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2G Bad pull to the left

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YERFDOG

Proven Member
89
37
Feb 10, 2013
Bay Area, California
Hey everyone,

I have had this issue since I bought my 2G GSX back in December. The car pulls to the left at pretty much all speeds. On the highway if I let the wheel go, it'll crossover lanes pretty quickly. The car had stock GSX wheels on it with pretty bald tires on the inside edges (front). I got a set of EVO 9 Enkeis with tires that have pretty good meat /normal wear on them, but they are from 2008. I have had it aligned TWICE (2 different shops, couple months apart). Both days all TOE adjustments were out and corrected (see below for most recent). The front right CAMBER is off pretty good and the shop said this can be causing the pull. The cars struts look to have been replaced with an OEM replacement at stock height and controls arms, ect..all look okay. Nothing abnormal or bent as far as I can see. Car has NOT been in an accident either and is straight. Tires pressures are all even at 32.

I have yet to try and rotate the tires to see if it changes direction or gets any better or worse. The odds of 2 sets of bad tires is not good but you never know...

My question is what would be throwing my front right camber out of wack? Also the front left caster is funky...

Thanks!

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A few things:

  • Are you sure it is not the crown of the road?
  • Is the pull the same right after an alignment?
  • If you do not have directional tires, have you tried swapping them around?
  • 2008 is pretty old. Is the wear even on the inside and outside portion of the tread? I am not talking about eyeballed.
  • Any play in suspension/ steering components on that side?
  • Could a brake caliper be sticking?
 
Is your steering system in good condition? Possibly a bad steering rack? I'd imagine most alignment shops would know if the ball joints and tie rods are bad, I've been denied an alignment because a tie rod was bad.
 
Get the car off the wheels and check for obvious excess play in the control arms/ ball joints. I had a similar issue, shot ball joint. It was pretty dangerous, particularly going over bumps.
 
Your LF caster is WAY out of spec which is your main problem. Suspension may be bent.

From http://aligncraft.com/terms/terms.html:
"If one side has significantly more positive caster than the other (max side to side variation of +/- 0.5*), this causes it to toe inward with more force than the other side. This will cause a lead or pull to the side with least amount of positive caster (left in your case)."

The RF camber is also a little out of spec (worn arm bushings or ball joints or bent arm) which adds to your pull left:
"If camber is unequal from side to side with a difference greater than 1/2*, the vehicle will pull to the side with the most positive camber".
 
Wow lots of feedback! I appreciate it. I definitely have some things to inspect more thoroughly now. Thank you!! I will be updating this once I get a good look at everything.
 
I have to agree - The camber and caster will both pull left. I would do as already instructed - Jack the vehicle up and shake down the suspension. Also with the vehicle on the ground, check vehicle ride height at all four wheels. Make sure we don't have sagging spring. Caster is non-adjustable. Take a look a make sure all suspension components are installed correctly and seated. Other than that, we may be looking for some damage to the front end.
 
UPDATE!
Alright so I got to look at it briefly today. First off I checked the ride height because I have noticed it being lower/leans to the left. Here are the results:

Front Left: 26 5/8" Front Right: 27 3/8"
Rear Left: 27 1/8" Rear Right: 27 1/2"

I took these from the ground to the bottom center of the fender.

Shaking it down results:

Front Right was tight both side to side and up/down. Looks to be original arms and struts?(168,000 miles)
Front Left had no play side to side but definitely has play up and down. I had someone shaking it while I was under looking at all the joints/bushings but I couldn't tell what if anything was moving? Almost felt like a wheel bearing?? The tire/wheel would move before transferring to the control arms/ball joints. I noticed the axle would make the same noise when pulling it out toward myself. Normal? The other side did not have the same clunking play noise.

This picture is of the front left:
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Added a video of axle noise...
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your problem is your caster on the left side . car will pull to the side with the least caster .
 
how are your brake calipers and shoes?? i had a sticking passenger caliper and it was causing a pull/vibration.. if its warped your rotors that vibration could be causing the axel to shake. doesnt explain the alignment issue tho. good luck.
 
Honestly, I would start with struts/springs first. They are well over due and you already have an obvious ride height issue.

