Steve Alarcon’s hair is silver, which is probably appropriate since he’s a kind of wizard. Of course, his magical powers aren’t quite what you expect, since they involve the mysteries of suspension alignment and the Porsche 911.
There are two people in Los Angeles to whom you take your Porsche 911 for an alignment, Alarcon at Johnson’s Alignment Service in Torrance or Darin Nishimura (who learned the trade from Alarcon) at West End Alignment in Gardena. When we put new tires on the Black Plague, we signed up for an appointment with Alarcon.
When it comes to owning a 911, lots of people want to skip over the issues of suspension alignment, but ask yourself, if you had a car with a wheelbase shorter than that of a Miata with the majority of its weight packaged at the wrong end of the car, wouldn’t you want to do your best to ensure that the thing would go down the road straight?
Alarcon is a little bit of a legend in Porsche circles. Over the years, he’s laid hands on a lot of Porsches in his family-owned business (his 80-year-old father still comes to the shop every day), and he even does all the Porsches in actor Jerry Seinfeld’s collection. Alarcon has also been a racer with the Porsche Owner’s Club and IMSA since 1985.
For all this, Alarcon says there is really no magic in the approach he takes to a 911 alignment. “It really starts with just getting the corner weights right,” he says. “Porsche’s specs call for as little as a 20 pound difference side to side, and if you’re off one click on the torsion bar setting, you can jack as much as a 100 pounds into the cross weight. No one can make a 911 handle right if they’re trying to align a car with that kind of cross-weight issue . We’ve even seen a brand-new 911 GT3 RSR with 16 miles on the odometer come in here with the corner weights out of spec, so it shows you that even a car fresh from the assembly line should be checked.
“We also set the corner weights with the weight of the driver behind the steering wheel. That’s the way the car is actually going to be driven, so that’s the place where the alignment should begin. Again, you want to make sure you start your alignment in the right place.”
Alarcon took the Black Plague for a quick test drive before the corner weights were set. While the car was on the scales, he looked at it in profile with the practiced eye of a man checking the conformity of a thoroughbred race horse and said the car looked a little low at the left front corner, as if it had settled a bit. The corner weights bore this out, as they were just a fraction out. (Darin Nishimura at West End Alignment had done the alignment for the car’s previous owner, so we knew we were starting from a top-quality basis.)
Next we had a frank conversation with Alarcon about the kind of usage the 911 was getting and what we anticipated for the future. “There are lots of ways to set up a 911,” he says, “and it makes no sense to set one up for the race track if you’re driving it on the freeway every day. If we set up the car for the way you really drive, you’ll have a much more enjoyable experience with your Porsche.”
We knew that our Porsche had been set up for autocross by its previous owner, as its low ride height indicated. The Johnson’s Alignment technician found more than 2.0 degrees of static negative camber in the rear tires, which is what you would expect, and Alarcon’s test drive had led him to believe that the front end had been set with a measure of added caster, which made the steering effort a bit heavy even as it added straight-line stability.
We settled on a little less static camber front and rear, negative 1.75 degrees. The caster is now at positive 6.5 degrees and there’s just a tiny bit of toe-in for stability, 0.06 inches in front and 0.12 inches in the rear. We also dispensed with our strut tower bar, as Alarcon noted its old-school design was actually causing the top of the dampers to bind in their mounts, which could lead to a broken damping rod. The technician also discovered an inverted toe link in the front suspension and set it to rights. Alarcon also said that if we wanted to help the car come alive in the handling department, a set of anti-roll bars from a 1986 Porsche Turbo would transform the driving experience.
Alarcon took a more extensive test drive at the end of the two hours it took to complete the work and gave the car his blessing. In a way this is a big part of what you’re paying for, since Alarcon’s experience gives him insight into whether a Porsche 911 feels right, which is something that is very hard to describe, no matter how elaborate your vocabulary might be. Naturally we came away with an elaborate racing-type setup sheet for the car with its corner weights, caster settings, camber settings, toe specifications and fender heights.
