nico.tico

Well I just got my car back on the ground, 92 prelude S I installed K Sport coilovers, ingalls 3 degree adjustable camber/caster ball joints, baer track kit (13 inch rotors, sweeeet) and oh yeah, I did a 5 lug conversion. I set the car on the ground and went to go for a road test. Coilovers set at the K Sport recomended 2 turns back from full stiff. I set the car at half a degree negative camber front, 1 degree rear, caster zero with my Fastrax alignment gauges. Road test consisted of drive to the alignment shop to do the toe adjustment, I never seem to be able to get the steering wheel to be perfectly straight, and consequently, neither were the guys with the computer alignment machine either. Anyway, when i set it on the ground, I went to back up and heard clunk from the steering. When I got to the stop sign and turned again, a solid clunk. I was in a hurry so off to get the toe adjusted. The steering was really touchy, I thought was due to the slightly toe out from lowering. When I got the car back from the alignment, it was the same, really touchy. It's actually kind of scarey when going to make lane changes at speed 70 mph plus. It felt like i had oversteered but when i went to correct my input, i almost pulled myself back into the other lane!! I was pulling into the road by my house and turned the steering wheel to the left and held a particular radius. A slight delay and then i felt the radius tighten up as if i had turned the steering wheel in more which i hadn't. Has anyone else encountered this? I'm about to add some negative caster (move ball joint to the front) to see if this will help but I'm wondering what could be causing this over sensitive feeling in the steering. I have a civic that I lowered with progress coilovers and adjustable control arms and it didn't do this. Oh and as for the clunking in the steering it is now clunking when i have the car parked and I turn the steering wheel, alot of small clunks. Are these two problems related? I'm going outside now to try and work on it but if anyone has encountered this please post. Driving on the freeway and passing in traffic is nowhere near as fun as it used to be, it's down right scarey!!!

snobordboy

You didnt mention wheels. Did you put new wheels on as well? Most aftermarket wheels do not come in the extreme offset that Honda uses i.e. 55mm I had much touchier steering going from stock wheels to Rotas with 48 mm offset. You could also be hearing a clunk from the wheel hitting a suspension component if it is that far off. I would say go through and check everything again, all your joints, tie rods inner and outer etc. Also the adjustable ball joints could be the cause of your clunks.

prelude_93vtec

what kind of steering wheel do you have? aftermarket or stock. u might have to readjust it to make it straight again. next time get a professional to do this for u

ECX

^
From what the OP stated he did, I doubt he needs help about a steering wheel. Not if he's intelligent enough to install and setup his own suspension.

PCNerd

Sorry to post without a solution here but I have the same problem in my 94 Prelude Si. I just bought it and on my 45 mile trip home, I brought it up to 100mph for the heck of it and then as i left off, i felt like i was goin to loose it when the exact thing you stated happened... it's like the steering was hypersensitive. any little movement made it jump to that direction.. i understand that the faster you go the more exagerated your movements become but i mean i've gone faster than that before in other cars and they don't behave this way.. Please let me know if you find a solution to your problem so that i can perhaps apply it to my situation.

- Rudy

my9thtry

To me it almost sounds like you have bad tie rod ends. Give it a shot.

PCNerd

well, i took off the front driver side wheel when i was having the cam seals replaced when we noticed about an inch wide of rubber missing all around the inside of the tire.. it was down to the wire... the other side is perfectly fine and the tire is like new..

i'm going to slap another tire on there and see if i notice the same touchy steering.. i just bought this car and just found out today i have a bad rod... ooh well.. time for an h22

- Rudy

h23vtecpowered

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by PCNerd &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">well, i took off the front driver side wheel when i was having the cam seals replaced when we noticed about an inch wide of rubber missing all around the inside of the tire.. it was down to the wire... the other side is perfectly fine and the tire is like new..

i'm going to slap another tire on there and see if i notice the same touchy steering.. i just bought this car and just found out today i have a bad rod... ooh well.. time for an h22

- Rudy</TD></TR></TABLE>
howd you get that idea. a bad rod. is it knocking or something or did it come through the block. may want to get a second opinion

snobordboy

Pcnerd it sounds like your toe setting is wayy out of whack, get it aligned pronto!! and yeah the other tire probably looked the same and just got replaced!

LudeBehavi0r

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by snobordboi &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Pcnerd it sounds like your toe setting is wayy out of whack, get it aligned pronto!! and yeah the other tire probably looked the same and just got replaced!</TD></TR></TABLE>

U hit the nail on the head man. Whenever you slam your car (dont feel bad, i did it too) you end up with a ton of positive toe in the front. Positive toe means if your looking down on your car from the sky the front portion of your wheels are pointing out like \ / and will dominate the insides of your tires faster than superman.

In short you need to get an alignment that should be able to fix your toe. your toe setting should be as close to zero as possible in order to conserve tires. It may not be the best for performance driving, but in order for that to have a sever effect on your driving on the street you have to be driving the $h*t outa ur car 24/7.

Hope this helped your out and you get ur car back on the road soon. I know how much it sux when u look under ur car and see that happening.

P.S. also if you slammed your car enough to have sever issues with toe over a short period of time I hope you have some stiff shocks to go w/those springs. I too was guilty of "too much slammin', not enough dampen." I put H & R race springs on stocks shocks and to be honest its nto that bad, but if you think the bump/hole/dead animal even might be too high for you to go over it probably is. The stock shocks arent near stiff enough to handle the wallop of a huge bump and your suspension and under body will pay. But like I said, i did it, got an alignment and I like the way it looks and my car drives/feels a million times better like this.

M@

^^^ I agree I asked the alignment shop to set my rears to 0 and that made the car alot more willing to swing out. It never really gets too far(its not drifting), and honestly I think it turns alot faster this way. So I could see if you had something more outta wack it would be even worse, and probably alittle scary.

PCNerd

i have h&r springs and kyb struts all around.. i just got some news rims and i'll be taking it to get aligned in a couple of days.. the car won't be driven but a few miles in that time so no big deal.. i'll keep a close eye on that tires tho.. i have the other set if these go bad.. plus i got the seller of the car to purchase me a new tire.. we'll see how it goes