NOTE: If you have play up and down on the driver side, check that immediately. Are you shaking the front end down with the tires on or off?
 
Struts aren't going to change your caster. Either something is bent or you have a control arm bushing that's bad. I'm supposed a shop did an alignment with bad front end parts. I would probably find another one to take it to. To properly check the front end jack up the vehicle from under the lower control arm then give it a shake down. Also measure ride height from the center of the wheel to the fender lip, that way there is no possible difference in tire eight below the wheel. Based on your specs if you do not have camber kits I bet your RF is more on the lines of where it should be and your LF only looks good because somethings bent or worn. Giving the specs look for something that would bring the bottom of the tire in and towards the rear of the vehicle. My guess is a lower control arm bushing blown.
 
UPDATE
It's been awhile and I still have this problem. I was just trying to live with it, but it's getting annoying now. Anyway, I just replaced ALL front control arms/ball joints (all 6). AND got another alignment. Still pulls/drifts left. I'll attach my alignment sheet below, but it did improve from my alignments in the past. But as you can see, they were able to get everything within spec except the front right camber which is pretty far off for stock height. So I need recommendations on my next step?

Adjustable upper ball joint? Brand: SPC? Ingalls? (Do I need to replace the left side too since it doesn't "need" it)?
 

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I have been doing alignments for 11 years and I learn a thing or 2. Mind you I have never align a 2g. So what I see is wrong with those specs is the left side camber is way off from the right. Don't look at the colors because colors don't mean anything. Your caster is back wards. Normally you want camber and caster to be higher on RF. Reason being is that when you sit inside the camber will even out. Usually you want .5 difference from left to right and right side to be higher. On the normal day the car should track straight. Also some people think when their steering wheel is off center then the car is pulling. That's wrong. Steering wheel position is one thing and pulling is the other. Now that this is out of the way we can move on.

Your LF camber is too high and when you sit in it, it goes even higher.
Your caster is backwards but in your situation it is trying to make the front go to the right. So I would focus on camber more then anything.

If I was to get your car and see these numbers i would first swap tires from left to right if directional then rotate. Don't worry about steering wheel position if it changes. If that has no affect then try to shift crossmember and pull with comealong until it goes. Sometimes you get lucky and it shifts. On my 1g I was able to correct .5 degree of caster difference. If that fails and it most likely will since you difference is like 1.2 then try to look into upper control arms that will adjust. You have something bent. Usually when something is warn out the camber goes negative. Period. The weight of the car pushes it that way. So most likely lovel control arm and/or spindle. You can take measuring tape and measure on one side from set point and compare to the other side. Eventually you will find that something is off. But I would start looking into adjustable upper control arms if they even available.

I will have to warn you that not all alignment shops will play with some of these Mickey Mouse parts. Some don't even know what camber and caster is. You need to investigate into parts and explain how to adjust it. Some shops will tell you not too teach them and some will tell you go somewhere else. I personally don't like those guys And I know for a fact that he will complain about something. And you might pay double for the extra time. But I have modify car like that. Did many crvs rear arms, RAV4 rear arms, Volvo, vwr32 and many other. I grided c300 cross member very so slightly to gain caster. Mercedes gives you the lips for cams but don't give you cams and welds a nipple inside. Well you can remove that and have adjustment. Anyways good luck and report back.
 
Oh and the most important part is when the specs are in the green then it must be good. Your front toe is toed out. Haha makes me laugh. If you autocross your can then it's fine but usually on the street you don't toe out the wheels. Maybe on some toyotas and solid diff trucks but that's about it.
 
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Some shops will tell you not too teach them and some will tell you go somewhere else.
No, they will ALL tell you one or the other - guaranteed, I've done it.

I recently myself corrected a RF camber problem on my 99 that I had for 10 years that no one could tell me what it was from. I did all the tape measurements from left side to right side and still could not tell any difference. All alignment shops would say was they GUESSED it might possibly be a slightly bent knuckle arm (as they couldn't find anything either) and only replacing it would be the way to tell. Well this would cost many hundreds of dollars (maybe $1000-1500) for just this guess, since you have to dismantle 3 ball joints (and usually destroying their boots in the process, maybe having to replace the control arms too) and remove the axle (need a puller - what a labor intensive mess, I've done it - many never do come out on these old cars). So I said the heck with that, especially since it may not even be the problem - $1000-1500 for a guess?

