Suspension & Alignment Fundamentals
Ride-height, geometry, and alignment diagnostics — read wear patterns, dial in corner balance, and stop chasing tire wear one wheel at a time.
Ride-height baseline: measuring what the chassis actually sits at
Loading discussion…
Every chassis drifts off-spec eventually — either the alignment is off coming out of the shop, a spring sagged and now the corner-balance is wrong, or the tire-wear pattern is telling you a control-arm bushing threw out a toe link. This course is the eight-module fix — ride-height baseline, geometry read, alignment-angle targets corner-balance, tire-wear pattern diagnosis, and the bench-side drill that ties them together.
- Ride-height & geometry baselineMeasure corner weights, ride height at the four corners, and the geometry state the chassis is actually sitting at before you start dialing alignment.
- Alignment target dial-inPick the right target for the use case — street, canyon, drag, autocross — and pair it with corner balance before the car leaves the shop.
- A live tire-wear customer drillA real customer car with intra-tire wear. Read the wear pattern, set the alignment target, dial corner balance, and document the fix without re-aligning the car twice.
- Scored quiz + spec referenceSequence an alignment ticket, decode the wear pattern, and tag the alignment-spec and corner-balance sheets that stay clipped above the bench.
Hannah runs the alignment bay at a high-volume corner-balance shop on the East Coast. She learned corner balance on a Spec Miata paddock and has been chasing tire-wear patterns on customer cars ever since. Every module in this track was filmed on a customer's chassis — the actual rims, the actual alignment machine, the actual before-and-after wear patterns.
Every diagram on this page ships from the Torquebench resource library. Print or load them on a tablet — they stay on the shop wall next to the corner-balance scales as you dial the alignment and shim sequence.
The full catalog includes additional corner-balance, spring-rate, and chassis reference sheets — unlock with the Library Pass above.
Buy this course and own it forever — every module, every printable diagram, and every future revision to the suspension and alignment track. The free preview shows the first module and one reference diagram; this purchase unlocks all eight and the alignment drill.