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So, long ago when I installed my Progress springs, the car still drove straight, so I decided to not get an alignment, despite everyone's warnings that it was a necessity. They don't call me "genius" for nothing. So, over time, I completely destroyed my front two tires. Therefore, I bought some new rubbers and went to get an alignment. For future reference, I went to the Town Tire on 8th Ave. in Gainesville, and they did some really good work. They had some problems getting it to the specs I wanted, and just kept working on it till it was right. Awesome. Anyway, I had no idea what a difference a good alignment can make to the overall feeling of a car, and its ability to hold a turn. Alignment is defined by three characteristics for a front wheel drive car. Camber is the amount of lean, side-to-side of the tires relative to the ground. If you were to look at the front of the car, the camber would be how far the wheels were angled away from perpendicular to the ground. If they top of the wheels are farther out to the side than the bottom, then the car has positive camber. If the bottoms of the tires are farther out than the tops, then it's got negative camber. As I'm sure you can imagine, negative camber allows for better cornering. I got -0.5 degrees of camber on mine. Serious Auto-X people generally get -1.0 to -1.5 degrees. The more negative camber you have, the tighter and faster you can take turns, but it has its detriments, as well. More negative camber will get you faster and worse tire wear, as well as a decreased contact patch to the road, which isn't optimal for drag racing. The next aspect of alignment is caster. Caster is defined by how far to the front or back of the car the struts are positioned, relative to perpendicular to the ground. If you were looking at the side of a car, and the struts were angled so that the tops were closer to the back of the car than the bottoms, then the caster is positive. If the tops are in front of the bottoms, then the caster is negative. I'm not quite sure what the amount of caster does, but we can't really do a whole lot with it on our Saturns, anyway, so who the fuck cares. The last part of the alignment is toe. Toe is how much the wheels are turned in or out. If you were looking down on a car from above, and the wheels were angled so that they seemed to always be running away from each other (like duck feet), then the toe is out. If the wheels are angled so they seem to always be trying to run into each other, then the toe is in. Tow has a great impact on tire wear and how well a car turns into a corner. I got zero toe and -0.5 degrees camber, since the car is a daily driver, but needs to perform when it gets on the track. If you want more camber, then that's cool, but I'd always try to get zero toe, unless something is weird.
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To do the alignment, they put the car up on the rack and attached reflective surfaces to the side of each tire. Then, an infra-red beam was shot at the reflectors and the reflection anlges were used by a computer in front of the car to extrapolate the alignment settings. You can see the backs of the reflectors in the picture above, and the fronts to the right. Pretty sweet ass sweet, no? The upshot is that the car rides a lot smoother now, and can hold speed through turns amazingly well. Alignments are sweet.
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