Since no one could figure out what the actual problem was (including me), I investigated the forums as to what people said about using camber kits. What I found was for the 2g the normal SPC adjustable ball joints (http://www.jscspeed.com/catalog/Mit...stment_Kits_for_95_99_Mitsubishi_Eclipse.html) hit the top of the fender on bumps (for a DD) unless you remake (redesign) the upper control arm (or buy these pricey forged ones: http://www.dsmtuners.com/threads/in...luminum-adjustable-upper-control-arms.296228/). Well that's not an option for me.

Five years ago I tryed these SPC Front Camber Bushings (http://www.jscspeed.com/catalog/Mit...stment_Kits_for_95_99_Mitsubishi_Eclipse.html) but they disintegrated after 18 months.

So what I ended up doing is getting this Ingalls front adjustable camber kit for my RF: http://iapdirect.com/95-99-mitsubishi-eclipse-talon-avenger-ingalls-front-adjustable-camber-kit.html. You can get them in either +1.25* to +3.0* OR -.75* to +1.0* and either rubber bushings (street and no squeeks) OR poly bushings (track - very solid but squeeks unless you constantly lubricate them). The +1.25* to +3.0* kit changed my RF camber from -1 3/8* to 0.0* (and that's with them set at minimum: +1.25*). It's been no more pulling ever since (finally after 10 yrs) and I'm very happy.

Also FYI there's supposed to be a bushing on the front lower compression arm that can be pressed-out & flipped to change the caster ever so slightly (http://www.dsmtuners.com/threads/resolved-2g-caster-changing-it.176057/).

Also if you're interested here's a good tutorial on alignment: http://aligncraft.com/terms/terms.html
 
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So what I ended up doing is getting this Ingalls front adjustable camber kit for my RF: http://iapdirect.com/95-99-mitsubishi-eclipse-talon-avenger-ingalls-front-adjustable-camber-kit.html. You can get them in either +1.25* to +3.0* OR -.75* to +1.0* and either rubber bushings (street) OR poly bushings (track). The +1.25* to +3.0* kit changed my RF camber from -1 3/8* to 0.0*. It's been no more pulling ever since (finally after 10 yrs) and I'm very happy.

Thanks for the help everyone. I'm gonna try out the Ingalls kit, and from the looks of it I should get the *+1.25 to +3.0* correct? I do have plans of lowering the car in the future, so I guess I'll have to order another kit for the left side in the future to correct the camber, but for now I just want the pulling to stop!
 
a tire guy told me once that if everything is correct and you have no bad ball joints or bearings or struts that you could have a bad tire,

a bad tire he told me is when the tire was on the bottom of the pile or stack of tires and all the weight causes the tire to pull in one direction, think of it like when a tire sits flat on a car for a while it starts to creat a flat spot in the tire causing a bumpy ride once tire pressure is restored, goto the local junk yard pick up 2 used front tires and try it out.

@YERFDOG
 
How high you want to raise the camber on RF?

What will you do about 1 degree difference of caster from left to right or with this kit you will be able to adjust caster too?

You know everyone just wants the pull to stop or just be able to drive to work but all this means that you are not interested to fix the car and/or spend money. I don't think that's the way to go. If you want to correct the alignment then do so. If it will take few tries then be it. But get it done. Other wise it's another dsm that will never drive straight.
 
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How high you want to raise the camber on RF?

What will you do about 1 degree difference of caster from left to right or with this kit you will be able to adjust caster too?

You know everyone just wants the pull to stop or just be able to drive to work but all this means that you are not interested to fix the car and/or spend money. I don't think that's the way to go. If you want to correct the alignment then do so. If it will take few tries then be it. But get it done. Other wise it's another dsm that will never drive straight.

Camber: I want to get as close to middle spec range as possible.

As far as correcting caster with those, I'm not familiar with these kits or others so I don't know. Hopefully someone can chime in about that.
But as far as "fixing the car", if the camber is corrected on the RF and the car now drives in a straight line..what I am hurting with caster not matching on either side? Tire wear?
 
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