The time has come once again for my 6 month alignment and I am pretty excited about finally having my car lowered. I do have a few questions...

I am on Tokico Illuminas with the corresponding springs. I also have BLOX camber kits in the rear to help take out the negative camber that was present once I put the new suspension on. When I take a bump or turn to the left, I hear the tire rubbing against the rubber lining on the rear fender.

Should I add some negative camber to make sure the tire does not hit the fender well? By negative I mean about 2 degrees negative.

Or should I roll the fenders so I wont have to worry about tire rubbing?

If I do roll the fender, is there any way to do it without damaging the paint?

I am supposed to get it aligned tomorrow so any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
Brian

 

Set the car at the correct ride hieght. If you are setting camber based upon tire contact with the fender, that should be a clear indication - in my opinion - that the car is too low. But if you don't care about the performance, add more negative camber, change the wheel offset or install wheels with a smaller diameter.

 

Well setting it to stock ride height is not an option.

It is dropped only an inch and a half so I know I am not too slammed. Im not tucking on any of the wheels....

Any other ideas?


Modified by 00civicsiboy at 6:07 PM 2/4/2008

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 00civicsiboy &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
Any other ideas?
</TD></TR></TABLE>

Use wheels with the correct offset for the car, or just roll and/or pull the fenders.

I had no rubbing issues on my DC2, with the stock wheels and 205-50/15 RT-615 Azenis and lowered to tucking 1" of tire. I also didn't use any camber kits. Car drove fine. Also drove fine at that height with 16x7 5Zigen wheels and 205/45-16 Toyo Proxes (believe the offset of +42).

And -2* of camber is nothing to worry about. I daily drive with -4.0* in the front (its extreme, and you shouldn't even be able to get close to that without aftermarket camber adjusters).

 

I appreciate the reply. I have no idea what the front camber is but I am guessing it is nowhere near as much as you said you had.

I have heard rent a fender roller but I have also heard to heat the paint and use a wooden bat to push the fender back...

Would the bat attempt work?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 00civicsiboy &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I appreciate the reply. I have no idea what the front camber is but I am guessing it is nowhere near as much as you said you had.

I have heard rent a fender roller but I have also heard to heat the paint and use a wooden bat to push the fender back...

Would the bat attempt work?</TD></TR></TABLE>

I haven't used a bat to roll fenders since high school. However, with a heat gun to soften the paint, we didn't damage the paint on a first attempt with a wooden baseball bat. Make certain to roll it over the metal, not slide it, to prevent paint damage. No idea if the heat gun actually helped, but we had one available (shop class).

However, simply paying a race shop to do it with the correct tool might not be a bad idea.

Maybe someone else will chime in with experience.

 

Sadly, there is no shop within 100 miles that has one...

 

I'm curious about 4 deg neg camber in front and why camber would be used to correct for fender contact? This is a 2000 Si?

...if you are at all concerned with optimum performance you should at least plot a camber curve.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by meb58 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I'm curious about 4 deg neg camber in front and why camber would be used to correct for fender contact? This is a 2000 Si?

...if you are at all concerned with optimum performance you should at least plot a camber curve.</TD></TR></TABLE>

2000 Integra GSR.

4* of negative camber is for autocross. Softer sprung daily driver, more body roll, more dynamic camber loss, more need for static camber.

Additionally, with a sliding balljoint UCA, the more static camber, the steeper the camber curve, due to the shortening of the UCA.

It had nothing to do with fender clearance. If my tires were to rub, I'd go buy the correct offset wheels to prevent that.

I only mention my extreme camber, for those who think that their paltry -2* from lowering is extreme. -4* is too much for a street car (absurdly too much), but even at that extreme, tire wear is not an issue for me, and the car is perfectly drivable.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by TunerN00b &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> Additionally, with a sliding balljoint UCA, the more static camber, the steeper the camber curve, due to the shortening of the UCA.</TD></TR></TABLE>

My CB7 had some accident damage from the previous owner (I found when aligning the car), which resulted in more front camber on one side than the other (by 1° difference). To match the camber side to side I increased the camber on the undamaged side to match the camber on the damaged side (both sides now at 1.5° neg camber with a very slight lowering). To increase the camber I 'slotted' the chassis mounting holes at the inner end of the upper wishbone by 11mm.

To find the correct degree of 'adjustment' (i.e. how long the slots needed to be) to achieve equal camber I carefully measured up the suspension and drew it up diagramatically in 'CorelDraw'. This also allowed me to plot changes to the camber curve due to the shortened upper wishbone. I did this out of curiosity, I was going to change the upper wishbone length to equalise camber regardless of what it did to the camber curve, which I already knew wouldn't be much in any case.

In this case shortening the upper control arm by 11mm resulted in an increase in neg camber gain of 0.1° (from memory, it may not be exactly this much but it was definitely only a very slight change in the camber curve). This was at an arbitrary 100mm of bump travel. I didn't plot droop camber as it's not nearly as important since in droop the inside wheel is unloading and not contributing to grip nearly as much as the outside wheel (i.e. outside camber is far more important than inside camber).