control arm knock knock knockin'

i just got an alignment, and i noticed today that when i go over a bump at 60+ i hear a hard knock. im assuming its the upperarm hitting the well since they moved it about +2degrees.

is there an easy way to fix it? and also, will it damage anything? or is it just annoying?

Hey man I finally found someone with the same problem. I just discovered what is does, becuase it has been happening to me for 3 years and I thought the sound was the bottom of my car hitting the ground. It is real bad because now the control arms have dented my inner fender causing paint to chip in the engine bay and now my control arms are bent alittle.

I'm still trying to figure out what to do.

holy shit, i forgot about this post:D :D
well since its already bent your arm, just have a shop bend out the spot more. im not sure if a bent arm is really bad, im sure you can still use it, but since its bent, your alignment is probably off. but i dont really know. i luckily got it fixed quickly.

how low is your car? do you have an adjustable camber kit? or a kit at all

ok strodda, here it is...if your car is pretty low, and i can imagine it is, and since your driving the ever popular 4th gen, and your upper a-arm is hitting due to your camber kit/allignment, heres what you do, i know your gonna hate this, but you have to cut holes over your a-arm in the engine bay so it has room to move, i have checked up on this when i had to do it and i came across 15 4th gens that had to do it, if you dont get it i can put up some pics of mine if you want

Originally posted by Duatone
ok strodda, here it is...if your car is pretty low, and i can imagine it is, and since your driving the ever popular 4th gen, and your upper a-arm is hitting due to your camber kit/allignment, heres what you do, i know your gonna hate this, but you have to cut holes over your a-arm in the engine bay so it has room to move, i have checked up on this when i had to do it and i came across 15 4th gens that had to do it, if you dont get it i can put up some pics of mine if you want
ive had it fixed for a while now, just had the bad spot bent out a little, didnt need to cut a hole.
but im curious, can you post the pics anyways.

Sure, but i dont have my camera with me, so give me a couple days

what kind of upper a-arms do you have/camber kit? Also what kind of drop?

Originally posted by Dezoris
what kind of upper a-arms do you have/camber kit? Also what kind of drop?
not sure if you were asking me or the other guy, but i have an ingalls anchor bolt kit /w poly bushings. as far as a-arms go, i have no clue. maybe you can tell me.
http://www.qubilent.com/~shane/images/a_arm&camber.jpg

oh yea, and a 2" drop.

You can view the attachment.
And tell me if it is the upper a-arm shown in the picture that is causing your problems?

Luckily for Civics and tegs with troubles with a-arms banging the top of the shock tower, there are products available to help curve this problem, simply by design.

I admit that most camber kits are the cause for this issue.

Is the area described in my picture the problem?

yea, exactly. it was hitting the well right where the single arrow is pointing.

Thanks for the pic, the best way for me to tell is by removing your wheel or at least jacking up the car so I can see your a-arm better. (upper control arm)

But from the picture I can tell you, that a-arm looks WAY too high!
Like I said in the previous post this is most likely due to the camber kit you have.

There is no quick fix for that.
If you have an accord, it is a real bitch to get right, and there are a lack of quality camber kits avaiable for it. How low are you?

The tegs problem can be solve with 190$ Skunk2 front camber kit
http://www.dezoris.com/skunk2.gif

as you can see the end of the arm is angled downward which eliminates the problem the teg has by design.

For the Accords I have yet to find a kit I can confidently say that will solve your problem. Skunk2 does not make one for it.

I am still looking for an answer to help the accord people out so that my only answer is not Raise the car.

also in addition, the Accord suspension tuning problems are partly due to the lack of manufactorer support. The accord is more expensive to design for, and the demand is less, for true performance parts. People usually just lower it, and here in the US we don't have a true performance model, so we don't have many choices.

The accord needs a kit like the Skunk2.
I don't like skunks suspension products, but they are the only ones who have solved the "extreme" lowering/rubbing issues by redesigning the end of the a-arms.

Some of my guys at Hondavision are going to be interviewing Skunk2 and talking to them, I hope to find out more details, and hopefully push them to get a kit for the accord.

what about specialty products adjustable ball joint?? is that similar? stock a-arm but like the skunk2's the joint is all that adjusts, keeping the arm in stock position.

...and the arm isnt as high as it looks in the pic. it was just an odd angle i took it at. since i didnt raise the car and it was hard to get the camera in the well

That kit you have on now, it moves the arm in and out correct?
how much farther out is it from stock position?

That ball joint may help depending on how far out your arm has been moved out with the ingalls.

But if it is only an inch, I doubt that using an adjustable ball joint would solved the banging problem.

Technically it would reduce the likelyhood, but I cant guarentee it, without knowing how far out that arm is now.

Also, I would use the progress suspension ball joint, because you are guarenteed awesome product support from them, because the are independant, and they have a nice research facility.

You can also call them and talk to someone who will go out of their way to support their product. Specialty is kinda just a cheap knockoff with little support. It works, don't get me wrong, but the support is not there.

it actually wasnt moved that far. less than an inch i believe. but that still created a 2degree correction.