To us, the Black Plague still feels low and settled on the road, but it’s more resilient and lighter on its feet, and the steering is notably lighter in effort without any loss in communication. The alignment of the steering wheel has been trued up with the suspension changes, too.
For all our attempts to make Alarcon a wizard, it was a surprise to learn that he is just a simple enthusiast like us. He had a silver Porsche 914 four-cylinder in high school and eventually put it back together as a kind of hobby car (now in white) in 1985. Then he happened to align a racing Porsche 911 for Bill Follmer, son of Porsche racing legend George Follmer, and Bill invited him to run a few laps on the race track with his 914.
Predictably Alarcon was hooked by racing almost instantly, and has raced ever since then in a succession of 911SCs converted to winged hot rods plus a rare Porsche Cup version of the 993-type 911 that he’s now restoring to its original specification and graphics. As Alarcon explained, he’s just another hobbyist, spending too much money on his 911s just like all of us.
Michael Jordan, Executive Editor, Edmunds.com
bodyblue says:
10:24 AM, 01/16/12
Well how much was it? I expect quality work like this to be expensive but you get what you pay for. Lets hope the 911 now drives like it was meant too.
bodyblue says:
10:26 AM, 01/16/12
Well how much was it? I expect quality work like this to be expensive but you get what you pay for. Lets hope the 911 now drives like it was meant too.
texases says:
11:17 AM, 01/16/12
Any comment from Mr. Wizard on the wheel spacers? Does IL plan to fit a set of '86 Turbo roll bars?
church123 says:
11:28 AM, 01/16/12
Couldn't agree more about Alarcon and Nishimura.
I first ran into Johnson's alignment about 13-14 years ago when I needed my Honda race car corner balanced and aligned. A bit of searching turned up these guys (googling for good race shops wasn't as easy back then :). It was the first time anyone had ever given me a spec sheet in such detail, or asked me to either sit in the car during the process, or give them my weight so they could approximate with sandbags.
To this day, I still take all my cars to Nishimura and refer all my customers to him. These guys do things the old school way, but they do it right, with a touch and interest not found in your typical alignment tech at an automotive chain.
BTW, a full corner-weight and alignment from a shop like West End is in the $200-$250 range. A lot more expensive than some of the generic shops out there, but the handling benefits (and even tire wear improvements) are phenomenal.
dinobot666 says:
12:11 PM, 01/16/12
I love this: "When it comes to owning a 911, lots of people want to skip over the issues of suspension alignment, but ask yourself, if you had a car with a wheelbase shorter than that of a Miata with the majority of its weight packaged at the wrong end of the car, wouldn’t you want to do your best to ensure that the thing would go down the road straight?"
And you put a set of Fuzion tires on it?
bimmerjay says:
01:20 PM, 01/16/12
It's great to hear how there are still shops out there that do real high quality, meticulous work. They're just not that common anymore.
So much for IL "abusing" their test cars, the Black Plague is going to be in better shape when they sell it than when they bought it, not unlike the other used long termers.
huyracing says:
02:02 PM, 01/16/12
sounds legit, but technology has come a long way. if only they would invest in some technology. back in the day, i was beta testing some state of the art alignment machines and you just cannot compare. the speed and accuracy at which i could set up a car is amazing. unfortunately, alignment is more about the man performing it. these new machines make it easier for an idiot to perform a barely passable alignment, which is part of the appeal as shops can hire cheap unskilled labor and it will pay for itself, but in the right hands it can do amazing things. even old computerized alignment machines could make a big difference in their quality of work. i don't know about THIS shop, but West End Alignment's work certainly isn't very accurate when put under a computer... but it still beats an alignment done by an idiot on a state of the art machine. I would not go there, but I have better options.
bodyblue says:
02:18 PM, 01/16/12
"So much for IL "abusing" their test cars, the Black Plague is going to be in better shape when they sell it than when they bought it, not unlike the other used long termers."
