PatrickGSR94

iTrader: (1)

I and many others in this forum have been harping over and over again how camber kits are not necessary with a proper alignment. However, most of us, including myself, are more familiar w/ the front double-wishbone/rear trailing arm suspension configuration of late 80's/mid-90's Civics and Integras.

Someone pointed me to this link, a suspension FAQ mainly for 01-up Civics, posted by a guy who seems to be pretty knowledgeable and experienced with suspension tuning and track driving.

http://www.civicforums.com/forums/44...ml#post4185927

According to that, 01-up Civics can go up to about -2.25 front camber before running out of toe correction room on the tie rods. While I don't agree with his assertion that -2.25 camber will damage tires, I can't argue if it is in fact true that you can correct the toe with more negative camber than that. Since the tie rods connect so high on the strut on these cars, I can see how the tie rods might run out of adjustment range with more negative camber.

But he also claims that adjustable rear upper arms are almost a requirement to be able to correct the toe after lowering. I helped lower an EP3 Civic once, but that was years ago and I don't know much about the rear suspension design on those cars.

Anyone with experience working on 01+ Civic/RSX suspension that can comment? I'd like to at least educate myself so that I can help educate others.

Honda Rules

I have a 03 Civic EX coupe, Im lowered on GC's all the way with the perch uncut. About 4 months ago I aligned my car at school and the front camber reading was -3.1 degrees FL wheel and -3.3 degrees FR wheel. I was able to set the toe back to spec. I dont have the camber bolts install on my car. I have no toe wear signs on my tires till they day where I needed to replace them due to normal wear.

As far as the rear I bought a camber kit so i can set my toe back to OEM specifications, without it I couldnt

I dont know if this helps....

PatrickGSR94

iTrader: (1)

I see, so that clears it up about the rear.

So wait, you got that much negative camber up front with Mac struts and no camber plates?!? How is that possible??

Honda Rules

I dont know, but like some what older dude told me its just not as accurate like it might seem to be using the computer/sensors. He still use tape measurer, rope, angle guage, etc to do alignments. So I would have to get an angle gauge to see if its true as far of my front camber

toyomatt84

iTrader: (1)

I highly doubt you had more than -2 degrees of camber on the front wheels, when you lowered your car. I would be willing to bet that the gauges he's using are slightly out of calibration.

Honda Rules

It was on a John Bean alignment rack......like that dude said their not always right`

Ask Toyomatt the questions, he EM2 specialist!.........*im not being sarcastic*

chargeR

I have a DC5. I have never heard of anyone needing a camber kit to achieve zero toe at the front or rear of the vehicle.

The part about running out of toe adjustment at the front of the car is correct. Quite often with significant negative camber, or low ride heights with very little negative camber will result in the tie rods not having enough adjustment to achieve zero toe. I have -5 front camber and I had to shorten my tie rods.

At the rear however my car is lowered more than 2" and I still have zero toe with -2.5ish camber and no aftermarket alignment adjustment parts. I don't know much adjustment the rear suspension has for toe though so it is concievable that you would run out of adjustment if the car was super low but I doubt it.

For performance most track oriented DC5 guys would claim that front and rear camber adjustment is essential because the rear suspension gains far too much camber with lowering and the front never has enough.

katzenjammer84

Lowered about 2.25" or so, was able to bring toe within spec. Running 1.5 degrees negative camber rear, half a degree or so in front/.

batallic

now u dont have to post every week about camber kits, this should get stickied props to u patrick