Looking in picking up a set but I'm wondering if I'll "need" camber plates and control arms. I know it'll be better but I don't have the funds or time to do the alignment again so I wanted to wait till I got everything before I head back to the alignment shop. I'd like to get the springs now since I'm on the softest OEM suspension and it's starting to annoying me.

Specifically what will the rear camber go to? I'd be ok with -.5 to -1.5 degrees.

Likewise for the fronts. I'm currently at -.7 LF and RF and 0 on the LR and RR corners. When I did the camber mod I went to -.9 LF and -.7 RF, but I had some wiggle room to pull the LF out to match the RF.

I'd love to be able to get away with out having to pick up rear lower control arms and camber plates but, if the camber starts to go all over the place then I'll pick them up.

Thanks

Josh



Update:

Here's an update after 2 weeks with the springs and swaybar.

First impression is less dive and squat, which I liked.

Secondly their is much less rear grip, I need to move the sway bar to softest setting or replace it with the OEM bar. The car has vicious snap oversteer and I lost control on a mild drift which shot me the other direction and spun out. Before, the car would let me control the rotation with lift of throttle oversteer but now it just snaps into a drift. I do not like, the balance is gone.

As far as camber readings before and after. The front really didn't change to much but went a little more negative. However the rears changed a lot like you guys mentioned. I already picked up some H-sport control arms and will be installing them hopefully next weekend.

My conclusion is that with TSW springs I might not need a stiffer sway bar. But when lowering this cars the rear control arms are a must to get the camber dialed in. I think the more negative rear camber plus the stiffer sway bar is the reason why their is less rear grip. If the balance doesn't return after the control arms installed and the camber and toe dialed I'll remove the springs and sway bar and get some BC coilovers with custom springs and go from there.

Cheers

Udate: 11/29/12

Suprise! You can actually adjust the rear camber with out buying control arms :D

 

You should be fine. I was...

 

So I should be able to get about -1.5 degrees of camber up front and -1 degree in the rear on springs alone?

 

You probably won't get -1.5 in front, and you will probably get more than -1 (closer to -2) in the rear.

 

Oh wow, so the rear might have more camber then the front? I've already ordered the springs and I'll have them installed next weekend. I'll measure the camber before and after to see the differences.

My I should hold off on the camber plates and get the rear control arms. I just found out that if I wear to upgrade to coilovers, I'd have to buy new camber plates.

Thanks

 

From the factory there is more camber in the rear than the front. I don't think that the front camber will change much with the spring change. The rear will gain more camber with the springs, and this may wear tires faster (since you already start with 2 degrees). I would not worry about front camber plates.

It depends on which coil overs you get, some come with camber plates already.

Mike

 

Thanks for the input. I skipped on the plates on the plates and I read from a post from Alta that the lower control arm bolt is eccentric and you might have around 1 degree of adjustment. If not the lower control arms I go.

I'm installing them Saturday and will double check my toe and camber before I install them and see how much I can dial it in after. I'll post pics and specs here when I'm done.

Cheers

 

We always recommend the Hsport rear camber links with any lowering springs as that is the only way to get the rear camber and toe correct.

 

Thanks Way.

Those are the exact ones I'll be getting from you guys after I get funds. They'll keep me in ST class as well :D

BTW thanks also for the super fast shipping on the TSW springs, got them Monday!

 

Here's an update after 2 weeks with the springs and swaybar.

First impression is less dive and squat, which I liked.

Secondly their is much less rear grip, I need to move the sway bar to softest setting or replace it with the OEM bar. The car has vicious snap oversteer and I lost control on a mild drift which shot me the other direction and spun out. Before, the car would let me control the rotation with lift of throttle oversteer but now it just snaps into a drift. I do not like, the balance is gone.

As far as camber readings before and after. The front really didn't change to much but went a little more negative. However the rears changed a lot like you guys mentioned. I already picked up some H-sport control arms and will be installing them hopefully next weekend.

My conclusion is that with TSW springs I might not need a stiffer sway bar. But when lowering this cars the rear control arms are a must to get the camber dialed in. I think the more negative rear camber plus the stiffer sway bar is the reason why their is less rear grip. If the balance doesn't return after the control arms installed and the camber and toe dialed I'll remove the springs and sway bar and get some BC coilovers with custom springs and go from there.

Cheers

 

How little do you have your rear camber at now? If its still around 0 to -1, put it back to factory spec. This should fix your oversteering issue.

 

Actually the rear camber was over 1 degree negative. I adjusted it back down to around -.5 degrees, which is a little less then the front but it didn't change the balance much.

But, I measured the rear toe and I went from 1/16" toe in to 1/4" toe out! Ugh yeah that was the problem. So I took a stab and adjusting the toe and now I'm sitting around 1/8" toe in and it's soooooo much better. It's been raining here so I went straight out to look for a safe slippery corner to huck the car into and induce a lift off slide, and sure enough got both tires to squeal evenly and completely recovered once the tail stepped out. I tested this a couple times and it's back to where I like it. Woot. I love doing this stuff, so rewarding.

Leason learned, toe out equals a very loose and unpredictable rear end. Might be ok in the slow stuff under 40mph but downright scary at 80mph.

So don't forget to check your toe :P

Cheers

 

Sooo you are only trying to align this with string diy like? Do you know what OE spec is? Factory settings for camber are around -2deg, with the front at close to 0. You want the rear to have more, and you won't even wear the tires any extra.

 

Yeah the string method plus measure distances from the center of the front and rear of the rear tire (their's a post here that went into topic about this thing and I used that as source). From what I learned OE is zero'd out I think. The rear camber won't reach -2.0 degrees with out adjustable control arms (here's my post on the OEM adjust ability https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...it-on-oem.html). When I took the car to get aligned the first time I had the shop do as aggressive as they could which was zero toe up front with -.7 camber and 1/16" toe in rear (which will zero out under squat) and zero rear camber. They told me this is the max performance I can get with OEM. So my goal is to match that.

More rear camber would make me think more rear grip and correct me if I'm wrong but that would create more understeer. I'm leaning towards performance over tire wear, I'm running Dunlop star specs so I'll be lucky to get 20k miles on them with multiple autoX events a year and hopefully a track day, time permeating.

 

If my memory is correct, the factory rear camber is about -2 deg, and this tends to increase when lowering. The adjustable rear arms are to reduce the amount of negative camber. Glad that you found an issue and have the car closer to where you like it. 1/4" toe out is huge, that does make sense on the behavior that you described.

Have fun,
Mike