Hey guys I am just about to finish up my suspension work on my 89 crx. I replaced all of my bushings with energy suspension except for the reaer trailing arm I put the mugens in there. I am now when it finally gets here going to be putting on my Ground control Coilovers 400/450 spring rates with Koni Yellows. My question is what should I get my alignment set to? This car is daily driven and see's probably 20 autocrosses a year. I was thinking like a 1/16th toe out in the front but am not sure what for the back. Thanks for your help.

 

mines also daily driven, and I average 20 events a year plus practice days and schools as well. I have currently been using -2.5° camber front, -1.6° camber rear, and all zero on toe.

 

have you ever experimented with a little toe out in the front to give you a sharper turn in

 

I like 1/16th total toe out front and zero rear, about -1.75 to -2.5 degrees negative camber all around depending on how wide the tires are and my willingness to get inside edge on the street (wider tiresor flatter wear means less negative) and about stock caster.

 

what do people do for bars on the car

 

I was just looking over my sheet and it says I do in fact have .05" total toe, which is just a little less than 1/16". I have not had any problems with turn in after replacing the tie-rod ends and adding a neuspeed front strut tower bar.

I started a thread elsewhere on my findings so far with "Formula STS Civic" tuning applied to an STS2 CRX Si. Here's what I posted:

So far, the CRX has Koni Sport shocks, and Ground control coilovers at 400# front and 500# rear. I've also replaced all the bushings (mostly honda rubber, some ES for steering bits, Mugen was used for the rear trailing arms) and added the Suspension Techniques 3-way adjustable 22mm rear sway bar. The front sway bar is stock. There's also a Neuspeed front strut tower bar, and a Hawker lightweight battery. Tires are 205/50/15 azenis (RT215s) on 15x6.5"s (15x7"s are coming soon with 615s! )

Up front I have -2.5 degrees of camber and the rears have -1.6, all toe is roughly zero (its a daily driver, too!). Ingalls camber kits are used on all 4 corners.

With that setup, I set all 4 shocks to medium and headed out for a few events. While I've had a lots of fun spinning around and making some dramatic sliding exhibitions, they dont give points for style in autocross. I evnetually realized I had to cut speed out of maneuvers in order to maintain stability...I was plagued with the car wanting to change directions in offsets and slaloms! Whee!

The first step I took was to lower the shock stiffness in the rear and raise the front. I found that this made the car more and more stable... but when I reached the bottom of the rear softness, I realized something else needed to change. Otherwise the negative effects of low dampening on the 500# springs would make the rear susceptible to bounciness.

For the next event I lowered the stiffness of the ST rear sway bar from full-stiff to the middle holes. This seemed to help my times quite a bit as I could go hotter into maneuvers. I found that the car was much more stable in offsets and slaloms, yet i could easily coax the rear to help with rotation in big sweepers, but I still had a feeling I could get more speed if I just dialed out a little more fun.

So currently the rear shocks are dampened just a little softer than I think they should be, and I cannot decide if I should drop the bar stiffness down again, or just wait and see if the wider wheels will help. I'm also adding new bushings and endlinks for the front the front sway bar to see if it will help delay the oversteer effect just tad bit more. Of course there is even more tuning to be made with tire-pressures as well.

If anyone has any questions or suggestions or thoughts please post em up before the June Divisionals in Pearsall, Texas! LOL!

 

What tires are you on???? That will make a big differance.

Falken 215's 1/8 total toe out in front, rear could be around 0
MX's, Hankook, or Falken 615's in the front I'm thinking a little less that 1/4 out in the front and 1/16 total out in the rear if you dare...

I will be doing some more testing soon.

My car has SPSS3 Koni revalves, with 400/375 springs. Stock bar (still looking for Hf and will test with out) ST rear bar at middle setting. Front camber at about neg 2.5 deg and rear is about to change to like neg 1.25


My car is an 88 with full audio, stk battery, passanger seat and full exhaust. So its far from the lightest it can be but maybe next year. I needed alittle more time in the car but at the Tour in Atlanta I was only 9 tenths behind Seeling. So its not that bad...

 

Reread your post... Have fun tuning.

 

Be careful with the rear toe. You might even go with a little toe in until you get used to the short wheelbase.

 

fyi...if those "ES for steering bits" are steering rack bushings, they're currently *not* legal for ST. That rules change just went out for member comment in the May Fastrack.

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So far, the CRX has Koni Sport shocks, and Ground control coilovers at 400# front and 500# rear. I've also replaced all the bushings (mostly honda rubber, some ES for steering bits...
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