My SHO with Sensa-trak's and Eibach's

[zak]

fyi, a little extra toe-in will offset a little extra negative camber, and keep the tire wearing normally. I think all of my Gen2 cars have "too much" negative camber, but I get by with dialing in a little extra toe-in.

Actually, toe out can compensate for camber thrust, not toe in. 0.1 deg. out for every -1 deg negative camber.

 

[bubba]

looks nice, but I think that it needs to be lower! possibly cut a coil out!

I think, but, boat his a stock man.... it took me months to talk him in that set-up.

 

[Sho Amo]

meh, i like them lower than that. to me, that looks stock.

 

[F-22 Raptor SHO]

Donnovan:

My rear tokico had leaked alot of oil and being those are extinct now, I needed to replace it. I took your advice and opted to buy a set of sensitracs (they were of course on major sale after the rebate).

Btw, the steeda shifter **** is major kick ass on my car...I love it.

i have the same set up in my 91 as well... OMMFG it is FTW.

me and jessemachone installed it in his driveway two nights ago. it required minimum adjustment when i took it to get aligned.

visually i wish it would sit just a little lower, i'm hoping it settles down just a little more.

next step is gonna be new Front LCAs to replace the ball joints, and installing the urethane swaybar bushings i left up at toms house.

 

[SHOmethewayhome]

let me know when you get them in mike, it might be the perfect excuse to get out of the heat to come help you, or the perfect excuse for you to come down for a day to toms and i'll help you.

i like the way it rides. at least with unmolested eibachs (never been installed in anything until my car came along) and brand new sens-a-tracs. i've been running it on the freeway, going a solid 10mph faster around off ramps than I was comfortable doing with the old set up,

i can honestly say now with the 96 upgrade, new struts and springs, an alignment, slicers, and good rubber... my car can out drive and out stop any power it makes.

 

[CademiaX]

Second question: Did you get an alignment done? How did the drop affect this? Did you have to break the spot welds?

Thanks

Luckily mine didn't need aligned afterward(front). The drop in the back to me anyways, seems like the wheels are leaning in at the top slightly, rather then deal with that right now, I am ordering adjustable control arms and a new h-brace. After that I will have it aligned all the way around. As far as spot welds, i didnt have to do anything like that. It only drops a little, 1" in the front and 0.5" in the back.

And I must say, just driving normal is great, noticeable difference from what I had before, and probably a bit stiffer then new stock. But when you take a corner is when you can really feel the progressive spring do its job.

 

[GreenPlus]

Very nice. I'm running the same setup. It seems that the rear end actually goes up a bit since the old ones tend to sag

 

[38SHO]

fyi, a little extra toe-in will offset a little extra negative camber, and keep the tire wearing normally. I think all of my Gen2 cars have "too much" negative camber, but I get by with dialing in a little extra toe-in.

negative, I wouldn't toe nothing in if your wanting a good driving, straight, good tire wearing machine....

having your toe off is what mainly eats your tires

your tires can deflect somewhat(ever see pictures of tires rolled over in hard corners?), so some negative camber isn't the worst thing in the world, sure extreme cases of it, over time or abuse, will show slightly more wear on one side compared to the other.... but your toe will really eat tires much more....

I think for every 1/16th of an inch your toe is off, for every mile you drive its like dragging your tire sideways for 7 feet

but back on topic, I wouldn't try to "reduce" tire wear on my tires because of a slight negative camber by doing something that will reduce the life of your tire even faster......

 

[bubba]

Yeah, I wouldn't toe anything on a car, the factory doesn't even toe and thing....

 

[NebraskaSHO]

Clean car, your slicers are on backwards.




























Hah, made you look.

 

[zak]

I think for every 1/16th of an inch your toe is off, for every mile you drive its like dragging your tire sideways for 7 feet

but back on topic, I wouldn't try to "reduce" tire wear on my tires because of a slight negative camber by doing something that will reduce the life of your tire even faster......

The inboard tilt of the tire tries to turn the car, as an example with -2 deg camber on the left, and +2 camber on the right the camber thrust will push to the right. This is partly why camber should be within 0.25 deg side to side.

With both tires at -2 they are pushing towards each other. A little toe out (see the spec posted above) will compensate for this and also reduce torque steer.

This is not something I made up out of thin air, I got the spec from an OEM suspension engineer. I have been using this approach every spring through fall on my street/autocross SHO and have zero uneven tire wear (on the relatively soft summer street tires at street speeds anyway) for the last half dozen seasons (and two sets of summer max perf. tires).

zak

 

[boat]

So, Would it be safe to say I am not in dire emergency wearing out tires with the little bit of negative camber I have?

