I put on a new set of tires (toyo t1-s - 205/50/15) and a front camber kit a few weeks back and had the car aligned right before doing my first hpde @ VIR full course.

I have a 98 civic ex w/22mm front sway (with poly end-links & sway bushings), and the comptech 22mm rear kit set on the middle setting. Running h&r sports w/koni yellows. Alignment is roughly :

-1.5deg front camber
-1.8deg rear camber

0 deg front toe
? deg rear toe (don't remember off the top of my head).

The problem is that the car was stable but had a tendency to oversteer quite a bit on hard turns (like oak tree and turn #4 on VIR full course). Aside from the oversteer, car handled beautifully.

My initial thoughts were, ah... soften up the rear sway bar. However when looking at my tires, I had consistent wear across the entire tire on the front, but only wear on the *outside* edge on the rear.

So it looks like the tire is leaning quite a bit in the rear. So I'm wondering if I need more negative camber, maybe -2deg or just stiffen up the rear sway bar.

Keep in mind that this car is a dual-purpose car, so I can't go too aggressive on the alignment specs.

 

If your sway bar is adjustable, you could go up a notch, but that might just make the oversteer happen sooner.

I'd try more neg camber both front and rear first.

 

If you stiffen up the rear sway, you'll increase oversteer.

 

I'm thinking my best bet is to get a rear camber kit and another alignment before my next hpde.

I would just remove one of the shims in the rear, but the bushings in the upper control arm are probably worn anyways...

 

Any idea where your Koni shocks are adjusted? This should be your first initial tuning adjustment. If the car is oversteering, my first suggestion would be to soften the rear rebound setting. I am expecting that you will probably have your ffrront shocks adjusted in the mid to slightly higher range as well. Normally, with the fronts in a mid to slightly higher range, adding rear rebound will increase oversteer and softening rear rebound will decrease oversetter. If these shock adjustments have little to no effect, it tells you that your issues are further upstream in the system.

I thing that you will find that your camber settings are going to be not enough negative for serious track usage and this is confiormed by your outer edge wear but since the car is primarily used for the street, I would say staying where you are and living on track with the compromise would be the best option unless you want to regularly have it aligned for each use.

 

I will have to double check my shock settings. It has been quite a while since I adjusted them. IIRC, they were about mid-way on the fronts and just a tad softer in the rear.

Right now aligning before and after each event isn't cost effective, so I'm trying to find a compromise where I can still have fun on the track but not destroy my tires on the street. I'm seriously considering just buying what I need to do my own alignments at home.

 

Dialing out some camber in the rear will once again give you more oversteer.

Less than 2 degrees negative camber should be a good street compromise. Depending on what tires you use and how you drive, you shouldn't experience too much uneven tire wear.

I wonder if you're bottoming the suspenion under heavy load.

 

maybe you need to look at what you were doing when you were at those corners. Im not familiar with VIR but if a car has oversteer tuned into it, it will do it on most turns. If a car oversteers in just a few corners, some times, its something the driver is/was doing.

i dunno if you have any in car footage but if you do watch it and look/listen and see if anything comes up. Things such as braking, lifting the throttle, ect can cause this.

Again not familiar with VIR but at T-hill there are some off camber turns and if you upset most cars in any way on these you will see some quick oversteer.

I'd also check out bushings and such and see if any are warn out and might be causeing somthing to lock up.


another thing to think about would be, are these heavy braking corners? if they are and you toe in the rear is close to zero, when the car is unloaded durning braking the rear end likes to get alittle loose. Some freinds of mine that track stock ITR's had this problem on high speed stright going into slower but still fast sweeping corners.

Just remeber there are a ton of other things besides an alignment that can make a car over/under steer.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by slammed_93_hatch &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">maybe you need to look at what you were doing when you were at those corners. Im not familiar with VIR but if a car has oversteer tuned into it, it will do it on most turns. If a car oversteers in just a few corners, some times, its something the driver is/was doing.</TD></TR></TABLE>

I went back to VIR to do the south course a week ago and didn't have any problems with oversteer or anything, so pretty safe to say that the problem was the driver I did much better there this time and the south course is much more technical.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">another thing to think about would be, are these heavy braking corners? if they are and you toe in the rear is close to zero, when the car is unloaded durning braking the rear end likes to get alittle loose. Some freinds of mine that track stock ITR's had this problem on high speed stright going into slower but still fast sweeping corners.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Yes, they were heavy braking corners and I focused a lot more this time on hard braking without upsetting the car too much.

 

have you tried adjusting the driver? seriously.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Tyson &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">have you tried adjusting the driver? seriously.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Yeah, thats what I was saying in my last post. The suspension and alignment were fine... It was the nut behind the wheel