which alignment spec controls tracking?

[edwardh1]

by tracking, the tendency of the car to go straight and not follow the road crown and therefore pull right.
All of my GM products (with heavy V8 engines) would pull right. I have owned two Toyotas and 2 hondas that seem to not notice the road crown at all.
I bought a new 99 maxima that pulled right, dealer worked on it 3 times, I then took it to a private mechanic who said
there was no adjustment except toe in/out and he "cut a slot in one strut" to allow adjustment. this fixed about 75% of the pull.
what characteristic controls "tracking " ----- caster? camber? toe in?
what was the slot for

 

[clinebarger]

Caster & Camber, I always used Caster to take care of a pull or to off-set road crown. Using Caster can cause tire wear.

Macpherson strut style suspension alignment specs can be off...ALOT, And still track straight.

Long arm/Short arm style suspension (Old style) is not near as forgiving.

Long arm/Short arm with struts & really tall spindles are in the middle, Older Hondas, 4th gen Camaros, Most new trucks use this style.

Hopefully, The slot was to adjust Caster.

 

[LotI]

Caster.

Cross-camber and cross camber generally greater than 1 degree can cause a pull. Camber causes tire wear directly.

 

[A_Harman]

The slot was for camber. Putting less positive camber (or more negative) on the passenger side front wheel compensates for road crown.

 

[LotI]

Originally Posted By: A_Harman
The slot was for camber. Putting less positive camber (or more negative) on the passenger side front wheel compensates for road crown.

Yup.

 

[clinebarger]

I meant to type "Using Camber to correct a pull can cause tire wear"

Caster can be used to correct a pull, The car will be biased to the side with the most positive caster.

 

[eljefino]

You can sometimes change caster on both sides by loosening the subframe and shifting everything over. Sometimes the top strut holes in the chassis have slots... 3rd gen camaros did this. Sometimes you can add these slots.

But the strut-to-knuckle interface gets the most dramatic results with the least grinding. You can also use a cam bolt (crash bolt) here, its "center" is off-center.

 

[artificialist]

The comparison you gave isn't exactly fair. RWD vehicles are more affected by road crown that FWD ones.

Anyway, in RWD vehicles, having about .5 degree lower caster than right caster compensates for road crown.

Camber is related, and in many FWD vehicles, caster can't be adjusted.