I've got a 97 gsr. Had dual spring coilovers put in and dropped down approx. 2in on 17x7's and 215/40/17's. I didn't do a camber kit or shocks and didn't get an alignment. After approx. 15 days the insides of my tires are really worn. The fronts are really bad and the backs are minimal. The weird thing is the front pass side is about 2x worse than the front driver side. The alignment doesn't seem to be too bad, it pulls to the left a bit but the bump steer is terrible. Would a camber kit and an alignment take care of this? I'm really only worried about the front because I'm planning on using washers in the back. Do all front camber kits work the same? Are all alignments pretty much the same?

P.S. If anyone is thinking about skeeting out and only doing a half *** lowering job learn from my mistake and DON'T.

 

I'm not sure about the camber kits, but I know frame shops can bend your arms as a second option (but there's lots of mixed reactions about doing that). You can also have a tire place switch your left and right tires so you can ride on the other side of them for now. Good Luck.

 

I have a 96 GSR that was lowered with suspension technique springs 2.3" in front and 1.9" in rear. I have the camber kit and still had a problem with tire wear. I had brand new tires and at about 2500 miles one blew out. I just raised the car back up about 2 days ago with JDM type r springs which sit .75" lower than stock GSR. They make the car handle much better, not a lot of wheel gap, very stiff but smooth ride. I'd recommend these springs to anyone. I paid $50 for them in new condition.

 

bump

 

Where did you get your JDM springs? Is there any difference between USDM and JDM ITR springs?

 

Whenever you change springs, you MUST get an alignment. Make sure the shop your going to will work on lowered cars because most shops won't touch em. As for a camber kit...since you've lowered your car so much, i would recommend getting one. You don't want to spend all that time and money on an alignment to find that it hasn't fixed your tire wear problem. So do it right, spend the extra money and get a camber kit.

-Jeremy

 

Your main problem is toe-in being out-of-spec. It's probably some odd angle on one side in front, and a different angle on the other side, so the tires wear differently. Take it to a shop that does alignments and get the toe-in set to exactly zero. All 4 wheels must be checked and adjusted. The rear wheels are set first, and then the front wheels are set to line up with the rear wheels (this is the process for doing a laser alignment on a Hunter machine or similar). I am lowered almost 2" with no camber kit, but I got the toe-in set to exact specs and have had no tire wear problems after 25K miles.

 

So the alignment is the important part and the camber kit is pretty much optional? I'm planning on going to a basic alignment place (Firestone, NTB, Dobbs) and getting a basic alignment. Will that work?

 

alignment is your problem.....bigger wheels and being lowered throws off everything! I found that out when i had my 17's

 

A good aligment will improve the handling cause your car seem to be out off specs( the toe is probably be positive) wich mean that you will prematuraly use the inner of your tires. But with this case solve, you will have another problem that will use the inner of the tires, negative camber. I suggest you to put on a camber correction kit to stay in the Honda specs so you will really enjoy your set of springs and then go to a good shop to perform an aligment of your car.

 

well there is a point where camber can become a problem, but it's not as bad as people think if the car is aligned properly. Just make sure that whoever you take it to sets that toe correctly. Ask them to show a before/after printout of the alignment specs.

 

When you get your alignment, get a printout of the before and after settings of your tow.