i just got the h&r sport springs for my 93 civic, you know 1.75" front, 1.5" rear, anyways do i need a camber kit badly or can i go without one for a while??

thanks alot
-sean

 

yes you do. Also get a alingment after that to correct toe. TOE is what kills tires fast

 

you could live for a while without a camber kit...just go to an alignment shop and have them fix it as best they can. I have coilovers, with a drop (not exactly sure how much 1.5 or more maybe), and Azeni's, and I havent noticed any unusual wear due to negative camber. plus your car will handle a lil better with a lil negative camber. But if you only drive on straight roads, and never take a few hard corners, the camber wear might appear.

 

CAMBER DOES NOT WEAR TIRES, BAD ALIGNMENTS DO!!!!!!

 

alright sounds good, thanks for the advice. i was going to get an alignment anyways, i just wasnt sure if i needed a camber kit or not.

-heres another question. if i go ahead and put the springs on the stock shocks drive it for a month or two then put on new struts, will i need to get another alignment done??

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by dirtyd463 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">CAMBER DOES NOT WEAR TIRES, BAD ALIGNMENTS DO!!!!!!</TD></TR></TABLE>

thats not true, your allignment can be perfect, and if your wheels have - or + camber, its going to wear on your tire pretty bad, depending on how bad it is. if your going to lower your car, put the camber kit on and get it alligned. any car that is lowered is going to get out of allignment faster than those that arent. it's all a matter of prefernece....

 

I have no need for a camber kit with 205/50 15 Azenis that are about 1/4" below the fender arch. Rips for auto-x and wears the tires perfectly. sucks on uneven/grooved pavement though. fix the toe and leave it.

 

I put a set of Eibach pro-kits on my '94 coupe and i got the ingalls fr/rr kits just so i could fine tune for auto-x. It kinda sucks cause ideally you want to get it on a rack to see what parts you need, but then you'll have to get it up on a rack again to align it to spec after you put the parts on...

It DEFINITELY helps if you know someone that works at a shop with a rack

 

the question should be what brand of camber kit should i get...if your car is low and now is off camber,your gonna want to get a camber kit of some kind,unless you dont mind wearing down the inner side of the tires....so who makes good quality camber kits?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by CRXizSLAMM’d &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

thats not true, your allignment can be perfect, and if your wheels have - or + camber, its going to wear on your tire pretty bad, depending on how bad it is. if your going to lower your car, put the camber kit on and get it alligned. any car that is lowered is going to get out of allignment faster than those that arent. it's all a matter of prefernece....</TD></TR></TABLE>


yes it is completely true, learn what you speak of

 

Negative camber WILL wear your tires unevenly. Depending how often you rip on your fronts (dropping the clutch or fast take-offs), how soft or hard the tire compound is and how stiff your springs are and how negative your camber is, are all factors in how long before you see wear. Having your toe off will wear your tires faster due to the tire tracking either away from each other (toe out) or towards each other (toe in). How low you go will determin the negative camber you have. The more extreme the camber, the further towards the inside of the tire the center of the contact patch will be, and the longer til you notice your tire is doomed from you wearing your shoulder off.
Also, as your tires wears uneven, you start to have a tapered tread (the outside is meaty and gradualy goes lower and lower towars the inside). Your tires will start to scrub and wear faster. This happens worse as the tire sizes get wider.

For auto crossing, it is ok to have a good deal of negative camber, because straight driving will wear one half, the harsh cornering will wear the other.

If you have negative camber of greater than 1.5, and you would like to get the most out of your tires, and you don't auto cross, get the camber kit. The only bad thing is, is that you can only correct so much camber before some arms interfere with the body and modifications further will be needed.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by dirtyd463 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">


yes it is completely true, learn what you speak of</TD></TR></TABLE>


learn what i speak of? ha.... every car that i have ever owned has been lowered, when your wheels start to bow in or out(camber), your tires arent sitting flat on the ground. therefor they are going to wear MORE on the smaller part that IS touching the ground. i'm sorry dirtyd463, but if + or - camber didnt affect your tires, no one would buy a camber kit.......learn what YOU speak of.....

 

ok so we got past the tire wear subject..who makes good quality camber kits?..i know of a few,but not sure who makes the better version..like what kind of bushings do they use and any other info

 

if you do not drive like an *** it will not wear your tires any more than MAYBE 1/16th of an inch

it depends totally on how you drive....if you constantly are spinning your tires then you will definately wear them faster because they are not flat

under normal driving conditions you will have almost no uneven wear

think about it the next time you look at the rear end of a BMW Z3/4 or an M3

they have almost -2* of rear camber and their tires do nto wear uneven...if they did then there would be a longevity issue and BMW would have not designed the car that way....just something to think about

 

alright thanks alot guys, know that i think of it whenever i do look at bmw's , the top of the tire is alot more in the wheel well.


