Setting alignment on custom D44 TTB

[Dezurfer]

We are about to do the alignment on my race Jeep. It has a D44 cut & turned limited to 18" of travel.
From what I have seen some race setups have negative top camber so at race speed the tires set even.

Anyone have any numbers for us to start out at or suggestions? Im doing this in Texas which is greek to people around here. So, no help from alignment shops or any builders either. They think they are just & stupid junk. LOL This San Diego boy is about to show them different.

[Rmc]

Me personally... Tape measure toe and neg 5-7 camber. Caster is built in in my case. It varies in cycle from 16 to 5 degrease if I were to guess.

[Travisfab]

Most off road only beam setups have negative camber at ride height. Your ride height, beam design, and adjusters all come into play on what you can make happen. Unfortunately camber and caster go hand in hand with beams. Just make sure to have your cams kicked int the right direction to gain caster, more the merrier. Toe is pretty basic.

[damon1272]

For caster you would want something in the 5-8* range with a split of no more that 1/2-3/4* right to left with the driver side being the lower side (account for any road crown if driven on the road). Toe would be about 1/8-1/16th in. If driven on the street 1/2 - 3/4* positive for tie wear. If in the dirt then I would say about a 1/2-3/4 * negative as will get plenty of camber gain on the up travel. I would start with this and make adjustments as needed.

[Dezurfer]

Thanks we will work with these numbers tomorrow & see where we are.
This is total dirt & rocks. Ultra4 4500 class

[Rmc]

Heck ya! It's about time someone came through with beams in ultra4! Good luck!

[Dezurfer]

Heck ya! It's about time someone came through with beams in ultra4! Good luck!

There is only one racer racing one now. That's Mistress Racing 4400 car in Dallas, Tx
As far as I know I will be the 3rd ever registered race car in Ultra4 to race the setup. Torchmate car, Mistress Racing & now CRAWLfish Racing.

[Travisfab]

619!

[Seabass]

Did I see this build on pirate? There's a beamed wrangler over there for but I think he had dana50/44 hybrid stuff going on.

Id advise lots of caster with that short wheel base... could get hairy fast if you don’t.

[Dezurfer]

No build thread yet. Im sitting at 100" wheelbase

[Seabass]

Lol I now have seen 3 jeeps with beams. You got any pics of your build? Love out of the box stuff.

[Dezurfer]

Gonna do a post in rides under race trucks

[SteveG]

Me personally... Tape measure toe and neg 5-7 camber. Caster is built in in my case. It varies in cycle from 16 to 5 degrease if I were to guess.

That's a lot of negative camber... might be OK, might not. Keep in mind that the more negative camber you have at ride height, the more you have at full bump. Your steering knuckles and spindles were designed to take (mostly) vertical loads. When you're way negative at full bump, instead of the load being straight up and down, it's now trying to pull the wheel off the spindle and the spindle out of the steering knuckle. Again, might be a non-issue, especially on a lighter vehicle but maybe it will.

The other thing to consider is what a lot of caster will do to steering . The more caster you have, the more compression load it puts on tie rods. FAST beamed trucks can suffer from a lot of tie-rod deflection at high speeds over big stuff.

[Rmc]

On my bronco I'm at -2 at ride height. I was basing that on what I used to rotate beam ends to when lengthening. 2wd stuff mostly. But your right bearings and tierods suffer depending on ride height.

[Crawlfab]

Nice rig. You plan on running dirt riot also?

[Dezurfer]

Yes I race in Dirt Riot & we race in all 5 series about 9 races this season.

[Dezurfer]

Gonna be back on the rack tomorrow & wondering what ride height is normal on a cut & turned beam. I guess the distance from the pivot to the ground on 35's.

We did the camber/caster setting & maxed out the 0 To +3.2 Degree Caster/Camber Adjustment Bushing. That made it sit 0 degree. Curious if we did something wrong here? I feel the Jeep is sitting a lot lower than a Bronco would sit & should be way negative.

[-JD5353-]

Ride height camber will be irrelevant because your mount location and cut and turn is going to be completely different.

[Crawlfab]

Yes I race in Dirt Riot & we race in all 5 series about 9 races this season.

Will have to check it out. I'm building a stock mod ttb bronco for my wife. We're cutting it close but should be at the first race.

[damon1272]

To determine your ride height you want to know what your total travel is then decide if you want 50/50% compression to droop or 60/40 or some combination there of. I think you would run 14-16" of travel roughly. Once your ride height is set then put a 0* bushing in and adjust your lower ball joint until you get your desired camber. For your caster you will end up extending the lower connection point of your radius arm to get your desired caster. Once the hard alignment is done then use your bushing to make the fine adjustments to dial drivability in.

Sounds as if you need to cycle your suspension and possibly adjust ride height. If not then install a 0 bushing and correct the lower ball joint.