im about to drop my car, and i heard somewhere you can make your own rear camber kit by adding washers somewhere. only works in the rear not the front, so i guess i'll just buy a camber kit for the front and save some $ by suing the washers. does anyone have a write up of it or directions to it with pics? and is doing this reliable?

 

http://www.teamdelsol.com/tech...t.asp

on a del sol, but its the same thing.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by civiccoupe94 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> only works in the rear not the front, so i guess i'll just buy a camber kit for the front and save some $ by suing the washers. </TD></TR></TABLE>

What is your setup? You only need a camber kit with extreme drops or to set a specific camber angle. In most cases, get an alignment, set toe to 0, and you'll be fine. Toe wears tires, not camber.

 

Camber does wear your tires... have you ever seen where tires are worn on the inside more than the outside on lowered vehicles that aren't properly aligned? That is mainly due to a negative camber angle. Toe does wear tires, but it wears them in a different manner than camber does. But when lowering a vehicle, you shouldn't have to do anything with the toe of the vehicle... just the camber because you're not changing anything with the tie rods, just with how high the vehicle sets and when you do any drastic changing with ride height on IFS/IRS (independent front suspension/independent rear suspension) you will have to modify or correct your camber angles.

 

nice illustration hehe

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by r3dh4tch &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Camber does wear your tires... have you ever seen where tires are worn on the inside more than the outside on lowered vehicles that aren't properly aligned? That is mainly due to a negative camber angle. </TD></TR></TABLE>

That's the key right there. Most people drop, don't get an alingment, cord the inside of the tires, and assume it's because of the camber.

Camber isn't adjustable on our cars, so when you get an alignment, it is adjusting the toe setting. Toe is the measure of how much your tire is out of line with the centerline of the vehicle; so when toe is off your tires could look like: / \ ; \ / or | \ etc. This causes the tires to 'scrub' since their fighting against the car as it drives straight, and if you have a drop, it will be more evident on the inside edge.

If you have a proper toe setting, and negative camber, the sidewall flex will allow enough give to have a full contact patch and even tire wear. Of course, the more extreme the drop and stiffer sidewall, the more a camber kit should be considered, but if you're running less than 3" drop with 15" or 16" tires, there shouldn't be a problem with proper alignment.

I've been running lowered with ~2* negative camber for a couple of years now with even tire wear. Even on my azenis (which I track, and would expect to wear unevenly) have been in use for 2 seasons and about 10K DD miles with perfectly even wear; and the same holds true for my summer and winter tires that have about 30K each since lowering, with very soft compounds. I'll be looking into a camber kit soon to add more camber, becuase I actually scrub the outside of my tires on track days.