*****I have one more question though. if i put the springs on stock struts and ride it for a while, then swap to agx's will i need another alignment?***

 

Any time you take off the struts, you need an alignment. Also Civics don't have a camber adjustment, so if you lower it an alignment shop won't be able to do anything about your camber. When I got my Koni/Eibach setup, it dropped me 1.5" and was fine for a while, just a little negative camber, good for autox, but after a few months the camber was worse and I was getting bad inside edge wear. I got a camber kit and now everything is fine.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by rmcdaniels &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> after a few months the camber was worse and I was getting bad inside edge wear. I got a camber kit and now everything is fine.</TD></TR></TABLE>

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by CRXizSLAMM’d &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

thats not true, your allignment can be perfect, and if your wheels have - or + camber, its going to wear on your tire pretty bad, depending on how bad it is. if your going to lower your car, put the camber kit on and get it alligned. any car that is lowered is going to get out of allignment faster than those that arent. it's all a matter of prefernece....</TD></TR></TABLE>

technically u are correct. i totally agree with you.<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by dirtyd463 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">if you do not drive like an *** it will not wear your tires any more than MAYBE 1/16th of an inch

it depends totally on how you drive....if you constantly are spinning your tires then you will definately wear them faster because they are not flat

under normal driving conditions you will have almost no uneven wear

think about it the next time you look at the rear end of a BMW Z3/4 or an M3

they have almost -2* of rear camber and their tires do nto wear uneven...if they did then there would be a longevity issue and BMW would have not designed the car that way....just something to think about</TD></TR></TABLE>

bmw do not have a -2 rear camber on them.they just have the proper suspention set up lowering cars from factory.unlike us hondas we change the commen parts like springs shocks n so forth.yes bmw are a little lower from most vehicle but if manufacturer put a neg camber effect,the public would not own a beemer just to realize they have to keep constant changing tires thus =more money spent on their pocket.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Humble1 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

technically u are correct. i totally agree with you.

bmw do not have a -2 rear camber on them.they just have the proper suspention set up lowering cars from factory.unlike us hondas we change the commen parts like springs shocks n so forth.yes bmw are a little lower from most vehicle but if manufacturer put a neg camber effect,the public would not own a beemer just to realize they have to keep constant changing tires thus =more money spent on their pocket. </TD></TR></TABLE>

if you dont believe me look at the *** end of a Z3/4 and tell me that there is not negative camber


<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by rmcdaniels &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I got a camber kit and now everything is fine.</TD></TR></TABLE>

you just got a placebo effect because when you had the camber kit installed the alignment shop had to align your car in order to install/adjust it correctly.

as soon as the adjusted the TOE properly it solved all of your uneven tire wear problems


you guys are all completely wrong....I have actually done trial and error with TWO different sets of tires and a total of 7 alignments just to prove the fact that camber does not wear tires.


I will even go as far to make a bet that if you can prove that a properly aligned vehicle with negative camber has excessive inside tire wear I will give you ******* money. It will not happen plain and simple.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by KingDsi &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Negative camber WILL wear your tires unevenly. Depending how often you rip on your fronts (dropping the clutch or fast take-offs), how soft or hard the tire compound is and how stiff your springs are and how negative your camber is, are all factors in how long before you see wear. Having your toe off will wear your tires faster due to the tire tracking either away from each other (toe out) or towards each other (toe in). How low you go will determin the negative camber you have. The more extreme the camber, the further towards the inside of the tire the center of the contact patch will be, and the longer til you notice your tire is doomed from you wearing your shoulder off.
Also, as your tires wears uneven, you start to have a tapered tread (the outside is meaty and gradualy goes lower and lower towars the inside). Your tires will start to scrub and wear faster. This happens worse as the tire sizes get wider.

For auto crossing, it is ok to have a good deal of negative camber, because straight driving will wear one half, the harsh cornering will wear the other.

If you have negative camber of greater than 1.5, and you would like to get the most out of your tires, and you don't auto cross, get the camber kit. The only bad thing is, is that you can only correct so much camber before some arms interfere with the body and modifications further will be needed.</TD></TR></TABLE>


I didn't want to type again.

It's the drive wheels that show wear the fastest. Wheels that just roll, will show little to no wear.
Negative camber, or positive camber on drive wheels, will result in uneven tire wear. Once that wear gets bad enough (tapered tread) the tires will not roll straight and will want to scrub. This will cycle, and cause your tread to wear faster. You might even have some vibrations from this, and you can't figure out why.
I have had ten different rim/tire combinations, and I will tell you, negative camber will wear your tires unevenly. However, in reading my previous post, there are many factors that will contribute to the noticeable uneven wear.

 

I personally don't think you need a camber kit. I've been riding without a camber kit for over a year and don't have any camber wear. My front camber readings are -1.0 and -1.6. I just make sure to get an aligment every 10K miles and I rotate my tires every 6K miles.

 

I took my car to Sears today to get an alignment. I have a 2" drop all around and 17" rims. They said they HAD to have a camber kit to do anything with my alignment. Is this correct? or should they be able to align it anyways?

 

they should be able to align it anyways

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 95GSRTT &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I took my car to Sears today to get an alignment. I have a 2" drop all around and 17" rims. They said they HAD to have a camber kit to do anything with my alignment. Is this correct? or should they be able to align it anyways?</TD></TR></TABLE>

If you want your camber adjusted, then yes a camber kit is the safest way to do it. However, they can still align your car without the kit.

 

Hmm wonder why those fockers said they couldnt align the car at all. Saying I will need a camber kit on the back too. I was just gonna do the shim and leave it at that. Last time I take my car there. Thanks guys