I'm going to lower my car to about halfway down the collar (~1.5"), and I have a quick question about alignments. Should I get the car corner weighted (~300 bucks) or just get the standard alignment (40-80 bucks) and just set all of the springs to the same height all around? Any opinions would be appreciated. Oh, just in case you need to know, my suspension setup is in my sig and the car is a daily driver and an occasional auto-xer. Thanks for the help ^_^

 

Oh yeah, what kind of problems does lowering a car do? I know of camber, but does caster and toe change? Also, I seem to remember a member of the integra board who said something to the effect of negative camber wear can be "fixed" by some sort of toe setting so that the tires don't wear on the insides. Thanks again.

 

bump

 

someone has to have an answer... right?

 

I have no clue or whatsover what the corner alignment does and how it works. get the regular alignment $40-$80 ur town. I have a lifetime computerized wheel alignment for $80.00, yup, unlimited alignment if you're going to lower your car, it is always a good practice to have your alignment checked. also, the reason why no replies are being made on this question, people are tired of this questions. hope this helps...

 

Firestone has unlimited lifetime alignment for $149, not sure if it applies to lower cars though.

 

[QUOTE] also, the reason why no replies are being made on this question, people are tired of this questions. QUOTE] what do u mean by that? its a valid question.

 

I dont know ALLMOTORDC2, but for some reason you must be really pissed off PMS maybe?! you could use a to stop you from getting a attack

 

Skip the corner weighing, spend your money elsewhere. What would you do once you knew the corner weights? You'll never be able to adjust to 50-50 or even close on a teg.

Set the car level and get the standard alignment.

 

Alright guys, time for some real info.

Corner weighting and alignment are 2 completely different procedures that accomplish 2 completely different purposes. Alignment has to do with the angles that the tire and suspension make with the ground, and how well the car drives in a straight line. Corner weighting has to do with the balance and handling of the car.

When you get an alignment, you get the camber, caster, toe, and thrust angles adjusted to factory specs if possible, or whatever specs you choose. On Hondas only the toe is adjustable from the factory, so you want that set as close to zero as it can possibly get. This will help prolong tire life (more so than a camber kit will), and also will help the car drive straight without pulling to one side or the other. A typical 4-wheel alignment usually runs $50-$60, more than that if you have a camber kit that needs adjusting, as well.

Adjustable-height coilovers not only change the height of the car, but also the balance of the car. To get the most and best handling out of a set of adjustable-height coilovers, you need to get the car onto corner weights. Raising one corner of the car will put more weight onto the diagonally opposite corner of the car (raising the rear left puts more weight on the front right). What you want to do is add the front left and rear right weights, and then add the front right and rear left weights. Then you need to adjust accordingly to get these 2 sums as close as possible to each other.

Of course you ALWAYS need an alignment whenever you adjust the ride height of the car, because changes in ride height also affect the toe. As I said before, toe is more important to tire life than camber. I don't know how much it would cost to get the car corner weighted, but you need to do it if you want the best handling and balance out of your car. Just adjusting the coilovers all over the place can actually hurt the car's handling. If you do decide to have it corner-weighted, I suggest that once you find the optimal heights that you never change them.

Please post if you have anything to add or if anything I said is incorrect, or if you have any questions.


[Modified by PatrickGSR94, 10:27 AM 1/22/2003]