-1.2 degrees on the passenger side and
-1 degree on the driverside

I have been thinking I need to get the Ingall's adjustable strut plates from SHOSource. Should this be done right away? Or no?

negative, I wouldn't toe nothing in if your wanting a good driving, straight, good tire wearing machine....

having your toe off is what mainly eats your tires

your tires can deflect somewhat(ever see pictures of tires rolled over in hard corners?), so some negative camber isn't the worst thing in the world, sure extreme cases of it, over time or abuse, will show slightly more wear on one side compared to the other.... but your toe will really eat tires much more....

I think for every 1/16th of an inch your toe is off, for every mile you drive its like dragging your tire sideways for 7 feet

but back on topic, I wouldn't try to "reduce" tire wear on my tires because of a slight negative camber by doing something that will reduce the life of your tire even faster......

 

[38SHO]

I think I'm -1.2 on the front left and -1.5 on the front right

never have a problem with tire wear

I wouldn't toe out the car, that makes it very unstable, easy for it to wander, you also can't compare suspension degrees from other cars because it all works together for your particular suspension design and geometry.... what works good on a civic might not work good on a SHO as they have different suspension setups.....

you can say what you want, but you cannot get away from the simple fact that any toe besides 0 degrees is pointing your tire in a certain direction, while the car will still want to go straight, now the only possible way for that tire to go with the car in a straight line is for it to scrub along the ground wearing off the rubber..... there is no other way around this.... sure you might be able to tinker wth other things to get it to act a certain way, but the tire is still in a position to wear the shit out of it....

picture this setup

/ \
| |

or

\ /
| |

this is your car, the front wheels are pointed in/out, if you put paint on the bottom of your tires, lowered the car, then picked it back up, this is how the paint would look like from your tires tread... the car will still track a straight line, but you are wearing the **** out of your tires because they are being forced down the road in a straight line, all your camber might be set at 0 degrees right on the money... but you will experience severe tire wear

you might even have your toe setup like this

\ |
| |

now with the wheel straight, this car will want to track to the left... but you will get it to go straight by having the wheel turned slightly.... sure your car is going in a straight line, but your tires are not..... again bad tire wear patterns with this


I am not a race engineer, I don't tinker with setups to squeeze the most out of my car through a particular turn, what I do is set cars alignment in a manner that minimizes tire wear so they have a longer life and that the car drives properly..... which is what I believe the OP was worried about.......

I simply am pointing out that changing the toe in the manner you describe is like a band-aid to cover something up..... and I most certainly wouldn't be doing that particular setup to someone worried about tire wear, you are causing more harm then good.... again... simple facts here that cannot be disputed.......... if you were trying to just get the car to drive straight without fixing the real problem... sure what you describe will work...... and just because someone is an OEM engineer doesn't mean they are god when it comes to knowing everything about cars, I fix their screw ups all the time, it keeps me employed....... my brother in law designed parts for Ford.... and he can barely change his oil.....

 

[bubba]

Yeah, Boat I think you should be ok man..... Just need better swaybars to tighten things up alittle bit lol

 

[rubydist]

Keep in mind that when you are measuring the toe-in on your vehicle, it is static, with no drivetrain loads on the suspension. When the car is going down the road, it is dynamic and has drivetrain loads on the suspension. Those rubber bushings may seem stiff as heck, but they do have some deflection under load.

If you look at Ford's specs, they say that optimal alignment has 0.10" toe-out. This is because under load the suspension moves to create more toe-in than what you have static. I don't prefer to set my cars up with toe-out, but its not something to be avoided like the plague. Too much toe-out does make the cars dart around at speed, especially going downhill where there is less drivetrain loading. Too much toe-in makes them squirrelly as well, so it needs to be pretty much right.

All of my gen2 cars have at least 1.5* of negative camber, and I can get the tires to wear just fine, so what boat has isn't urgent to change.

 

[boat]

Thanks, guys. Thats some money I can save for something else

 

[jthod]

I love this setup too, I have the same with one coil cut. Handles nice, ride is nice, yet stiff.

I have yet to figure out the terrible noise it's making though.

 

[zblackbeast]

Is this as low as it goes? Did you cut any coils?

 

[bubba]

It goes about a half inch lower with it cut!

Is this as low as it goes? Did you cut any coils?

 

[zblackbeast]

Hum.. some pondering shall be done.... i would like lower but dont have the coin for koni's. ha