Confused with camber kits.

Hey,

Well I am after a camber kit for my 89 civic hatch (front only). Now The 2 types I can se are

a) The ones that run on slides at the upper arm mount. To effectively move the whole upper arm in and out.

b) An adjustable upper ball joint.

There is a 3rd type I saw where you get a whole new upper arm and the ball joint runs on slides. However it would appear they dont make them for the 4g.

Also for most of them I have seen they say "will allow up to 3 degrees of positive camber adjustment". Now its my understanding that positive camber is when the top of the wheel leans out away from the centre of the car. Why would you want to make your camber more positive? Or am I misunderstanding something?

At the moment I have a slight positive camber, which is why I want the camber kit. However don't want to get one that will only make it more positive :\

If anyone has any links to a good online shop that sells them I would appreciate the share. At the moment I have been pretty much just going off ebay.

Thanks again for your help!

Go with an Ingalls kit.

The reason why you would want more positive camber is the car has been lowered. Lowering changes the alignment creating negative camber, negative camber is good to a point on the street. There is no factory camber adjustments, another reason. Toe is also affected from lowering and is a bigger tire eater than camber when off.

I know there is no factory adjustments. Does the ingall kit have negative adjustment? Link?

Thanks mate

By the looks of that kit it only allows positive adjustment, which wouldnt be of much use for me. :\

Why is your camber positive in the first place & how much is it off?

a stock car doesnt have zero camber.it is a lil negative for when your taken a corner.neg is good like they said.but when you lower your car it creats more neg camber and thats not good.the camber kit corrects that by making it poss camber.

Through an accident. I replaced all the parts with second hand, however it is about 2 degree's positive, possibly the second hand knuckle hub with upper arm wasnt perfect.

Thats why I need to have negative adjustment.

The knuckle or upper control may have some damage, I would look into that first.

Theyve all been replaced
knuckle hub with upper arm, upper arm ancoring, radius rod, lower control arm..

Put the camber gauge on tnite. Showing up a 0.5 degree positive camber. At absolute max 1 degree, allowing for inaccuracy, but I doubt it.

Now the question is if there is a camber kit I can use to correct this slight camber.

What is an ideal camber?

Cheers

Hi Rufes1,

Take another look at the Ingalls website, I'm sure they make a kit that does +/- 1 degree or so. That should fix your problem. The Ingalls kits are kind of expensive, but are suppoed to be the best. I've ordered a kit off eBay for about 1/3 of what Ingalls cost but havnt received it yet so I don't know how good it'll be.

From memory, factory spec on camber is -1 deg to +1 deg. For best tire wear you want it as close to zero as possible, but for cornering you want some negative camber.

Hope that helps.

If it's only off by that much, take it to a midas shop and I'm pretty sure that they can even things out for you. I got mine adjusted after a 2" drop and didn't need to get a kit for it at all.

If it's only off by that much, take it to a midas shop and I'm pretty sure that they can even things out for you. I got mine adjusted after a 2" drop and didn't need to get a kit for it at all.

I'm not looking to flame anybody or start any shit, but for all that I can tell, camber and caster are not adjustable without kits. If you look at the Helms manual for either one it says "If out of specification, check for bent or damaged suspension components."

Doc, most people with a 2" drop have needed camber kits. Did Midas give you the results or did they just tell you everything was okay? Maybe you're on the low end of the spec (negative one degree). How's your tire wear been since they checked it?

Oh, and here's the link: http://www.binghamtonlife.com/manual/2gsm/images/91-18-4.jpg

some places manage to adjust it by bending the upper arm slightly.

Pretty hard to do tho. Midas prob wanking on...

hum, if its slightly possative, buy you a decent coilover set for what the enguls camber kit would cost, lower it about an inch and your camber problem goes away and you have better feel and handling, less body roll, and you could lower it more if you ever wanted to.

ive already upgraded my suspension setup as it is, so its not really viable. And even if doing it that way it would mean the camber on that wheel wouldnt match the rest.

its just one wheel? have you thought about replacing the parts that you said you replaced with the right ones?

I dont quite understand what u are trying to say?

The camber used to be a lot worse. The upper arm and knuckle hub were bent. The lower arm badly bent and obviously so was the radius rod, and sway bar.

All these parts have been replaced and the slight camber out is probably a sympton of the cross member being pulled slightly. However rather than replacing this It would be easy, seeming it would only be pulled by a tiny amount, to simply install a camber kit correcting the problem.

sorry, missunderstood. Thought you replaced them with the wrong parts and it made it possative.

so im in quite a bind

so im in quite a bind


Not really Rufes, here's a part from Ingalls that you can adjust to -1.5 deg.

http://www.ingallseng.com/parts/35590.htm

That will solve your problem, right?

yeh but bloody expensive hehehe
id prefer something that can go to -3 deg
i have seen a few on ebay that claim they can do +- 3 but i'll have to look into it more to see how valid it is