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Gonna respond below in red. Feels like I'm at work lol. Responses are not intended to sound harsh if they come off this way, just explaining the situation further using your guys' responses.
Collegekid said (doing it this way becuase reading a quote box this size is hard on the eyes):
Interesting problem.
in short, you essentially have
-passenger side ride height is significantly lower than drivers side Yes, if I have the coilover settings mirrored side-to-side, the ride height difference is egregious. I have it adjusted, albeit eyesight adjusted, to be as even as I can get it.
-passenger track width is "wider" compared to drivers side Yes, very much so. No spacers on pass side, about ~18mm on driver's side. Pass side pokes maybe 2mm more still.
-camber difference on pass side This one is a little less of an issue but I'd say yes there's something affecting camber. As of now my camber plates are even side-to-side, FLCA are a fixed length, and camber side to side is even (within .5 degrees or so per my last alignment).
These symptoms persist regardless of the S14 arms or extended S13 arms? Correct
The knuckles can only go on one way, and I assume you didn't have manufacturing defects both times. Yes, the issue did not remedy itself at all when I went to modded S13 arm + knuck from S14 arm and stock knuck + GKTech. This change alone strongly indicates that the arm and/or knuckle (including presense of GK RCA) are not the issue.
If the coilovers are still the same, then I'd ask if you are hearing ANY weird noises on them. If you say the only things that changed were the arms and RCA kit then here's what I'd look at. Coilovers never changed since the problem was nonexistent. Coilovers bought new by me.
Coilovers - Make sure camber settings up top are even on both sides. It is. Make sure the top mounting hole isnt slotted where it mates to the knuckle. The ones I have do not have slotted knuckle mounts. Some people oval out the holes to get some camber adjustment.
-Check the lower mount to make sure it's not bent, but if you are able to adjust it to try to get more ride height, I'd assume it's fine. Agreed. Spins freely too.
- Make sure the springs are identical on both coils. Sounds stupid but Idk if you bought those coils new or not. Bought new and they are not a high quality coilover (bought before I had actual income lol) so springs are standard default rates/lengths.
-Make sure upper perches are at the same height. I assume you have verified this but still. I have never verified preload with a fine-toothed comb, but have verified by spin friction of the unloaded springs. Did not feel the need to dig deeper here as my symptoms are way more extensive than a minor adjustment of something.
Knuckles - verify that the knuckle to lower coilover mounts are all using the same hardware. This sounds like you have one eccentric bolt set to negative camber on the passenger side. Are these eccentric on an S13? I am in disbelief, would be big news to me.
Just make sure all 4(?) bolts are all the same, or are not mismatched (like you have an eccentric bolt on the bottom mount). See above comment.
Other than that, I can't even find the site for the knuckles but I can't imagine that they're off center. These are modified stock kunckles by Russ Barcomb. He is an oldhead fabricator that is pretty renowned in the New England drift community. Not sure he still does this service but I stand behind his craftsmanship. Also, gonna reiterate that this issue was present before and after the new knuckle and LCA. I feel this is evidence that the items themselves are not going to be the issue.
Hubs - just want to make sure you don't have some howling ass hub on the passenger side. Just making sure your wheel bearing isn't really toasted. In an extreme case that could be it but highly unlikely here. I have actually noticed a wheel bearing going out on the pass side and am replacing it with a 5 lug swap soon. But this only creates a small amount of play, and I find it hard to believe it would cause a static alignment change like this.
20mm extended s13 arms - I've seen professionals mess up on a daily basis. I'd check both of them for the distance from the mounting holes to the ball joint. It's really hard to hit 20.000mm. They were done using the Villians extension pieces. Again, issue existed on OE S14 kunckles as well, and even if there was a .5mm error, it wouldn't create a 1-2 inch variance in ride height and 20mm difference in track.
Tension rods - just make sure they are both even, I assume the bushings are both good too? Even as of last alignment. They are heim joint units bought new by me.
I would like to see pictures. Me too. I'll add that to the list of things next time the car is being worked on.
In general, you can also get a boroscope like one of these. I scored one for $20 and it helps in looking for stuff that I can't fit my head in.
Also, the subframe mounting holes on the frame rail are pretty tight. If you do think that your subframe has shifted I would think you'd also get some clunking with it too. Check around where it mounts to see if you can find any paint spidering. Wil do. I also think that this is unlikely. More likely that it's bent somehow?
The bent coilover is something one can kind of point to. I assume you had the same coilovers on from when you:
-originally had a good alignment prior to installing GKteck and S14 arms Yes
-first encountered the issue after installing GKteck and S14 arms yes
-Still had the same problems with the extended S13 and DD knuckles eeYup
It might not be the entire coilover being bent, could just be the lower threaded mount.
AKADriver said:
If you've changed LCAs and coilovers and the problem persists I can only suspect three things: I never changed coilovers.
- Frame tweaked in a way that's not immediately obvious like a collapsed strut tower. You could go through the frame cross-measurements in the FSM to make sure the suspension pickup points are all in spec side to side. I'd like to do this. I need the proper measuring tool a frame shop uses if I were to trust my measurements.
- Knuckle is somehow bent. I'd expect this to crack not bend though. Unlikely given the issue existed with stock knuckle + GK and my modded knuckles. It's important to note that the cores I sent to Dang Drifters came from a different, stock shell.
- You're gauging how visibly level it looks and the wheelgap from the fender lip, and it's the fender that's out of whack. If you were with my car you'd know it's not that. I've had a few sets of original fenders on and the issue doesn't change. The vast variance in track and ride height (if not band-aid remedied in the ways that I am currently doing) speak for themselves
For what it's worth I stuck a digital level/angle finder on my core support and found it was off by about .75 degrees - passenger side high - with my coilovers on the exact same setting left to right. My car is otherwise completely stock chassis-wise, no altered geometry, and it's never been crashed, and I drive like an old man. My car hasn't had an alignment since replacing the rack and tie rods so I decided to mess with the shock body height and preload to see if I could level it and I couldn't, at least with conservative changes that wouldn't have resulted in it being way different side to side like yours. The car would just settle back to being passenger side high. .75 degrees of tilt over the S13's stock track width is equivalent to one side being 3/4" high. Though measuring from wheel center to fender lip (that's how Miata guys do it) the wheelgap is only maybe 3/8" different, but then even in my non-crashed car the front fender lips might be unreliable.
I like that you pointed this out. What you are seeing, in my eyes, is just the realities of an old chassis. My issue is "Something is obviously not right here."
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