Suspension and Camber help

[an93l]

Hey guys, I've got my car lowered recently and the wheels are sitting on an angle therefore tyres wear out unevenly. I was thinking about purchasing a camber kit to fix it up but is it worth the few hundred bucks? Does anyone here use it and is it worth the money or perhaps just leave it on an angle?

[chargeR]

How much camber do you have exactly? If you haven't had an alignment do that first, because it is the uneven toe that is wearing your tyres not the camber. I have daily driven on -5 camber for the past 20,000+ kms on the same set of tyres, camber is not as bad as most people claim and some static camber is essential for good cornering grip.

[55EXX]

toe kills tyres more than camber. get yours set to 0 total front and 1mm total rear for a good daily setting. this is what i use and recommend for daily driving. 0 front gives a alive nose yet not darty and very low wear and 1mm total rear is to increase rear stabilty for higher speeds and less wear for the inner edge of the trye.

[an93l]

Ive just had a wheel alignment today with a new set of tires but the guy on the wheel alignment said i might need a camber kit.

[chargeR]

Post your alignment specs.

[Red_EG4]

You might be able to get away with a simple bushing kit, ask about that.

[chargeR]

You might be able to get away with a simple bushing kit, ask about that.

He will probably get away with no camber adjustment parts at all unless the car is quite low.

[an93l]

He will probably get away with no camber adjustment parts at all unless the car is quite low.


Yes car is quite low.

I dont know my alignment specs after i did the thing they did not tell me anything about it. Did my wheel alignment at power tyres.
Is there a way to find that out myself?

[chargeR]

Yes car is quite low.

I dont know my alignment specs after i did the thing they did not tell me anything about it. Did my wheel alignment at power tyres.
Is there a way to find that out myself?

It is hard to know whether you need to adjust your camber when you don't know how much you have. Next time ask for a printout of your settings, any workshop that won't print your settings or write them down for you probably isn't worth going to.

[dvscoupe]

I had mine done today as well


Left rear camber = -2.84 degrees
Right rear camber = -2.87 degrees
Left rear toe = +1.5mm
Right rear toe = +1.5mm

Left front camber = -0.75 degrees
Right front camber = -0.55 degrees
Left front toe = +1.1mm
Right front toe = +1.1mm

Left front castor = +1.80 degrees
Right front castor = +1.88 degrees

[an93l]

Is that after the wheel alignment or before?

[dvscoupe]

After, it was nasty before.

[an93l]

Ohh i was just wondering is that 2 degree neg with the camber or without? And how low is your car?

[dvscoupe]

It an EU civic lowered on EP3 coil overs. The rear camber is due to the rear guards not being rolled yet however I am chasing a set of adjustable LCA for it at the moment.

I do have a thread a few threads down called "Wheels, Tyres and Suspension" if you wanted to have a look.

[an93l]

ahhh i got another wheel alignment done and i got this

front/rear wheel camber R/L -1.5 degree
caster both front wheel +1degree
toe front -2mm
toe rear +1mm

he told me the caster is bad is that true??

[JohnL]

Not nearly enough caster. Even at max spec the caster isn't nearly enough. In my experience, substantially increasing caster does wonderful things for the steering.

[chargeR]

But there is nothing wrong with the amount of caster he has. It is even on both sides and right around factory specs and massive caster isn't the only way to a nice handling car.

an93l did you end up getting a 'camber kit'?

[an93l]

Nop i havent had any caster or camber kits on. I did my wheel alignment at heasman and he did advise me to get some caster/camber kit tho but their too expensive. He told me to get the kits because my caster isnt good so just wondering what you guys thought cause i did abit of research and from what i know positive caster is a good thing perhaps maybe as JohnL said need more caster???? How much degree caster is a good amount?

