Okay, so i bought Skunk2 Pro series camber kit and SPC rear camber kit for my 2001 integra. I had my toe set to 0 degrees at all four corners, but i still see more wear on the inner tire. Very minimal though.Enough to make me get camber for the LONG run.

When i get my alignment, do i still tell the tech to set the TOE to 0 degrees on all 4 sides?

What should i set the camber to be so i have the best wear/handling? More concerned with wear because the car handles really well already.


can you guys post pictures of your car's stance with camber kits?

 

do you just not care how the car handles? zero all around is a great way to create a slow unpredictable car and camber kits, besides not being needed screw with your camber curve while cornering.

these cars always do better with some toe out up front and toe in out back.

 

i have koni/gc with itr 22mm rear sway bar. Well i would like the car to handle as well as it does now, but i'm more concerned with tire wear. I can settle with a little camber, whats a good setting for front and back? *while keeping in mind of tire-wear*

 

no one can suggest some settings???

 

Uneven tire wear can be caused by many factors. If you have super high performace tires on a car with a stock set up you might notice more un even wear because the stiff sidewalls will not flex and bend in sync with a soft set up.

I personally hate zero toe. I prefer a little toe in in the rear under every circumstance and a little toe in or a little toe out up front depending upon the circumstances.

Static camber is relative to ride height and dynamic camber is relative to camber curves. Toe curves also work in conjunction with camber and you should plot both...most folks don't bother. Although ride doesn't influence static camber, a given ride height establishes a static camber value for a given ride height and hence affects dynamic camber. Make sense?

Since I don't know how low your car is I can only be helpful to a point. I would set rear toe and camber to stock and I would set front camber to 1 - 1.5 degrees neg and keep the toe ever so slightly in if your car is daily driven on public roads. Your car has a long and short arm front end set up - SLA - and thus gains camber in bump so you don't need a lot of extra static neg camber...of course, spring rates should determine camber adjustments as well because they determine fundamental roll forces and and how nuch a car rolls will determine just how much neg camber it can really use.

You can use this rough guide for ride height; make sure the LCAs - lower control arms - arm parallel with the ground. This will help keep toe changes in bump and rebound relatively the same. This will also help with even tire wear. The point here is that if one tire in bump changes toe by 1/8" while the other in rebound is zero you might end up with a car that wanders a lot over bumpy roads because the tires have to travel different distances. Bumpsteer! There's much more to this but using the LCA as a reference is close enough I should think.

Remember that an alignment falls into the 'fine tuning' category and cannot cover up for other potentially indiscriminate component selection.

Toe in setting for the rear can help rear tires build slip angles in sync with the front - remember the front wheels turn and begin to build slip angles first. Slip angles result from self aligning torque at the contact patch. Among other tuning techniques, a little toe in in the rear can help build a very stable back end, even with big rear spring/bar rates. Stability drops off, obviously, with ever higher spring/bar rates but it is possible to build a car that is very controallable - will rotate well - but is easy to modulate...is tossable. I prefer set ups like this because they are not spooky. A spooky set up makes for an inconsistent car...a car should be easy to drive fast all the time.

 

thanks for your lengthy and informative post. Car is a DD..sees plenty of highway driving and will never see the track.
im on oem 15 inch rims with 195/55/15 tires and i have 1 finger gap in the front and 1.5 in the rear. I'm having some high speed stability issues. Around 75-80 mph, my steering wheel feels loose and not stable...almost like the front of the car is floating. I had this issue with my old set of tires and was correct by rebalancing my tires. I'm going to get these rebalanced but with the camber kit, i hope to improve high speed stability, so thats why i need a good setting.

 

Zero toe, in theory, will create a loose, disconnected feel with the road. I wrote in theory because if the toe is set to zero while on an alignment rack the front tires will still toe in a little due to suspension deflection. The rear tires may toe out a bit...and I believe rear toe is related much more to straight line stability than the front.

Good tires are always important! I might raise the front end a bit - two fingers is what I used as a general guide line for my son's 99 Si.

If you set the rear to stock specs, set front camber to 1 - 1.5 deg neg and set front toe to just a hair toe in you should have a car that is stable but a little tossable. Now, I cannot make any guarantees since I know little else about the car.

I like SPC and have used their products in other applications. Also, ask your alignment tech to use blue Locktit on the four allen screws when he begins to adjust camber. This will help everything stay in place. And, I cannot remember the torque setting for those four allen screws - very important that they not be over or under torqued. I just installed this kit on my son's car a few months ago. Ball joint failure has been a random complaint but I attribute some of that to a ride height that is too low; there is only so much articulation available in a ball joint.

If you are doing all of this work you might want to consider adding hard rubber bushings to both the upper and lower front control arms...leave the rear alone as long as the bushings are in good shape. In particular, adding hard rubber front lower control arm bushings will transform your car! It will go where its's pointed with little trouble.

EDIT: the reason zero toe can cause a disconnected feel with the road is that zero toe helps to diminish self aligning torques at the contact patch. There are of course other factors that affect self aligning torque and steering feel; SAI/Kingpin, camber, tire type and wheel offset.

 

Meb58 is correct.

