Perch mod and alignment

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pirate air

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alignment cams? I know little to nothing about alignment, thanks for the explanation above, but now I'm worried. Traded my 2010 5.4 for a 2012 today and I had the 2010 on the middle perch. I was going to do the same on the new one, but am worried about this cam deal. It was my understanding that Ford had originally designed and tested for the truck to be released on this middle perch, but DOT nixed that based on stock bumper height requirements. But, what i am understanding from your post, it doesn't matter wether you move the perch or not, if you need an alignment for any reason, the correct way to do it is using the cams as there will be preloaded tension simply from drooping the suspesion for any alignment? Am i getting this correct? thanks in advance

IF during the alingment the camber or caster needs to be adjusted, then yes cams should be installed. Any f150 made in the last ten or so years is like this. Typically your average f150 won't need the camber or caster adjusted till its aged quite a bit and suspension bushings are worn. But since your making ride hieght adjustments with the perch move the suspension geometry is being affected and needs corrected. How much correction is needed will vary from Raptor to Raptor. One Raptor may get away with no caster/camber adjustment on the second perch where as the next one will eat tires. Really you won't know till you look at the readings. When doing either perch I would just count on doing cam kits and making camber/caster adjustments. Eventually at some point if you keep your Raptor youre going to need them to make adjustments to compensate for suspension as it wears out.

---------- Post added at 09:53 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:39 PM ----------

So, what is the word about limiting straps on front when going to top perch? Pros/cons? Neccessary? Overkill?

-Greg

As it sits now the shocks (in the front at least) limit both droop and compression. I would suspect that going to the second or third perch would put more strain on the shock at droop due to the extra preload. I dunno I'm not overly worried about mine (second perch), I figure fox wouldn't of made the adjustment available if the shock was going to fall apart.
 

cage1993

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pirate air, appreciate the clarification. nothing I hate more than doing a mod that costs me something I didn't realize! but now I know - thanks


**edit** what do these cams ussually cost? thanks again
 

pirate air

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pirate air, appreciate the clarification. nothing I hate more than doing a mod that costs me something I didn't realize! but now I know - thanks


**edit** what do these cams ussually cost? thanks again

No problem. You should be able to find cams to do both control arms for under 100 bucks. They're also pretty simple to install, so if you're a diy'r, you could save the labor, just make sure your next stop is the alignment shop because the arms will be all out of whack after the cam install. If you (or anyone) wants to try to install them shoot me a pm so I can walk you threw it. Ford also advises you to replace the lower control arm bolts after you loosen them, I'm not huge into this theory and find it impractical, but just a word of caution.
 

matt33

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Ford has a cam kit available but I don't have the part number handy (I could look it up tomorrow). The company I prefer and use on my truck is called Specialty Products Company. I believe its the same company SDHQ is using. Your local alignment shop should also be able to get specialty products company products. The Raptor takes the standard f150 kit, I can also look up that part number.

In order to adjust camber/caster on the raptor, the lower control arms have to be moved/adjusted, at the chassis end. To do this you loosen the lower control arm bolts and movement is allowed by slots in the frame. Without the alignment cams making camber/caster adjustments has to be done with the weight off the control arm/tire being adjusted. Because as soon as you loosen the control arm bolts, the weight of the truck forces the control arm out/away from the chassis. There's no way to force the arm back to the right spot without taking the weight off the arm by raising the truck/weight off the tire. The problem with this is the control arms at full droop, when you tighten the control arm bolts then set the truck back down the bushings are now pre loaded which causes wear. The way the cams are designed you can move the arms while most of the weight is still on the arm/tire. You still need to lift the truck up a little but not till full droop like before. This makes it easier on the bushings.

I know what cams you're talking about on the jeeps. I think a lot of the problem with that is the metal is too thin. Sometimes on those I'll make adjustments and everything just wants to bend rather than move. You're getting a lot more metal with the Raptor and bolts twice the size. Even with this I was knocking my alignment out fairly often but these were after pretty hard hits. The cam kit does a good job locking everything in place. I've had very little movement since installing mine some 17000 ish miles ago. Some vendors/people think they lock the arms in too good and you risk doing more damage to the frame. But hell, if youre driving the truck hard enough to potentially rip a control arm off you should anticipate some serious damage happening.
Thanks for all the info! I'll order the SDHQ cams and have my shop install them when they do the perch mod. Thanks again!
 

VARaptr

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Just caught this thread - good thing, too. Just ordered ATD spring compressors so I could go middle perch and decided to do a little research on alignment. I'm no stranger to cams, went with them on a Camburg system for a Ranger I used to have. I installed the entire front suspension on that truck, so guess I fit the diy'r descrip. But an '85 i-beam suspension is world's apart from our Raptor's.

To add complication, there isn't a good alignment shop around here! (discovered via painful/expensive lesson learned 2 weeks ago on my F250)

pirate air, whatever you can share about the cams would be greatly appreciated. I'd be willing to post a step-by-step as I install cams.

THANKS!
 

pirate air

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Just caught this thread - good thing, too. Just ordered ATD spring compressors so I could go middle perch and decided to do a little research on alignment. I'm no stranger to cams, went with them on a Camburg system for a Ranger I used to have. I installed the entire front suspension on that truck, so guess I fit the diy'r descrip. But an '85 i-beam suspension is world's apart from our Raptor's.

To add complication, there isn't a good alignment shop around here! (discovered via painful/expensive lesson learned 2 weeks ago on my F250)

pirate air, whatever you can share about the cams would be greatly appreciated. I'd be willing to post a step-by-step as I install cams.

THANKS!

I'll write some install info when I have more time tomorrow.
 

pirate air

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Alright, Specialty products company has an install vid on youtube for the F150. It's the same for the Raptor. This makes my life easy lol
86250 - F150 Camber / Caster Adjustment - Specialty Products Company - YouTube

You could do it the same way without a lift, just use jack stands.

At 38 second mark where it says to "adjust vehicle height so bolt moves freely", if you have the tires completely off the ground you can have a friend move the arm by pushing in or out on the tire and holding it into position while you tighten the bolt.
 
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VARaptr

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Alright, Specialty products company has an install vid on youtube for the F150. It's the same for the Raptor. This makes my life easy lol
86250 - F150 Camber / Caster Adjustment - Specialty Products Company - YouTube

You could do it the same way without a lift, just use jack stands.

At 38 second mark where it says to "adjust vehicle height so bolt moves freely", if you have the tires completely off the ground you can have a friend move the arm by pushing in or out on the tire and holding it into position while you tighten the bolt.

THIS IS PERFECT! Thank you! :favorites13:

Will post progress once I have everything ready to go.
 

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