I'm in the process of completely rebuilding my suspension on my EF Hatch. I'm looking into buying a front camber adj kit and found this on eBay Front Adjust Control Arm They are only $50 and compared to $220 for the Skunk2 adjust kit is quite a price difference. I'm also not a big fan of the adjustable ball joints and want a complete control arm. Are these low end control arms reliable for a street car with occasional track days?

 

That was more of a comment then a question but enjoy your new arms!

 

I haven't bought these as of yet. I've only done the entire rear suspension (converted over to rear discs and put in all new bushings), new lower arm and adj camber and toe arms.

I also put in Skunk2 sport coilovers at all 4 corners. As I upgrade the front brakes to 11 inch from the 9.5 inch. While I do that I also want to upgrade the front suspension by replacing all bushings, ball joints, etc. and add a camber adjustment piece.

 

Do you need the camber kit? Are you trying to run a low offset wheel?

 

I'm not running anything extreme...I only even dropped the car 1" so it will not have issues being a daily driver. I want sport but some comfort still. I am just adding adjust ability in case I go to the track and can add some quick camber for better handling.

I am about to buy the front camber kit and my original post was about these $50 ebay front camber kits and whether they were even worth the money.

 

I was asking about it because you don't need it. Plus it probably wouldn't be worth it since it's ebay. If you read about camber kits on these threads you will learn that just getting good alignment(toe) after the drop and you will be fine. Stick with the oem upper arms.

 

Please don't trust your entire front suspension on shitty EBay control arms. How high can the quality be if you get both pieces for $55???????????

I've had my car lowered over 2 inches for years and simply had the toe adjusted and have never had problems. A little bit of negative camber is a good thing

 

That is why I was asking if anyone had any experience with front camber plates quality. I wouldn't put something cheap on there to be cheap. But considering the Skunk2 front camber arms are $230+. I looked them over pretty well and I can't tell by the pictures who the mfgr is on the cheap ones (as sometimes the cheapo units are from the same mfgr and same quality - just not a brand name).

 

I just don't understand the need for it. Here in Hawaii we have to pass a stupid inspection for "modified" vehicles and we need our alignment specs as close to OEM as possible so some of here have a need to buy those things. Also the guys who are running the low offset wheels to get it under the fenders do it as well.

 

That statement is a serious WTF?!?

If the law mandates the OEM alignment spec, its absolutely retarded, but would force the purchase of some form of camber adjustment for lowered cars.

But really, "as close as possible" is easy on a lowered Honda. Most don't have stock camber adjustment, so just putting the toe back to spec is "as close as possible", as nothing else is adjustable.

 

Thats funny

 

I have yet to hear of any adjustable control arm that doesn't have problems associated with them. The height of the sliding ball joint assembly and the bolts that *attempt* to hold it in place seriously reduce clearance under the fender. The ball joint slip and slide out of adjustment, the bushings squeak like hell, etc. etc.

I bet you'll end up wearing your tires faster if you screw around w/ those arms, and it's not just the arms themselves, but adjusting them all the time for track vs. street use. Every time you tighten and loosen the bolts will probably weaken them little by little.

Just stick w/ stock UCA's. Aftermarket ones almost always cause more problems than they solve.

 

Actually, I have used the Skunk2 UCAs and they have never slipped :-). They have been used for heavy duty road racing. Might be an option if Skunk2 offers them for EFs.

 

This is why some here end up buying those things while others(like me) can pay a $65 ticket. But the cops here have kinda calmed down on these tickets or maybe that I am just getting old and not driving my car around for no apparent reason any more. Besides this is a small price to pay compared to a smog check every year. CAT eliminator Hytech copy's and loving them.

 

Skunk2 does make some UCAs and they look nice but cost $220 for the standard unit and $300+ for the pro piece.

I don't expect to be adjusting it often - only occasionally. I have a camber adjustment gauge to do so. Just want to save my tires for street car and having a more stock camber and have that adjust ability (already have camber arms in the rear) if I wanted to do it. - such as if I put some r spec tires on the car.

 

This won't save tires.

 

IIRC, if you lower the car and do not adjust the camber it will wear out tires faster. Negative camber does that as it shifts the area of traction to the inside edge of the wheel. Just like how having too much toe in will wear a car's tires faster.

 

On a Honda if you don't have correct toe then it will wear out tires faster. Camber won't affect it too much unless your planning to keep these tires for 75,000 miles then maybe camber kit might prolong the life. Or your car is really slammed to the point where the tires are riding on edge(which I have never seen).

 

you are mistaken. dont worry, many ppl are as well.

toe wears tires.

you dont need to buy anything.

 

Ha actually your mistaken... Trust me, if you go to school and learn mechanics then they will tell you what wears tires and what doesn't and how to adjust it. Toe will cause major tire wear, but camber also wears tires. Caster does not wear tires though.
I have the adjustable sliding ball joints with the stock control arms and went to les schwab and got it all adjusted for pretty cheap. That was about a year ago and everything is still normal.
Quality sliding ball joints (spc, ingalls) are about as much as quality adjustable control arms but idk of anybody who makes quality control arms for an ef...

 

ah, whatever. im not going to argue with noobs.

 

Don’t argue with idiots. They drag you down to their level and beat you with experience. --Greg King

Never argue with a fool; onlookers may not be able to tell the difference. --Mark Twain

 

I think there's agreement here but no one will admit it. Toe makes the biggest difference in wear in a tire. Camber does affect tire wear but it is a much smaller difference than toe and it takes much longer for it cause wear that is of concern.

Skunk2 makes an camber adjustable upper control arm for the EF and they look high quality. LINK

Also why does all the enters in my post get erased and I have to go in edit and add the < br > command to get to a new line?

 

I just don't get how it wouldn't cause abnormal wear to your tire if you had negative camber... Or why instructors at a technical school like wyotech would tell students that positive or negative camber wears tires? Or why the tire in the picture below is worn like it is...? camber maybe? Oh and all noobs are idiots, only people with 14000 posts know what they are talking about...



"Three minutes thought would suffice to find this out; but thought is irksome and three minutes is a long time." A.E. Houseman

 

The inner 2" of that tread is toe wear.

Explain how else my tires when I was running -2.8 front camber still lasted 30K+ miles?