[string]

If you are within the factory specs there is nothing wrong. More caster is pretty much always better - up to a limit of course - which you probably won't reach before your tyres start hitting the front of your fenders :)

[JohnL]

The only thing wrong with the stock caster is that it is not nearly enough, making the typical Honda stock steering fairly unresponsive and contributing to it being excessively light and uncomunicative.

My CB7 Accord spec caster is about 2° to 3°, and I have about 6° on it now. This is pretty much as far as I can go because of other physical constraints (i.e. how far part X can move before it hits part Y, or before a bush starts to bind up etc). Such physical limitations vary from car to car (make / model), but a geometric constraint likely to be common to most cars is that increasing caster too much can introduce an appreciable level of bump steer.

My car does have a bit of noticable bump steer after the caster increase, but it's a small price to pay for the huge improvement in the steering (and significant improvement in front grip).

[ksl]

can anyone tell me wat is castor ?

[JohnL]

can anyone tell me wat is castor ?

Taking your question literally (pedantically…);

In an automotive context, 'castor' is the oil extracted from the seeds of the Castor Oil Tree (Ricinus communis), and for many years was used as the base for racing oils such as 'Castrol R' (the original). It's still used as a racing oil in some 2/ applications (being why some kart exhausts smell so nice...).

What you really want to know is; what is castEr.

Caster (positive) is the rearward lean of the steering axis. The SA is an infinite line that is defined by the ball joint locations, and typically leans both backward (caster angle) and inward (king-pin inclination, aka; SA inclination). With double wishbone suspension this means that the upper ball joint is typically located behind the lower ball joint. With Mac struts this means the upper strut mount (acting as a steering pivot) is behind the ball joint.

This rearward SA inclination creates some desirable steering characteristics:

1) As a result of being rearwardly inclined, steering axis intersects the ground at a point that is in front of the nominal centre of the contact patch, which creates another geometric characteristic called 'trail'. Note that trail can also be created by other means (and often is in addition to the caster angle), but since caster also has other beneficial affects it's nearly always used in some degree (often not enough, though my understanding is that many manufacturers have been progressively and substantially increasing their caster angles over the last decade or two).

Trail causes a self aligning affect that is typically the majority of the self aligning affect that the driver feels at the steering wheel (there are other self aligning affects as well). Shopping trolley 'casters' have a lot of trail (and because the 'steering axis' is vertical, actually have zero caster...), i.e. the 'steering axis' intersects the ground in front of the wheel's contact patch and as a result the wheel always 'wants' to follow directly behind the steering axis, causing a self aligning / stabilising affect.

A self aligning tendency is important for the directional stability of the steering. Increasing caster increases straight line stability on smooth surfaces, but in my experience also tends to increase the car's tendency to tramline and to veer in the direction of road camber.

Increased trail tends to create an increase in steering responsiveness because the centre of the (steered) contact patch moves in an arc around the SA (rather than just pivot on it as would be the case with zero trail). As the wheel turns (is steered), the grip at the contact patch tends to keep the contact patch from moving sideways relative to the chassis (along the steering ‘arc‘), so the arc of steering movement tends to push the front of the chassis laterally toward the apex of the corner (which occurs in the same direction at both wheels).

It's this affect sharpens up the steering response, but also what tends to increase tramlining and road camber sensitivity, i.e. any lateral force applied at the contact patch will more strongly be leveraged into the SA, and this affect is stronger the greater the trail happens to be. This also increases the steering 'weight' with greater trail (not a significant issue with power steering).

2) Caster creates desirable steered camber change at both front wheels. When we turn the front wheels to (e.g.) the right, caster causes the left wheel (i.e. the outside front wheel) to gain negative camber and the right wheel (inside front) to gain positive camber.

Both (OF and IF) of these steered camber change affects go some way toward cancelling out the camber changes (relative to the road surface) that are caused by body roll, assisting to keep both contact patches more 'squarely' presented to the road. This increases front grip, reduces understeer, and may well decrease tyre wear.

[an93l]

Does anyone know wats the factory wheel alignment specs?