Alright, so I just spent the better part of the night doing my bellhousing alignment with a dial indicator and magnetic base. Let's just say that it was a pain in the butt also. I had problems getting a reading that could be reconfirmed with each pass. I took a reading at every 45 degrees for four passes and each pass came up with something different almost with some reading the same. I was taking the reading from the outer exterior lip and I think since it has breaks in it it made the dial change. I didn't take it on the inner lip since that's where it's welded and the weld is not a continuously flat surface. I tried taking it from the inside of the bellhousing thinking it was a concentric circle but apparently the powdercoating has different densities on the interior also.

Here's a pic:



You can see the dial indicator also and the lip it is riding on. Some of the times it hit one of the breaks in the lip and then tried to pick up afterwards it seemed to "jump the track". I think this was throwing off my readings also and screwing with the indicator.

Anyway, here's the readings:

0 degree reading: 1st: -.010 2nd:.000 3rd: -.002 4th: -.002

45 degree reading: 1st: -.003 2nd: .007 3rd: .005 4th: .005

90 degree reading: 1st: .000 2nd: .010 3rd: .013 4th: .010

135 degree reading: 1st: .011 2nd: .012 3rd: .010 4th: .012

180 degree reading: 1st: -.006 2nd: .005 3rd: .003 4th: .003

225 degree reading: 1st: -.011 2nd: -.001 3rd: -.001 4th: -.003

270 degree reading: 1st: -.014 2nd: -.006 3rd: -.007 4th: -.009

315 degree reading: 1st: -.017 2nd: -.008 3rd: -.006 4th: -.009

As you can see my last two readings seemed to be a little more accurate. My baseline "zero" reading was actually setup at 90 degrees hence the first reading of zero there. It was just easier to setup the dial indicator at that position for me.

So, how should I go figuring up my information? Should I average the last two sets of numbers and get my low and high numbers to figure out what type of offset dowels to use?

Any suggestions appreciated.

 

I had a great response from Keisler Engineering over at Pro-touring.com if anyone's interested. They simplified the process a lot and have videos which are linked in their response.