I have an ongoing suspension problem and want to ask anyone for help.
The Other Dave suggested I open this up for discussion.

Problem: I bought my son a 95 Integra RS with 165,000 on it. As it turned
out, alomost everything on the car had to be rebuilt or replaced. New A/C,
rebuilt motor for eventual turbo etc, etc. I'm almost thru, but one problem still exists. The rear end is very loose and even unsafe. When going above
55 mph and into a corner, the rear end wants to come out, to the point of it being very unsafe. Unless I can figure this out, I'll have to sell it. I have
a ton of money in this car, and would like to hold onto it if possible.

What I've done for this problem up to now:

H&R race springs
KYB AGX struts
Front shock tower bar
23 MM rear sway bar
New tires - 205/50/15 Dunlop tires
GSR blades
New front end links ( were bent )
Polyurathane bushings front to back
Last alignment - front camber off by -1.5
Not sure what rear showed.

HELP - HAS ANYONE ELSE HAD THIS PROBLEM!

My mechanic wants to take it to a good alignment shop and see what they
find. He feels that the rear camber, and toe in or out may be the cause.
Are there ways to correct the rear camber and toe in or toe out numbers?
Also, I don't think the front camber is the cause. Is this an error on my
part?

Thanks,

Doug

 

I take my car to Suspensions Plus in Laguna Hills for alignment. They specialize in that and they would probably be able to help you.

Do you have a polyurethane bushing in the rear trailing arm? I have a feeling that those polyurethane bushings are causing the problem.

 

If fixing the alignment and toe doesnt help consider removing the 23mm rear swaybar. Running large rear swaybars on hondas make them very susceptible to oversteer or lift throttle oversteer. Remove it or think about a drivers ed at a track to learn to control such characteristics.

 

Thanks. Yes the rear trailing arm bushing has been replaced with a polyurathane bushing. Also, we removed the rear sway bar and the
situation was made worse. This type of rear wash out is dangerous and a driving class would not be enough to drive the car the way it is now.
I've been in lots of cars that have this trait naturally (Porsche) and this
is much worse.

Thanks for the shop suggestion. I'll run it by my mechanic.

Doug

 

Thanks for the input.

1 - Rear trailing arm bushing has been replaced with a new polyurathane
bushing.

2- Removed the rear sway bar and the situation was made worse.

This type of rear wash out would not be improved with a driving class. I know what you mean, but this type of handling problem is very dangerous.
Thanks for the shop suggestion. I'm hoping this is something a good shop
can remedy.

Doug

 

Something may be binding or not allowing the suspension to compress, hopefully a good shop can check it out for you.

 

Take the polyurethane out of the rear trailing arm and replace it with OEM. I have heard a bunch of guys having the same symptoms as you with polyurethane and it was fixed with OEM rubber bushings.

 

This is a common problem when using the polyurethane bushings. Contradictory to what you may think the bushing is supposed to do, it actually has too much give too it over the OEM bushing and causing an unstable feeling. The rear end of front wheel drive honda/acuras is fairly simple and put together well from the factory. Springs/struts & a camber kit back there is all you should ever really do. Once you starting fucking w/it and replacing little things, is usually when it starts to become symptomatic.

 

Thanks for the suggestions. My only question is that the problem
has existed ever since I bought it. The original OEM rear trailing arm
bushings were at that point trashed. Do you think I should replace the
polyurathane rear bushings with OEM and then see what it's like?

Next week we'll have it at the alignment shop and I'll post the results. The
problem got alittle bit better each time I changed or upgraded the suspension, but it's till present.

Thanks,

 

I know I am contrary to popular belief here, but I don't buy that the poly trailing arm bushings cause any problems. I think that is some theory that got hatched by H-T, and just keeps getting repeated. regardless, you had the issue before the bushing so that isn't the problem. I am wondeing if it might be a problem with one of the shocks. Does it feel funny when you turn one direction and not the other? Is it worse over bumpy roads? I think I would still take it to shop, its going to be hard to solve just over the forums, its obviously not something easy.