rexracerboy

I just finished with a drum to disk swap. Through various mistakes, I ended up changing out everything including upper arm, lower arm and the comp arm (please no flaming or a million posts asking why I did it this way). Well, I had the car aligned and this is what they told me: "we can't adjust your rear toe to where it needs to be because there's no more room to adjust it. Also, there's no room to adjust a few other things."

Hmmmmmmmm...

So here is the specs for my car now and where everything is at (some may find the spec range helpful so I included it):

Front Left -

Camber Spec range: -1.0 to 1.0; Actual: -2.5; Before: -2.5
Caster Spec range: 2.0 to 4.0; Actual: .8; Before: .8
Toe Spec range: -.12 to .12; Actual: .06; Before: .09
SAI Spec Range: 6.6 to 8.6; Actual: 10; Before: 10
Included Angle Spec Range: 5.6 to 9.6; Actual: 7.5; Before: 7.5

Front Right -

Camber Spec range: -1.0 to 1.0; Actual: -1.9; Before: -2.0
Caster Spec range: 2.0 to 4.0; Actual: 1.2; Before: 1.2
Toe Spec range: -.12 to .12; Actual: 0.6; Before: .01
SAI Spec Range: 6.6 to 8.6; Actual: 15.6; Before: 15.6
Included Angle Spec Range: 5.6 to 9.6; Actual: 13.7; Before: 13.7

Front -

Cross Camber: Actual: -.6; Before: -.6
Cross Caster: Actual: -.5; Before: -.5
Cross SAI: Actual: -5.6; Before: -5.6
Total Toe: Actual: .12; Before: .10

Rear: Left

Camber Spec -1.4 to .6; Actual: -1.3; Before: -1.3
Toe Spec .04 to .16; Actual: 1.28; Before: 1.28

Rear: Right

Camber Spec -1.4 to .6; Actual: -1; Before: -1.1
Toe Spec .04 to .16; Actual: 1.26; Before: 1.25


Front -

Cross Camber: Actual: -.3; Before: -.3
Total Toe Spec: .08 to .32: Actual: .2.54; Before: .2.54
Thrust Angle: Actual: .01; Before: .01


There you have it...

It may be a long shot, but can anyone maybe give some advice on how to troubleshoot this one? The toe adjustment bolt is pulled all the way "out" if that makes sense - out towards the outside of the car instead of in towards the center...apparently it needs more room to be pulled out, but there is just no more adjustment left. They tried to adjust a few things, but couldn't get it to work for them. The alignment shop said if I could figure out how to re-adjust the setup so that it could be properly aligned, then they would be willing to give it another go for me.

BTW, the car is lowered, but I don't know how much because it was like that when I bought it (how many times have you heard that one, lol), so actually, I'm not familiar with the stock ride height. Looks like stock shocks with neuspeed springs, they're green if anyone can tell me about them or what they are.

Also, what the heck do I do with the toe and camber/caster and Included angle (basically all the out of spec stuff)? How does this affect tire wear? Or does it affect tire wear should be my question, though I have a good idea that it's not anything I'm going to like.

Thanks in advance.

djphonics

1.) What Trailing Arms did you use for your rear disk swap? There should be plenty of room for rear toe adjustment, unless your car is bent up somehow.

2.) You can adjust front and rear camber with the respective camber kits

3.) Caster can't really be adjusted unless you have a traction bar such as FullRace's. However, I got an alignment and I don't rember the caster spec being 2-4 deg. I thought it was more like 1/2 a degree.

Targa250R

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by rexracerboy &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I just finished with a drum to disk swap. Through various mistakes, I ended up changing out everything including upper arm, lower arm and the comp arm (please no flaming or a million posts asking why I did it this way). Well, I had the car aligned and this is what they told me: "we can't adjust your rear toe to where it needs to be because there's no more room to adjust it. Also, there's no room to adjust a few other things."

Hmmmmmmmm...</TD></TR></TABLE>
"Hmm" what?

You used the wrong compensator arms, exactly like you shouldn't have. What did you expect? They're obviously too short. What arms did you use, DA Integra?

Put the stock toe compensator arms back on the car and you'll have adjustment room for the toe again. It's that simple.

Ignore the camber and caster (they are not adjustable anyway), and just have the alignment tech set the toe to the center of the tolerance range at all 4 corners to minimize uneven tire wear.

sanimalp

^^ what he said.

rexracerboy

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by djphonics &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">1.) What Trailing Arms did you use for your rear disk swap? There should be plenty of room for rear toe adjustment, unless your car is bent up somehow.

2.) You can adjust front and rear camber with the respective camber kits

3.) Caster can't really be adjusted unless you have a traction bar such as FullRace's. However, I got an alignment and I don't rember the caster spec being 2-4 deg. I thought it was more like 1/2 a degree.</TD></TR></TABLE>

I got my parts from H.A.P. Recycling, told them what I was trying to do, and they said they had the swap for it.

OK, I'll have to look into the camber kits

As for the specs, I dunno...that's what the shop gave me.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Targa250R &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
"Hmm" what?

You used the wrong compensator arms, exactly like you shouldn't have. What did you expect? They're obviously too short. What arms did you use, DA Integra?

Put the stock toe compensator arms back on the car and you'll have adjustment room for the toe again. It's that simple.

Ignore the camber and caster (they are not adjustable anyway), and just have the alignment tech set the toe to the center of the tolerance range at all 4 corners to minimize uneven tire wear.</TD></TR></TABLE>

OK...see I was just working off of someone's advice at H.A.P. that said they knew all about this swap. Actually, I'm not 100% sure what car the parts came off from because they just said they had a package/kit they put together that they could send me, and when pricing out the stuff individually, it was a bit more, but again I was trying to source out new parts too instead of rebuilding old calipers.

...and actually, I think my camber was off before with the old setup because the car was lowered when I bought it and no one ever compensated for the new ride height. My camber now in the back is in spec.

Actually, I used all the new parts they gave me so I might have used all the wrong parts if they came from an integ. I think that lower control arm is too long, but I also used the upper control arm and my camber is fine. The back of the tire looks like it's sticking out too far is the only thing.

While we're on the subject...is ok to just get OEM or whatever autozone has for replacement bushings for the old LCAs? or is there something better for this setup?


EDIT: FYI if you need/want to replace your bushings and you were going to have a shop push out and press in new ones for you, I just called a honda dealership and found it was a few dollars cheaper to buy new OEM LCA arms from honda (yes they have them, and I was surprised that they did ) with new bushings and all...especially nice is that I have a DX, and can get the si all set up for a sway bar. The new OEM bushings were $20/ea. Labor to press out/in old/new bushing 1 hr @ $60/hr. and the new LCA was $89/ea. Good deal I think just to buy the new LCAs.


Modified by rexracerboy at 1:43 PM 6/7/2007