What does ONE quality alignment have to do with how they treat cars as a whole? They drove this car with unsafe tires mounted the wrong way for months before they did a thing about it.....give me a break. This car was in bad shape when they bought it and will probably be the same way when they sell it. It really was a bad decision to purchase this car.
bodyblue says:
02:43 PM, 01/16/12
"BTW, a full corner-weight and alignment from a shop like West End is in the $200-$250 range"
Thanks for the estimate on the price church...it seems reasonable for the time and effort involved.
church123 says:
04:54 PM, 01/16/12
West End has aligned quite a few national champions over the past few years, and even more race winners. I'm pretty sure that Darrin knows exactly what he is doing and getting the results he's looking for. Same goes for Alarcon.
bimmerjay says:
04:59 PM, 01/16/12
"What does ONE quality alignment have to do with how they treat cars as a whole? They drove this car with unsafe tires mounted the wrong way for months before they did a thing about it.....give me a break. This car was in bad shape when they bought it and will probably be the same way when they sell it."
I disagree. They had their Porsche guy fix the clutch issues and now it's gotten a seriously professional alignment. It has new tires (mounted properly), they've fixed the broken speedo and turned the gauges back, replaced and properly aligned the headlights and fixed the radio. The car's already in better shape than when they bought it.
So is the NSX - it's already gotten the broken door handle fixed, new liftgate struts and tires (even though they weren't worn, just old) and they're working to fix the trunk leak and CEL.
They may not baby the cars all the time - after all they are test cars in a fleet and as such should be subjected to their maximum capabilities - but I don't think they're abused. They fix stuff and generally maintain their cars better than probably 80% of real owners out there.
bodyblue says:
05:32 PM, 01/16/12
We will have to agree to dis agree on that one. Yes they maintain their car decently...(no better than that) but they beat the hell out of them......the rear brakes on the Mustang come to mind. Rented mules get beat less than IL fleet cars. But keeping the bad tires on it mounted the WRONG way is a total FAIL no way you look at it.
mmmmmmmm3 says:
07:43 AM, 01/17/12
Responding to Huyracing:
While I agree that a computerized alignment system would make this work faster, it wouldn't necessarily improve the result. I've been setting up my own race cars in my garage for a long time with a camber caster gauge, toe plates, tape measures, strings, and scales. I have 4 points in my garage that I know where to level the scales with shims and I go from there.
I have twice put my car on modern equipment after setting it myself and exactly duplicated my garage measured readings. If you take your time and know what you are doing, the modern stuff is no better than old school, just faster. At the same time, it can easily fool you into believing something that isn't true if some calibration is out. That can't happen with "hand tools".
stovt001 says:
12:06 PM, 01/17/12
$200-250 doesn't seem bad for that kind of work. I've been meaning to have a corner balancing and alignment with weight in the driver's seat on my Miata from a shop like this for some time.
tank_everett says:
09:04 AM, 01/18/12
So you found someone to give your old warbird a meaningful diagnosis. Some questions...
-Was the bumpsteer issue addressed? Hate to see poor Josh's thin arms suffer more physical abuse than needed. Lowering the rack to restore geometry is rather basic 911 type stuff.
-Hows about those 4 bent rims? I am guessing even an alignment would do little for wheels that can't be properly balanced. Steering wheel shake?
-And a prop. Those fusion tires surely must be better that anything produced in 1985? If they are a bit hard,......... enjoy the "lively" character of car. Can't be 5" bias-ply bad, could it? If you had a proper aftermarket exhaust, the road noise would be a non-issue.
-The pic of the tape measure at the front left of car makes a 911 guy shudder. It is not at all the correct way to measure ride height. But perhaps he knew this and had a previous baseline to extrapolate from? Picture is a bit misleading. Just saying.