I have the exact same camber kit as strodda, and as far as i know, there really isnt a "better camber kit" for the 4th gen, like i said before, ive talked to and physically looked at about 15 cars and they said they all had to do the same thing. although just about all of them had camber kits that push the a-arm outward, instead of just the pivot joint.

how low are you? and if you did, how did you correct rear camber?

its not alot if any, but i think im having a little problem with my outer tire getting scraped. have you ever, and whats the best way to roll the fender? ive tried but it doesnt budge much.

i recently got into an accident and messed up my whole front suspension. the brakes locked up and i ran over 2 islands on the freeway. i had to replace all for wheels and both control arms. and now i still hear a weird knocking noise too. when i bought it to the shop. they said i needed to replace my knuckle cuz it was hittin my springs. iono if this guy is tellin the truth but i was wondering if you have have an idea of wut might be goin on. i kno its not hittin the fenders or anyuthing cuz i checked..

You can do a visually inspection to see if the knuckle it even close to the springs, it is possible that you bent that.

You know what to look for?

Thanks for all the hlpe guys, I'm gonna buy the skunk2 kit and see if that helps. I have a question though. Is there any wya to get a smaller aftermarket knuckle so that the control arm could be at a lower position?

I dontk now if I was getting asked about rear camber, but anyways, I do have a little rear camber, but not much, i might be 1.5 degrees? if that, but I was looking at it the other day and im goona put the rear ones one, I got the four corner set for about $120 cheap huh? anyways, I use to rub tires on the rear when i had 224/40/18, so I rolled the rear fenders, which you can take to a shop and have them do, but i do things myself, thus i know how, and it costs less, all i did was cut slits every .25-.50 of an inch as far as i needed, then i just bent those tabs up, and no more rubbing, then I learned I was running to big of a tire so now i have 215/35/18, and rubbing is no factor. ALso, I think the back is dropped maybe 2-2.5" and the front is maybe 3"

Originally posted by Duatone
I dontk now if I was getting asked about rear camber, but anyways, I do have a little rear camber, but not much, i might be 1.5 degrees? if that, but I was looking at it the other day and im goona put the rear ones one, I got the four corner set for about $120 cheap huh? anyways, I use to rub tires on the rear when i had 224/40/18, so I rolled the rear fenders, which you can take to a shop and have them do, but i do things myself, thus i know how, and it costs less, all i did was cut slits every .25-.50 of an inch as far as i needed, then i just bent those tabs up, and no more rubbing, then I learned I was running to big of a tire so now i have 215/35/18, and rubbing is no factor. ALso, I think the back is dropped maybe 2-2.5" and the front is maybe 3"
damn 3" drop with 18's, are you tucked?. what kinda rims do you have? any pics yet?
and actually if you meant $120 for the alignment, thats really not that cheap. i got mine done for $80, and they fixed the a-arm hitting also.
depending on what your tires treadwear is like, you should definetly get the rear camber corrected. for the first year i had only the front lowered(damn rusted bolt bs like a lot have) honda said they want $1,200 to fix it. 'F' the honda dealership...

anyways, my front is lowered about 2" and the tires i had, have a high treadwear compared to other performance tires, and they were bald in under a year. if you have some z-rated tires, theyll probably wear out very quickly, depending on how you drive.

i have no idea wut a knuckle looks like

the knuckle is a steel piece that attaches form the hub to the outer edge of the upper control arm.

strodda, when you say that they fixed the a-arm from hitting what exactly did they do.

im not a 100% sure what they did, im assuming they bent out the spot on the well where it was hitting. i didnt really ask. all i know is they didnt cut anything. it wasnt hitting alot of the arm, only when i went over a hard bump, so i didnt take a whole lot of moving. ill see if i can get under the well and get a pic of what they did exactly.

thanks man that would be great if you could get a picture.

Strodda, what I meant by the $120, was for the 4-piece camber kit, and maybe it is only 2.5 in the front, the green accord that i always show, thats mine, I dont rub, I dont tuck, (yet), I am sitting right on top of the tire, which are Parada spec II on 18" Enkei Zoku's and I dont really need a camber kit on the back that bad, you can run about 1.5 negative degrees without running the piss out of your tires, think of Bimers and touring cars (well, touring uses more than that).

oh, my bad. thats pretty good then. what kind of rear kit did you get? was it just a bunch of washers or the adjustable arm?

and i actually dont remember seeing a green car, and the pics in your sig dont work either.

Sorry about you guys having all these problems.

Man, I love my skunk2 camber kit :alien:

Most of the people that lowered Accords have wound up cutting the tower with a dremmel, so I hear, where the end of the upper control arm hits. WTF is that!

Wouldn't cutting the tower cuase a decrease in structural integrity of the car?

Originally posted by LX98Civic
Sorry about you guys having all these problems.

Man, I love my skunk2 camber kit :alien:

Originally posted by born2speed
thanks man that would be great if you could get a picture.
ill post the pic to show you what happened, but he did actually mess with the a-arm. he just filed it down about an 1/8", so now it just barely misses the wall. so no more lowering for me or else i have to cut.

I am pushing Skunk2 and progress to come up with kits for your car that solve that problem, I hope that they start production.

ok, heres what it looks like. i wish he didnt mess with the arm, but i guess its a lot better than cutting a hole in the tower
http://www.qubilent.com/~shane/images/a-arm_kit.jpg

what did he do have his dog chew on that?
HAHA
I wish there was a better way??
You have to wonder if they will cause premature ball joint or arm fatigue.

yea it doesnt look too pretty, but he just further filed down where it was already scratched from hitting the well. but hey serves its purpose, and a hell of lot better than hearin a bang over every bump.

Hey strodda man thanks for posting the picture, but I can't see it.

you probably do see it, its just very minor. on the front left edge closest to you, the shiney metal is where he filed it down.

ok I see it, before the picture wasn't even showing up at all, but today it is. Thanks man. I wish that would solve my problems, but my entire arm is hitting.