It's all about the geometry. Most of the sway bar bushings are bounded to the sway bars on mercedes. Even if they weren't the distance/angle changes with ride height. If you dont believe me unbolt both sides of your endlinks with the vehicle loaded - in its neutral state (if you're stock its a piece of cake). Now raise it on a lift or stick a couple hundred pounds of weight on it to lower it and you'll see you aren't going to get them in again with out a large prybar and some determination.

I suppose I also forgot to mention the mounting position of the tie rod ends ideally should change too with ride height - i've seen some spacer kits or balljoint extenders that lower them on the spindles to correct that geometry as well.

 

 

Mine pulls to the left

 

I put H&R on with 17mm rear pads, let everything settle, and now have been struggling with my alignment.
After 4 alignments here is where i'm at. I just want to minimize tire wear as much as I can as this is my daily.

Front
Camber L -2.1 degress R -2.2 degrees
Toe L 0.21 R 0.16 (Total 0.37)

Rear
Camber L -2.3 degrees R -2.7 degrees
Toe L 0.12 R 0.12 (total 0.24)

The left side keeps walking on me as soon as i come off the rack.
The car also pulls slightly left.


I put two of those fancy bolts in the front.

Any help would be super appreciative as i wanna get this finished tonight after work!

I did PM The guy Talon and haven't heard back which is no issue, i hope someone can chime in and give me a hand! Thanks!!!

 

Did you do another alignment after the bolt install? the Correction bolts will also change your Toe.

 

Yes, this is the alignment AFTER the bolts were installed.

 

What are your caster values for the front? Caster has the greatest influence on how the car tracks and whether it will pull or not.

 

Caster values Front
L 10.8 R 10.5

Thanks for any help Mort! your cars a flipping inspiration!

 

I am not sure why your car is pulling left. It looks like it should be pulling slightly right as the left caster is more positive than the right. The settings you generally want to reduce a pull to the right, for crowned roads, are 1/4 degree more negative right front camber and 1/4 degree more positive right caster. These settings may cause a car to pull slightly to the left on a flat road or one slopped slightly to the left. I find that these cars, when lowered, tend to be very sensitive to the slope of the road and you can feel it more because the caster becomes more positive which in turn makes the steering stiffer (steering effort increases). The positive caster levels on the C63 are relatively high to increase straight line tracking, high speed stability and front end cornering at the expense of steering effort being balanced by the power steering. When you increase positive caster even more the steering effort becomes noticeably higher than the power steering can negate.

Do you know what positions the adjustment bolts were installed? If they are installed to reduce the camber as low as they can then you may want to install two more to reduce the positive caster on the left and increase it on the right. That will go the farthest to increase tire life without installing KMac bushings.

The other thing to do to increase tire life is to reduce toe-in front and rear as toe-in scrubs the tires a tiny bit. Maybe try to set the total toe on the front to .10in (manufacturer minimum) to .15in and in the rear to .07in (manufacturer minimum) to .10in. Reduced toe-in will reduce high speed stability a little and increase initial turn-in when cornering.

The specs for my car, done with a camber gauge and a string box on my shimmed garage floor are ( I have KMac bushings and top plates in the front and camber bushings in the rear):




I drove 4200km from New Brunswick to Saskatoon this summer when I moved to Saskatoon and the car handled very well. When I registered my car in Saskatchewan I had to get a vehicle inspection which included an alignment. This is the report I received from the dealer.



Best of luck getting your alignment to your satisfaction.

 

Mort, Thank you VERY much for the extensive post. I'm going to give this another shot after work on Saturday. My main concern is NOT blowing through tires. I'll do what I can to even out the caster as well as bring toe in to the lower specs!
Thank you again!

 

I was cleaning the house and found the alignment bolts I purchased a while back. Put em up on the marketplace if anyone is interested: https://mbworld.org/forums/market/733614

 

Hello Everyone, can you guys please clarify installing the H&R Springs and aliment issues. Will every C63 W204 suffer from the alignment issue or is it a hit and miss. If it's all the remedies will require the additional alignment bolts like curt.r is selling or the other option KMAC front camber/castor bushing kit. How about the Agency Power Front Adjustable Sway Bar Links Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG 08-14 https://www.agency-power.com/shop/fr...v=7516fd43adaa

To recap: If I buy the H&R Lower Springs I will also need a combination of the following items to ensure my car will not pull to either side

OEM Mercedes Benz Alignment bolts like curt.r is selling or get the KMAC front camber/castor busing kit
and Agency Power Front Adjustable Sawybar Links.

If I add all that up it will probably run about $1,000 + or - are there any complete lower kits at this price point available if so which kits are there.

Thanks,

Tim

 

Unfortunately, it really is a hit or miss with these cars. A handful of people don't experience a pull, while everyone else does. I'd say the chances of your car having an alignment issue after installing the springs is much higher. With the adjustment bolts, people have been able to fix the steering wheel pull BUT cannot 100% correct the amount of camber in the tires. Hell, I'm barely within spec with the K-MAC bushings. The K-MAC bushing kit is a great way to correct the steering wheel pull, but it is not a cost-effective option, hence why people choose to do the alignment bolts. While the adjustable end links is a great idea, it is not needed to correct the steering wheel pull. I opted not to do the adjustment bolts because I cannot afford to continuously eat through MPSS's. People have positive experience with the alignment bolts in regards to eliminating the pull although I'm not too sure about tire wear though and I didn't want to chance it.

So to shorten this up a bit: Buying the alignment bolts will most likely correct the steering wheel pull (it depends on the alignment specs after your car is lowered, each car varies). The better way to do it is the K-MAC bushing way, with the AP adj. front end links. Here's the problem with that, the alignment bolts are $45 to correct the steering wheel pull. The K-MAC way will set you back $1500+ (not including the price of the AP adj. front swaybar endlinks, so add $225 to that).

If I missed any points, let me know and I'll try to answer them as best as I can. Hope this helps.

 

Hello Curt.r.

Thank-you very much for taking the time to give me your perspective. I'll let you know which way I go.