I already posted a thread on this topic in Racing & Competition (link), but I still have some questions that I think are germane to UTH. Here's the condensed version:

I've owned my 2001 for almost two years. I bought it as a certified used car from the local Honda dealership with an extended warranty.

Took the car in for an alignment on Wednesday and found some problems with the front left alignment. We set the camber to -1.3*. The max caster we could then achieve was 3.91*. Also, the technician said that the eccentric on the caster adjustment was backwards. In otherwords, the cam profile on the top side of the adjuster was 180* out of phase with the cam profile on the bottom side of the adjuster. The caster of 3.91* was done AFTER to the cams were properly aligned.

Prior to this alignment, no one has touched the a-arm or any of the adjustments since I owned the car.

My belief is that the person who leased the car (before I purchased it) damaged the suspension. Probably, they bent the a-arm and the frame. They had the a-arm replaced, but it was sloppily done, hence the cams being out of phase. I cannot believe that it came from the factory that way.

Does my logic make sense?

What to do? I think that Honda will have no reason to repair or replace anything if it could be set back to specs. I should have (but didn't think about it at the time) had the tech see how much caster we could get with -0.5* camber. Since I forgot, and don't want to pay for an alignment just to answer the question, I thought I'd pose it here. In looking at the front suspension diagrams in the helm's manual, it appears that the lower a-arm makes something very similar to a 45* right triangle. Since the caster adjustment is already maxed, that won't change. If I were to adjust the camber, the pivot point would be around the rear attachment point (where caster is adjusted). So, every unit of displacement laterally of the camber adjustment will also result in appoximately one unit of displacement longitudinally of the caster. So, if I from -1.3* camber to -0.5* camber, I should go from 3.91* caster to about 4.71* caster.

Does that sound right to anyone?

If so, then my suspension cannot go back to spec, and I think I've got a legitimate argument that my dealer sold me a car that was defective, and it should be fixed under warranty?

Does anyone agree/disagree with that?

Thanks!!!

 

Just kidding

I think you should spring for an alignment at the dealership were you purchased your car from. If factory spec is not attainable, they should spring to bring it to spec.

Have you ran a carfax on your car? Unless it took a big hit, there may not be any sub frame damage. Sounds kinda weird about what you said about the caster adjusters.

 

3.9 caster is definetely not right. I noticed that my drivers side could only achieve 5.5 max instead of the reccomended 6.4 but that's only because I was running more than the -1 degree of front camber reccomended by the factory (-1.3 for me)

The caster/camber do affect each other, if you ran 0 camber up front your caster would probably go back to a healthy 5.5 or so. However 0 camber is definetely not optimal so a good compromise would be at least -1 degree up front.

Something must be bent in your suspension if you can only get 3.9 at -1 degree of camber. Replace the front control arm and see if that makes a difference.

 

I just checked the subframe, and it seems to be aligned properly with the frame. As an idea, is it acceptable to intentionally misalign the subframe with the frame, to make macro-adjustments to the alignment? Or does this cause issues with the orientation of the engine/transmission?

Anyway, I was using a tape measure to check the left lower a-arm against the right. It appears that the there is about 1/8" discrepancy between the two a-arms. I did this measurement about four different ways and got consistent results. This measurement was taken along the hypotenuse of the triangle formed by the a-arm, and the left was shorter than the right. I believe this 1/8" would translate to about .8* more caster (.4* caster + .4* neg camber).

I suppose that it might be possible that I could get even more caster if it is also bent in ways that I did not measure.

Anyone know where to get a left front lower a-arm?

 

Try www.car-part.com, it's basically an online junkyard directory. You can put in the zipcode and car then search for the part. It will show a list of nearby junkyards with a price and phone number and you can usually call them to work out the details. You shouldn't have too hard of a time finding that control arm since it should be the same for AP1's.

 

here ya go

 

or here

 

Good stuff.

Found one for $45.

 

Good to hear, let us know if that took care of the problem.

 

My alignment is -2