As a preface to this please let me say that I am definitely no suspension/alignment expert and I do not have much knowledge about anything involving the related components.

Today I had a friend who is taking an automotive course at the local community college run my car on a machine that measures the alignment values. Attached is the sheet that the machine printed off when he was done.

He told me (and it is obvious) that mostly everything was within spec with the exception of the front and rear toe. He told me that can fix these. Before I gave the car to him to look at I also told him that I had some clunking noises that I wanted checked out. He told me that it appears I need lower ball joints on both sides, the curved arm, which I assume is the control arm? He told me it all comes in once piece and for a high quality unit it will be around 100 each. I plan on replacing these, of course. I also have a clunking noise in the rear that has been narrowed down to something involving the suspension. It's like someone is constantly knocking lightly at the rear of the car. We have both agreed that it is likely blown struts. When he inspected the struts he told me that they are not leaking any oil, but that he cant imagine the sound to be coming from anything else. He said tie rod and ends seem to be fine.

So I will replace everything that is worn and get my alignment put as close to perfect spec as possible.

The reason for my post is to ask what is recommended for my application? I am building a street/strip 16g that won't see anything faster than 11.9. It is only going down the drag strip and not around the twistys. It is my DAILY DRIVER and reliability is every bit as important as performance. I'd sure love to get some coilovers and lower the car several inches but that just isn't going to happen on my budget, and that is fine. I know that to reach my performance goals I'm not going to need to squeeze every little last bit out of my suspension setup. But I do want to have original factory performance OR BETTER if I can, with a basic suspension setup.

I have also heard that the toe on the rear can be adjusted somehow to induce less understeer? I believe that we understeer pretty bad from the factory, right? I don't want oversteer from hell but I do want less understeer, of course.

Taking all of that into consideration, and to make it eaiser to reply to my post:

1. Are there any specific brands/types of Control arms/lower ball joints and struts that I should get? Is one brand better than another? If I just get generic parts will they last and perform as well for me as I will need? Please elaborate heavily on this for me.

2. Again, the car is a daily. Can anyone give me specific degrees of adjustment for all measured values that I could safely set my car at? I can totally do 0 degrees all across but are there any slight alterations that can be made to make it handle better? Any extreme alterations that can be safely made to make it handle better, keeping in mind it is a daily?

I REALLY apppreciate any help. I have no idea what I'm doing and I am trying my best to get as much knowledge about suspension and alignment as I can.

THANK YOU!

ok well i use the same machine as the one that he just used i assume because the print off looks the same. as for the clunking in the rear you might just have bad bushings. get it on a lift and get under it and see if you can shake anything around or use a pry bar to move things. not saying your freind doesnt know what hes doing but he must not have done a caster camber sweep on the machine that is why the front caster is in gray with no specs. it does need some fine tuning but get your front toe fixed asap because you have to be getting uneven or"cutting" on your tread for the tires. and yes you can adjust the toe and caster camber on the rear not sure how to do the toe will find out in a bit but the caster camber is propbably a cam bolt or something. hope i helped a little.

There are no caster or camber adjustments from factory on the eclipses. You can make your own camber kit though and from what I believe caster cannot be adjusted without some serious suspension work. You can adjust camber on the front and rear though if you get longer bolts with washers for the rear and an adjustable ball join for the front.

Get an Ingalls rear camber kit, fix your rear camber, set your rear toe then set your front toe and your done.

Your front and rear toe is all jacked up. Toe in AND toe out in the rear? Ideal from the factory is .12* of toe for the rear. I've enjoyed as little as .03* just don't go more than the .12* for wear purposes. Get your toe up front zero'd out. And your thrust angle could be improved too.

I'd worry more about gaining negative camber up front before you worry about removing negative camber in the rear. Right now the car will tend to lose grip up front (understeer) with such low negative camber values in the front. THEN, you'll want to match your rear values to half the negative camber you have up front.

i.e. This is my preferred alignment for a spirited DD.
FRONT
Camber: -1.2*
Caster: non adjustable in stock form
Toe: 0.00*

REAR:
Camber -0.7*
Toe: 0.03* to 0.12*, I like the idea of less toe, but toe in on the rear will provided stability under hard braking.

I just got back from getting an alignment about an hour ago.