Hello everyone, I just recently installed H&R coilovers and set them VERY low. The only problem I have now is that the rear camber is very aggresive, if I remember correctly it was something like -2.8, and i would like it less aggresive. What are my options besides raising it? Can the camber be adjusted manually?
Thanks
Anytime you lower the car, especially as aggressive as it sounds like you have, it should be followed immediately with a four-wheel alignment, if for no other reason than to see what the lowering has done to your alignment - sounds like you need to get it into a shop and see. The rears are somewhat adjustable - you probably want to be in the -1.75 neighborhood if you drive the car on the street most of the time - otherwise the inside portion of your tires will be toast pretty quickly.
Do a search on alignment, particularly in the "competition" forum, and you'll find quite a few threads on the subject.
brad
Thanks brad, I did have my car aligned right after lowering it, but the camber is just too aggresive. They did told me they adjusted the camber from the bottom rear part of the car (dont know exactly what he meant with this) and they told me the camber couldn be adjusted to a more civilized setting. If I raise the car half and inch, do I have to aligned it again?
Thanks again.
That is where the alignment is adjusted. If they said that they've put as much positive camber into it and they can't adjust the camber any less aggressive than -2.8, then you must have really dropped your car a lot. Are the fronts ok camberwise? You probably don't want to run more than about -1.5 at the very most up there if this car is a daily driver.
Couple choices - raise the car back up some, or go to adjustable camber plates. If you raise the car back up some, you probably should have the alignment done again (I know, that's expensive) unless you just don't what to know, or don't care where the alignment is afterwards. With all this suspension work, you probably should have the alignment fine-tuned. One of the reason's I'll bet you bought the car was the handling - you don't want to screw that up with bad alignment, either. But, if you mess up a couple of tires on this car with a bad alignment, that's about $500-600 - an alignment would be no more than $350, even at a dealer.
brad
Brad, the camber up front is fine, I really didn't notice almost any camber and let me tell you that the front is veryyyy low, the thing that worries me is the back. I cant believe that even if I raise it half an inch or lower it half an inch I have to align it again... ahhh, anyway, you said something about a adjustable camber plate... I'm going to make some research about that part, judging by the name I think it'll allow me to adjust the camber. Thanks a lot Brad for the info.
The amount of camber you need is something pretty small - if you can look at your tires and "notice" camber, you have waaaaaaaaaaay too much. You should really have it realigned after you raise or lower a car. The suspension on these things are not to be taken for granted - you can screw up the handling easily - to the point where the car could be dangerous to drive at high speed (whether you do or not), and can run through the very sticky (for streets) tires in a couple of thousand miles. If you haven't got a good camber spec on the fronts, you should have it checked, too.
How do you get this car in and out of driveways?
When you're talking about a suspension like this, half-an-inch is the equivalent of a mile in comparison with the small adjustments that make up the wheel alignment.
brad
brad that's really too low but getting a proper alignment is essential. There are adjustable links/arms you can use to work with what you have but it gets pricey, makes noise and is more for track use...
