What numbers to expect on a 2" lift alignment

Gents, yes, I’ve read countless threads but nothing specific to 2" lift with oem upper control arm lift.

This area of alignment a vehicle is complete new for me. Could anyone that knows about the matter please help me understand what numbers should I see on my next alignment?

can I achieve 0 caster and 0 camber with slightly larger tires and 2” lift?

I already bought 265 75 r 16 to replace oem tires.

what would be a good alignment numbers and what would be bad?

I definitely would not want to go to alignment shop and have a crappy alignment and think I got a good one and then start of wearing my tires unevenly..

Basically, how do I know if alignment guy is bullsh@ting me…


any advice is greatly appreciated…

 

Pretty sure you’re going to eventually get conflicting answers since it’s going to be pretty specific to your truck and the parts you’re running and where and how you use your truck.

 

The caster should be close to 2 and the camber is going to be positive ……

 

ask for as high of caster as you can while maintaining spec camber, and toe. this is done for, rear of fender tire clearance. I have a 2"x2" lift as well, and was able to do this with stock components. If I remember correctly, it was between mid 2's & 3 on caster, without making the other numbers out of spec. Ski

 

I can’t think of any reason that you couldn’t use the normal alignment specs. Lifting an IFS can result in the alignment being out of spec, thus people often get an alignment afterwards to bring it back into spec. Beyond a certain amount of lift, it might not be possible to align it to spec. You can solve that problem with aftermarket UCAs.

 

Toe is easy to hit...
Camber will limit, desired caster.
My guess for best possible alignment(assuming stock offset wheels) would be:
+1.8 caster
+0.5 camber
+0.05 toe

@Bishop84

 

Yup.

Highest caster you can get with lowest balanceable camber you can get. Usually these numbers.

 

You'll probably be around 1-1.5° caster, maybe a bit higher. Take it to a reputable shop with an alignment guy that knows what he's doing, tell him maximum caster please and keep camber in spec. This is my rear cams maxed out and front adjusted for camber to spec. I'm on Eibachs on the top notch, lean spacer, and stock springs, so roughly 2" of lift, give or take.

 

I wish I could understand this numbers a bit more.. my top concern is premature wear on tires or excessive wear on outside edge of tires….

 

I recommend aligning it to Toyota specs and not overthinking it.

 

The problem with aligning to spec is that the official spec is actually a pretty wide range and all to often crappy alignment techs just adjust everything to be in the green and they're done. Often the truck will drive better, handle better, wear tires better when the numbers are set to one end of the spec or the other.

For instance, it's generally much better to run your camber as close to neutral as possible or even very slightly negative rather than at the other end at +1 or so. With caster, everything will hinge on how much positive caster they can get on the right side of the vehicle, then set the left side to be .3-.5 degrees less on the left. You always want a little less on the left to counter the road crown and remember the rule of thumb is that the truck pulls toward the lower caster number. if you can remember just these last two sentences, you'll be miles ahead of many of the techs aligning your truck. I think I had mine set to -.25 degrees of negative camber, a very slight amount which helps the truck just feel better on the highway and the tech tried to warn me that I'd be wearing the inside of my tires too fast. I just laughed at him and told him I'd take my chances. After almost 30K on the alignment, super even tire wear all around.

 

I’ve never had a problem with an alignment within OEM spec. I suspect you might be overthinking this. The automotive engineers have a lot more expertise than we do.

 

You might have been lucky but it's pretty clear that if you did read what I wrote you did not understand it. Sometimes it takes someone who knows how to use the specs to your best advantage and teach you how to appreciate how much of a difference that can make. Not unlike the more a musician plays the better and more discerning their ears become. For me, it was making suspension upgrades to my '88 911 to compensate for it being a hand built car, but once we added Tarrett Engineering camber plates and Elephant Racing offset ball joints, and then aligned it to get as much negative camber on the right side front, which was the side giving us problems and then bringing the left side in to match at a bit more than -1.5 on the front and just under -2.5 on the rear, it made the biggest difference in how the car drove. Almost felt like a different car and way way more relaxing to drive. Well, the same think can apply to our trucks, but it only makes a difference if you're able to notice and feel the difference, and admittedly, many people don't or can't. Kinda like you should never go shopping for a new guitar if you can't hear that the new one is really better or different in a better way. The bottom line is that once you understand the fundamentals behind this stuff and have the experience to correlate the numbers from the alignment to how the car or truck drives, then you'll appreciate what I'm saying, but, no, I'm definitely not overthinking it at all.

 

larger, wider tires, or strange offset wheels will require more caster to get clearance for rubbing. setting the caster, to max you can get, while adjusting the camber and toe to within specs, is very common in large tire off road type applications/vehicles. Ski

 

Without changing the upper control arms you are stuck with top end of positive camber just to get the caster in spec.

If you're worried about tire wear, start looking at upper control arms.

 

Totally agree...

 

It looks like you know a lot about alignments. I definitely not.. if you could go to alignment shop with some preset numbers for 2” lifted Tacoma with 265 75 r16 on stock rims and stock upper control arm? What numbers What numbers would you give the tech? Or look for?

now that I opened the pandora box (for me) of the best alignment numbers to achieve, now, I won’t just go to an unknown tire shop and look at the numbers without understanding and say yes….

 

Probably the worst strategy is to go into a shop and tell them what to do. They're going to resent it and turn against you right away. A better approach is to have a conversation about your goals for this service and what you're trying to achieve - things like, if you're rubbing or close to it, what can they do to help make things better, which everyone agrees is to add more positive caster, if that's possible. Then it's a matter of making subtle suggestions in a way that lets them come up with the solution, something like "is there any way we can get a three or four tenths of a degree less caster on the left to counter road crown?" Things like that.

Now, if you have a history with a shop or technician, you might be able to suggest something more specific like I can do with my Porsche guy who has done about half a dozen alignments for me over twenty years and he'll say things like, "well, if we try and get more of this over here, it's going to cause this issue over there" and then we discuss the compromise and decide what to do.

Not every truck is the same and once you start raising things, it can affect how much adjustment you can get, so asking for specific numbers can be problematic. It's always better to ask them how close they think they can get it to something you're thinking of. If you set up a situation where you can let them do their job and use their expertise to solve your problem even while you're guiding them, everybody wins.

All of this reminds me of job I shot (commercial photographer here) twenty-five years ago or so where the client actually tried to tell me what kind of film to shoot as if he knew better than I did what would be best for that project. Needless to say I did not take kindly to that suggestion from someone who had only "heard" that this film might be better than that film, with no hands on experience. Now, I'm always open to suggestion but I really don't like to be told how to do my job by someone who doesn't know my job.

And the flip side of that might be the many press checks I'd go to where we were printing brochures, posters, etc. and I would be there to okay the color coming off the press. I'd have to, rather than tell them this is too magenta or too heavy in the blacks, ask them if there was any way for them to take the reddishness out of the skin tones and make the blacks feel less black, without telling them exactly what to do. Perfect example of telling them what the problem was and letting them figure out how to fix it. And, if it was a print shop where I had been multiple time with the press operator I knew, then I could be more specific and talk to them in their own special language without offending them, but only because we had a history of working together.

So, I didn't really answer the question, but kinda did, sort of. I'll add that sometimes with things like alignments, you might try something that doesn't work how you thought it might and have to have another go at it. When that happens I just chalk that up to experience and gladly pay them again to try something different. That extra buck twenty-five or whatever your alignment costs can buy you a lot of good will later on.