Aristoi

This is not another post for settings. I have gone to a couple shops to do my alignment. The last shop was trusted and higly recommended by other local autoxers. Im at the point where something is wrong with my car and i need help on what i need to fix.

Max camber in the back seems OK -2.25 on both sides. Camber Up front is the problem. On the left side i only can get -0.5, on the right there is still alot of adjustment left could probably get -1.5. The first shop could get -1.3. The second shop improved all around what he could get by a few thenths all around. Caster is maxed out at 5.75 on both sides. Car drives great, straight, but that camber is killing my tires and i push like a pig.

If anyone has had experience troubleshooting alignment problems, i could really use your help. I am the second owner of the car and do not know if he car was in any minor accidents that would cause this. When i swapped out the wheels i did noticed one front wheel is newer than the other. So what are the components that are most likely to fail. Upper/Lower control arms, adjustment bolts and washers, upper/lower ball joints, steering knuckle, subframe? In what order would you recommend i replace parts. Anything else i should check or do before i swap out parts?

Thank You

negcamber

Sounds like something is bent. I'd start with the lower control arm and then recheck alignment. Then upper control arms and then recheck alignment. And then check the frame.

JamesL_71

Im having the same issue with my civic right now after a pretty big off track excursion last month... I am unabled to obtain the camber specs I had previously on the right front. I can only get -1.5 degrees, when I could get to -3 before. I have replaced the LCA and strut housing, which didnt fix things. Next up, is replacing the knuckle and balljoint. If that doesnt fix the camber issue, the car is going into a frame shop.

skys2000

+1 sounds like smth bent...

jguerdat

Or the camber bolts are frozen in the LCA bushings...

Aristoi

How do i check this? Pull the bolt completely out and apply lube? Also if this is the problem how do i fix it, new bolts, bushings, both? Thanks

jguerdat

If you can pull the bolt out, it's not frozen. The symptom is easy to detect at alignment time - you try to adjust camber and the bushing flexes rather than the bolt moving inside the bushing. You won't get much adjustment range because the bushing doesn't flex that much.

The fix is to replace the LCA(s) and bolts since they'll have to be cut to get them out. If you don't care about SCCA stock class rules, you can get the Mugen bushings from King Motorsports (assuming they're still selling them) to save money. I don't know how effective it is to use grease or some form of anti-seize on the bolts without pulling them out once in a while and re-coating...

Aristoi

I just wanted to follow up with my progress on this post so maybe others can benefit as well. I replaced the front left LCA that was camber limited to -0.5 degrees and it made a big difference. I also replaced all the hardware at the same time to rule out anything from that being tweeked. I am now up to -1.3 degrees on that corner according to my DIY alignment. I am pretty confident i am close with my DIY method because the before readings were within 0.1 degrees of my last rack alignment. The old LCA did not look damaged. The bolts and sleeves were not seized. The bushings had only very minor surface cracks. Overall not bad for an 04 with 70k miles. I will swap out the other front LCA just to have the same age bushings in each side. As someone suggested earlier, replacing the bushings with Mugen ones unfortunately will not work since i run AS and do care about the rules.

So i maxed out camber/caster on the right side front, and my DIY alignment says i can get -2.0 degrees. Is this normal or more than others can achieve? I am wondering if my subframe is shifted to one side and could split the difference to shift it over and get about -1.6 to -1.7 per side. Another thing i noticed is the left front subframe looks damaged. I noticed it when swapping the LCA. The 2 vertical guide rails that the eccentric camber washer rides in to shift the LCA is bent on the inner rail. This is the rail that the washer would push on to move the LCA out and get more camber. The caster adjustment guides are clean. To test the new camber settings temporarily with the new LCA i used a prybar to push the camber washer against the outer rail to compensate for the inner rail being bent. I know i need to replace or fix the subframe but is there anything else you suspect is out knowing the LCA and subframe was tweeked? Should i replace the spindle, UCA, and ball joints at the same time or try just the subframe first? On average, what can people realistically achieve on the front left camber? So much for buying a used S2K for autox and expect that i could get it setup fairly quickly. I learned my lesson to inspect for this stuff before i buy. Thanks for your help.

JamesL_71

I would replace the sprindle/upright/balljoints. Just an FYI, after replacing my knuckle and balljoints, my camber issue went away... while not cheap by any means, replacing a few suspension components is not as expensive as replacing the subframe.