Okay, my suspension set-up is KYB AGX shocks w/ H&R Sport springs. I have already used the washer trick on the rear and placed 2 washers on each bolt. I am getting an alignment tomorrow and need to know what the settings should be. I probably won't be able to get a camber kit right now and I am told to set the front and rear toe settings to 0. Can anybody back me up on this or give me more information? Thanks!

 

yes, set the front and rear toe to zero.
Absolutely ZERO. dont let the alignment tech tell you that a little toe will compensate for the negative camber. If he does tell you anything like that, he is a SHITTY alignment tech. Go somewhere else.

Whereever you go you may have to tell the guy over and over "Dont worry about the camber, just set my TOE to absolutely ZERO"

 

i had to use 3.5 washers per bolt for the rear camber trick on mine. hmm? haven't taken it into alignment yet tho, because need to put some shocks on first, but even with 3.5 washers, it still looks like too much neg. camber. i tried two and it was too little, btw this is on a 97 civic coupe with h and r sports.

 

tonyxcom: can you elaborate a little on that?

I've always heard that just a slight positive toe (toe in) is the norm because at highway speeds the force will toe the wheels out a slight amount.

Not trying to challenge your statements, just trying to get clear in my head what I want to tell the alignment guy who will be re-doing the alignment on my car on monday.

Thanks.

 

Unfortunately, no. I have explained this many times in detail, more times then I think I should, but nobody listens. Search the EG forum and you should find the explanation you are looking for

And if you want proof, my car has -1.75 camber in front, -1.5 in back. I have almost 20k miles on these tires and they show ZERO and I mean ABSOLUTELY ZERO camber wear. Why is that....because my TOE is Absolutely ZERO.


[Modified by tonyxcom, 7:45 PM 12/20/2002]

 

Thanks for everybody's help. Tonyxcom: I have seen numerous posts by you about camber issues. I was just clarifying and getting more feedback.

 

Toe should be ZERO as stated above
I also asked the mechanic to adjust my front skunk2 kit to1 degree of negative camber.
I had 3 washers on my rear and it came out to just over 1 degree of negative camber

I was dropped about 2.5-2.75" on GC's

I'm probably going back to the same place / guy. He let me sit there and watch the entire alignment and talked to me about cars the entire time

 

I must agree that up FRONT the toe should be zero, but NOT in the rear!

All 1992-1995 Civics take .08 toe in the rear because that is actually dead center according to Honda's specs on my Hunter machine's program at work. Setti g the rear toe at 0 will cause unever wear in the rear - I've seen this in person.

I set camber at -.5 up front and -1.3 in the rear.

The max you're aloowed up front is -1 and the max in the rear is -1.3 degrees of camber.

I have these settings on my 1992 Civic hybrid with Falken Azenis and they wear 100% even.

 

Okay, went to get an alignment and the machine is way out of whack! It said that my rear left tire was negative 8 degrees and the rear right tire was .1 degrees. He said that one of the mechanics may have dropped one of the heads (they don't use lasers). With 2 washers in the rear with my drop the camber was about -.1 degrees and the front was around -1.2 degrees. The toe was screwed up on the machine though so I have to get it redone next week.

 

That is the max you are allowed on a STOCK height car. Once you lower you car, throw all that **** out the window. Dont let the machine tell you what is "out" of spec.

-.5 degrees of front camber and -1.3 in the rear?? you must handle like poo, sorry.

 

Okay Tony, you can talk **** all you want to, but I'm not going to throw **** back at you, okay?

I must handle like **** huh?

Whatever.

So tell me what ideal spces are then? I see cars with much less camber than you have (with good toe mind you) wearing tires uneven, so what's you secret? Can you tell me exactly why your car doesn't wear tires uneven and so many others do with less camber up front?

Please tell me why you have to throw the specs out the window once you lower the car? Perhaps there's some nice scientific reason, but really I cannot think of why you'd throw Honda's specs out the window even after lowering a car.

I've done plenty of alignments with lowered cars with camber kits, and these people still come back to the shop and have no complaints whatsoever and I've yet to see one of my alignments wear tires unevenly.

If you're not supposed to correct camber and set toe within Honda's specs after lowering, then don't you think by me doing so at my shop these cars would either:

A. Handle like total ****
B. Wear tires unevenly

Well? I mean sure I could set my camber crazy negative and play with toe settings to help with turn-in and such, but we are driving street cars here with greater tire wearing driving habits. If it were a track-only car then the alignments would be set up way different.

I just don't understand how a car with a heavier motor/tranny up front and more negative camber than the factory specifies doesn't need some camber correction.

 

It's actually really simple.

I DONT drag race.

I don't know what any other secret there is to tell you. Ask anybody that really knows anything about car setup and they will tell you that camber doesn't wear out your tires. TOE does.

So I am running all the negative camber that I want, I have 20k miles on my daily driven tires and I dont have ANY camber wear. And that is -1.75 up front.

What is the secret, ZERO TOE. That is the only secret, nothing else to it.

From looking at what you current setup is, the first thing that comes to mind is that your car pushes like crazy. When you turn, and the car rolls, you are getting all of your traction in front from the outsides of your tires...which equals not much traction. In the rear, you are closer to where you need to be so you should have good traction in back. Sounds like a car that would push to me.

On the other hand, your front camber is ideal for drag racing, but the TOE that you have in your car will scrub some of your speed.

And I am not talking **** at all Tom. I am just stating well known but often overlooked or ignored facts about alignments.

And once you lower a car, specs are out the window, sorry to say. Those specs, especially camber are based off of a car stock height and stock springs. That stock car as a LOT more tendency to roll in the turns through a greater range of suspension travel. What that means is that if the car is at rest with -.5 of camber in front, and has almost 3 inches of suspension travel that when in a full lean, the 3 inches of suspension travel will give you more camber as the car leans over, so you can start with a lower setting at rest.

Now once you lower you car and you say have half of the suspension travel as a stock car with stiffer springs and possible swaybars your car will lean less when turning. So you wont have much of a camber change throughout the suspension travel, meaning you have to start off with a more negative camber setting when the car is at rest.

Does that explain why you should throw stock spec alignment settings out the window when you lower your car? But if you don't care about handling, I guess you can do whatever your alignment tech thinks you should.

 

Why even bother with a camber kit then? >> 95% of the people get it to avoid early / uneven wear on their tires. I highly doubt tires with 3 degrees of negative camber will look the same as one with 1.5 degree with both set at 0 with the toe. The tires are just not going to ride even at all with 3 degrees causing the insides to wear out faster

 

do what you want, i dont care about your car setup or your tires.