ive seen and heard a lot of camber adjustment but i have no idea what camber really is. besides the fact that i know it has everything to do w/ suspension, im lost. are there a few of you guys out there that could give me some sort of working definition? good stuff...

 

imagine your car lifted in the air and looked at it head on...your wheels should be straight up and down. If your camber is off, they will slant in or out like / or \, hence positive or negative camber. Most alignment shops will give you a printout showing your before and after camber after they align your car. When you lower your car you have to buy a special upper control arm because the factory ball joint isn't designed to bend that far. Toe is when the wheel tilts right or left.

 

For more info check out this link for a basic understanding of lots of stuff, click alignment. http://www.tirerack.com/about/techcenter.jsp

 

mm, very informative. thank ye much~

 

will it be a given that i'll need to readjust my camber if i change my springs/shocks? im thinking i wont know i'll need to change it until after ive replaced my stock stuff. im just trying to save money on getting everything done all at once.

 

If you lower your car more than an inch or so it's generally a good idea to get the special control arm that I talked about.

Your car will need an alignment (adjustment of camber/toe) after you do anything to your suspension.

 

A general guideline is that the rear is much more affected by a drop on 6th gen Accords than the front, and that a drop of 1.5 or more will most likely be enough to knock the rear out of spec, and that a drop of 2.0 or lower will most likely result in both front and rear being out of spec.

Do you have to do camber adjustment when it's out of spec? No...it just depends on your motives (autocross performance, tire life, etc), and your tolerances for tire wear. There are plenty of guys that use a sport drop and have no camber adjustment that get along fine, others get at least a rear kit.

Personally I went 20K miles on a set of summer performance tires with my rear being out of spec, just made sure the toe was good. I've since got a rear SPC camber kit to extend some tire life, and have used that for about 15K miles or so.

Like 98CoupeV6 said, it's a good idea no matter what to make sure the toe is good...that'll eat tires faster than a little negative camber.

 

Listen to Schmitty....I went through this and after eating my tires and buying a new set. The guy at Sears Auto Center corrected my rear toe alignment. Which in turn fixed my rear camber.....I didnt believe it at first but yes, toe does effect camber.

Accords have negative camber in the rear to begin with anyway.

 

There is a great article in the Super Street parts catalog, on the shelf now, which can explain alignment stuff really well.
And yes if you do anything with the suspension you NEED to get an alignment. If a person must skimp on thier car, I hope they just dont drive it until they can get it right. That's my attitude.
Yeah an alignment will cost you a little, but not nearly as much as it would if you fly off a damn bridge or something.

 

why would someone fly off a bridge in their car?