Weld-In Rear Alignment Adjustment - Worth It For Me?

[digger]

I'm running the condor subframe riser bushings. The outboard ones are the impossible ones.

with a standard height sub frame bush would it be better to have the bolt head or nut nearest the sub frame bush?

[E30SPDFRK]

I've welded adjusters to and aligned probably 20+ cars at this point. They all have pro's and cons, but some more than others. These are my thoughts:

Stay away from the serrated ones. They take a ton of work to install, suck to adjust, loosen all the time, and squeak.
- The design with the bolt threading into the serrated plate is very weak and easy to strip, and causes the bolt to loosen up on the right side toe adjuster every time on track
- You need to cut most of the factory mounts off to install them, so you end up rebuilding most of the box on the subframe. This takes way more time than most people are willing to pay
- The toe is impossible to adjust with weight on the suspension. I've resorted to adding loops on the trailing arm to fit a pry-bar into, which opens another can of worms because the front of the mounting box needs to be cut off for clearance, which then requires additional gussets for the adjusters, which get in the way of wrenches when you're trying to loosen the bolts, etc.
- The large slot for adjustment causes poly bushings to catch when articulating, which creates a squeak that can't be fixed with any mount of grease. If you use OEM rubber bushings, the center sleeve has barely any grip on the top and bottom metal of the adjuster plate and causes them to slip and damage the adjusters
- The toe adjusters hit the chassis frame rail on the outside, so you need to grind a ton off the corners before installing the subframe to the vehicle, which reduces the amount of engagement. Don't even think about using subframe riser bushings with these

The eccentrics are OK, but you need to know your starting point before adding them to the subframe.
- They only adjust about 1° total, so you need to do a preliminary alignment to know where you will be installing them to help most (EG. do you want them to reduce toe only, or make both sides even from the starting point)
- Grinding the holes into slots for the eccentric bolt to ride in is an exercise in patience. The inside mounting points are too close to the diff mount to get a burr or file in from, so you have to go through the outer holes
- the outer nut by the subframe bushings will be nearly impossible to get at on an alignment machine. Put the bolt in from the outside, and if you have poly subframe bushings make sure to trim them for clearance before installing them. You might need to make a custom wrench to make adjustments easier

The "DTM" style adjusters that replace the outer bushing on the trailing arm seem good in theory, but are very complicated to install and adjust. They arc that they adjust on and the solid mounted spherical rod end on the outside puts additional load on the inner bushing, which can cause them to bind and resist travel of the trailing arm.

Adjustable trailing arm bushings like Powerflex or Condor are the easiest to install and the most maintenance-free, but only adjust about 1°, and can be confusing to align.
- because each bushing can independently adjust camber and toe, you end up chasing the perfect alignment back and forth and usually end up compromising with a setup
- the supplied adjuster wrenches aren't the best, and sometimes leave you in a place that you can't get the wrench in to adjust further (think of a typical 15° offset open end wrench in a tight area). I've ended up cutting and modifying the supplied wrenches to have an in-between setting for tight adjustments
- If used with riser bushings, you can get into a situation where you trap your wrench against the floor and make adjustments impossible

Subframe riser bushings are next to useless for alignment. They raise the rear subframe 12mm, which is the exact same thing in your suspensions eyes as raising your rear ride height 12mm. A 12mm gain in ride height will reduce camber by about .1-.2°, depending on starting ride height. You will not notice that change. The raised subframe height also causes issues with all of the other styles of adjustment that I listed above. The diff either needs to be spaced down (puts additional load on the already weak diff mounting points on the subframe), or an offset bushing needs to be installed (poly diff bushings add a ton of noise and wear out quickly). Don't bother

Overall, my opinion is:

- If you have a mostly stock suspension and drive on the street, don't bother with any adjustments. Fresh trailing arm and subframe bushings will usually fix most of your alignment issues if you're having any
- If you're already upgrading your bushings, go with the adjustable trailing arm bushings. They will give you enough freedom to at least match both the left and right side alignments, and are much cheaper and easier than the other styles
- if you're tracking your car, it's kind of up to what you or your alignment tech are most comfortable adjusting. If you do go with the serrated ones, consider tack welding the right side toe adjuster once you're happy with the alignment, as it will be loosening up.