignment for me in tenths of a _millimeter_ (1/256") and hundredths of a degree and took near 6 hours to get me out of his shop even though he had a Porsche GT3 to get ready for Sunday and a Spec Miata that was due for pick up this evening. And he didn't even get pissed when the car drew some blood... fender arch bit his nose pretty good!
Huge thanks to Randy@DRM for helping me work out some suggested alignment settings, and most of all for providing the Bilstein coilovers as I pulled some funds out of the C6 to shift to the RX7 racecar. I simply cannot believe how well these things work. I don't care if DRM is the only Corvette company recommending the softer springs, and toe-in up front... the grip it provides is just phenomenal. I can't wait to put the car through its passes on the new setup.
And, yes, for the record, my driveway alignments were enough off to be noticable by Tim's precision, both in his work, and with his machine... at the same time he said it was pretty damn close, much closer than most... but I sure wish I could get the toe as precise as he does!
12-17-2009, 08:41 PM
#2
Safety Car
Thread Starter
Another thank you -- this one goes out to Tony & Joe at TC Design in Milpitas, CA. They're closer to me than Infineon. They've installed my DRM/Ron Davis radiator, changed all the fluids, installed the AiM MXL Pista, lubed all my poly bushings, and yesterday they did a ride height, corner weight, and alignment. Yes, I went through all this again because I decided to remove the spacers on my upper control arms in the front to pull the wheel further inside the fender... as recommended by Randy@DRM and RAFTRACER.
They got the alignment dead nuts perfect to the specs I provided, and the biggest shock to me was just how much better the car felt since the alignment is effectively identical to what I had two days prior with just a [major] change in front track width.
New corner weights:
LF: 889 RF: 875
LR: 851 RR: 817
Total: 3432#
Front: 1764# (51.4%)
Left: 1740# (50.7%)
Cross: 1726# (50.3%)
They've been specializing in BMW & Porsche but they're [re-]building my RX7 turbo for me, and they're learning their way around Corvettes; they'll work on whatever -- I'm going to get my wife's GTI aligned there.
SF Bay Area folks should keep them in mind if you want to work with somebody that'll do what you ask at reasonable rates!
They got the alignment dead nuts perfect to the specs I provided, and the biggest shock to me was just how much better the car felt since the alignment is effectively identical to what I had two days prior with just a [major] change in front track width.
New corner weights:
LF: 889 RF: 875
LR: 851 RR: 817
Total: 3432#
Front: 1764# (51.4%)
Left: 1740# (50.7%)
Cross: 1726# (50.3%)
They've been specializing in BMW & Porsche but they're [re-]building my RX7 turbo for me, and they're learning their way around Corvettes; they'll work on whatever -- I'm going to get my wife's GTI aligned there.
SF Bay Area folks should keep them in mind if you want to work with somebody that'll do what you ask at reasonable rates!