Our typical setup on our EG was about 1.5"-2" lowering (arms parallel to ground, roughly two fingers fo fender clearance), -1.5 deg camber up front and -1 in the rear. The fronts are toed out slightly (dependent on the track and driving conditions) and rears are usually toe'ed in by about 0.5 degrees.

With a good handling setup, it is normal to see slightly more wear on the inside edges of the tires (usually the fronts). It's all a compromise - even wear and so-so handling, versus some uneven wear and great handling. Rotate the tires often to keep the uneven wear in check.

Beyond daily driving, it would help a lot if you have a good tire pryometer to figure out what's going on with the tires.

-A

 

toe out up front, toe in at rear. ive always gotten even tire wear.

i wouldnt ever go toe in up front with a lowered car.

 

If the uneven wear is "minimal" like you describe, I seriously would not worry about camber kits.

Just do what I do and get the tires flipped on the rims after awhile if the inner wear gets down far enough and there is usable tread on the rest of the tire.

When I had my old original bushings, I still got some inner wear even after alignments. So I would get my tires flipped on the wheels after about 15K miles and ride on them another 15K-20K miles.

After getting new HardRace rubber bushings installed all around, I have not seen as much tire wear with about -2 deg. camber up front.

 

Tyson,

I think you can toe in or toe out a stock set up or a lowered one. I'm curious why you make the distinction? I am always open to something new, but I've never run into a problem making toe changes - in or out - to a lowered or stock set up. The affect is generally the same, yes?

My last quasi track car was also my daily driver and i used a hair toe in up front to help remove that darty steering we get from too out - but I drive 84 highway miles every day. Do I prefer a little toe out whilst on the track? Sure do...twas a compromise that didn't seem to bother the R compounds much. The car was an 05 JCW Mini.

Patrick,

The nice thing about those hard rubber bushings is that the synamics of our alignments are fairly close to the rack settings. One of the reasons I wasn't so concerned about using a hair toe in up front.

 

thank you all for the help
patrick, i did that with my last set of tires but these tires are rotational(they state on the tire it should rotate only 1 way). what would happen if i flipped it? the tires i have are neuton nt5000. theyre pretty grippy and quiet... much better than the ze329.

 

If the tires are directional (like what you have) you flip them on the rim (have to get a tire shop to do this) and put them on the other side of the car so they keep rotating in the same direction and wear out the other edge. This is a pretty common thing to do.

-A

 

Yep. I'm hoping my new suspension bushings will allow me to ride on a set of tires longer before having to flip them.

 

If you flip them, then the arrow will point towards the back of the car..which is not the direction the tire is suppose to rotate. any negatives about riding the tires the wrong way?

Another question.....didnt feel like making a new thread
My skunk2 pro series camber kit came in.....i've heard of some stories where the boot tore, should i grease/condition the boots? If so, what do i use?

 

Running directional tires the wrong way in the rain may be hurtful. I can tell you that I brain faded one day at the track and mounted my R compounds in the wrong direction. The car felt a little different and I didn't know why until a racer friend pointed my stupidity.

You can rotate directional tires front to back once and then have them re-mounted to the opposite side - flipping. Just move the tire over in its identical orientation. now the outside tread is the inside and vise versa. I beleive that rotating directional tires is a must of you want to avoid lots of noise and lifting tread.

 

Swap the wheels side-to-side after flipping the tires, and the tires will rotate correctly. Believe me I would NEVER drive on a tire rotating backwards, but I've been flipping tires on rims for years to get additional life out of them.

 

What he said.

 

ahh makes sense now.....haha thanks.
my tires are weird, i notice that the V patterns for the treads are upside down V(when looking from the front) when its rotating in the correct direction.....does this look right? I know that the 4 deep parallel channels are what matters when driving in the rain.


should i grease the boots on the camber kits? if so, what should i use?

 

What kind of tire is it? Might want to ask that question in the wheel/tire forum.

 

neuton nt5000. not really sold here in the US, but popular elsewhere. It was 59 a tire and had a 320aa rating. its not really that bad. Its quiet and more grippy than my old tires ze329.
What tires do you use patrick?

 

As long as the rotation arrows on the sidewall are facing the correct direction you should be good.

Most directional tires have the apex on the "V" of the contact patch pointing to the rear of the car. This is usually intended to channel water away from the centerline of the tire as the car moves forward.... so yeah, those tires are odd.

-A

 

I have POS Kumho Ecsta SPT's in both 205/45-16 and 195/55-15. Junk tires IMHO, so damn loud for a daily driver.

Not sure what I'll get next for the 16's. I've been on my stock wheels (with these POS 195/55 tires) for over a year now because 2 of my 16" have metal wires showing on the inside edges (already been flipped before) and I haven't been able to afford a new set since my son was born a year ago.

 

those above tires are not only backwards, that's a copy of the kumho mx

tire wise

i'm all but married to yokohama advan ad08's

dry grip is not only high buy predictable, good in the wet. can't wait till march so i can but them back on. have a set of icebears for the winter

if you guys have a chance. try out the ad08, one of the, if not the best non r street tire i have driven

kumho's xs is another fun one but a bit floaty in the wet. any hard rain does not agree with the tread design. rivals the ad08 in the dry though

 

OP said the tire is rotating the correct direction according to sidewall indicators. You think the tire was made incorrectly?