Okay I lowered my 98 Ej8 on a set of H&R Race springs. I went ahead and got the alignment taken care of that week. I had planned on adjusting the camber myself with either the washer trick or a cheap ebay set of adjustable's. I'm only worried about the rear as it is sitting about -3* on either side the front is under -2* and I'm getting full contact across the tread so I'm not going to worry about that yet.

My friend that I took the car to has been doing alignments for several years and we are old high school buds so I trust him. But he told me that if I adjust my camber in the rear it will throw off my toe. Is that true? Will I have to take it back for another alingment just because I messed with the camber? Please help I'm going to get new wheels and tires but I will have to put it off untill I get this solved.

 

Just leave the camber alone if you had it aligned, and your friend is right btw.

 

changing camber changes toe - 100% of the time.
But on the rear it's not near as much as the front.

Pulling the rears back to around 1.5* may change the toe slightly, but it may not even be enough to be able to tell. (machine dependant of course)

With the fronts, .5* camber will move toe noticeably.

 

I'm not going to leave the camber alone. It looks like crap. It may be fine performance wise but astheticaly it's trashy! I will pay to have it re-aligned if I have to but i'm not going to run around looking like I half assed it.

 

if u change camber it changes toe, thats why when they align it they do camber first

 

Thanks that was the perfect answer.

 

I have a 98ex as well and I'm trying to visualize the rear suspension. If I'm thinking about it correctly, the change in rear toe will be minimal. A typical factory alignment is to have toe-in in the rear. I believe adding more positive camber in the rear will give you a hair more toe out than you currently have.

If it were me, I'd go ahead and do the washer trick to adjust rear camber. However, if you plan to get a rear upper arm style camber kit, then I would get an alignment after installing the kit.

 

Moving the upper control arm out to reduce negative-camber pushes the rear of the trailing arm outward. This results in increased toe-in at the rear.

 

This is a very informative post and was exactly what I was looking for. Submitted for sticky consideration.

 

This exactly.

To a certain extent, camber and toe adjustments both affect each other on both the front and the rear.

Front toe adjustments via the steering tie rods affect camber more so, the farther the caster line is from vertical. These newer, modern cars with gobs of caster (like 10° or more) would have a more significant change in camber as toe is adjusted. Just look at the front tires on any recent Chrysler RWD car, or BMW or Mercedes as the front wheels are turned to full lock - outside tire has lots of negative camber and inside tire has lots of positive camber.

On a Honda with double-wishbone suspension, camber doesn't change nearly as much with toe adjustments. But yes, camber adjustments will significantly alter toe, on both the front and the rear.