CoryB

I've searched around but haven't found what I'm looking for.

My son has a daily driver '98 Civic EX 4-door and wants to start autocrossing it but it's still going to be his daily ride. I know it's not the greatest autocross car but it's what he has and he likes to be different .

<prouddadmode> FWIW, he took an autocross class recently and knocked 15 (yep, fifteen) seconds off between his baseline run and his first run after practicing. </prouddadmode>

Anyway as the car has 120K miles on it and we were going to be redoing the suspension anyway, we're upgrading a few of the parts.

KYB AGX struts/shocks
Neuspeed Sport springs
Skunk2 camber kit (Of course now I'm reading mixed results of this after I ordered it :eh: )
Maybe some Falken Azenis RT-615 tires for next season. He's running 205/40-17 Fuzion HRi tires right now but we may get a set of dedicated autocross tires to share.

So now my questions:

1. Upper Control Arm Bushings - I'll likely go with poly unless it's a bad idea. Any real point in this if I don't replace the others with poly? Which leads to #2...

2. Keeping in mind that this is his only car, should he go for poly bushings throughout? He won't mind a bumpy ride but I don't want it to be so harsh that his girlfriend squawks about it.

3. What kind of alignment specs should it get? Again, this is on the street 99.9% of the time and I don't want to have it eating tires. I'm thinking 0 to 1/16" toe-in and 2 degrees negative camber on the front. Is that tire-safe? I have no idea of where to set the rear. Advice?

Thanks for any help/ideas on this.

CivicSiRacer

1. With a car this old anything is better than the old rubber parts. I noticed a huge difference when installing my Energy Suspension polyurethane bushings. Only thing I suggest is greasing them really good every so often.

2. Shouldn't really cause a rougher ride. Makes the suspension work better though.

3. For the street and autocross 0 toe front and back is good. He could try for 1/16th toe out front and 0 toe in the back depending how loose he wants the car. 0 toe will not wear out the tires as much as toe out will. I ran 1/8 toe out front and rear and -3.0 camber front and -2.5 rear and my tires wore pretty evenly. I drove to and from events on my Azenis. Got about 40 events out of the tires (615s) and I still have about 4mm of tread left.

But also realize I'm a pretty smooth driver (at least that's what people tell me) so I'm not as harsh on my tires as say a novice would be. -2 for his car should be a good starting point. I would say -1.5 to -1.8 in the back should be good too.

jaje

1. one thing i've noticed with the pu bushings...try to get the black ones that have graphite in them and won't require regreasing as the red ones do when they start squeaking (energy suspension hyper kit has a graphite kit)

2. to add to mike's point it will increase the "feel" of the car but won't cause it to ride any rougher

3. you'll want to install adjustable camber plates and set it at 0 degree for daily driving (also don't use azenis for daily driving as they wear pretty fast and often give you the confidence to drive faster than the law allows)...for autox start at what mike suggests and then change it to what level your son feels comfortable at (this will get easier with more experience)

4. (add this) have him take his dad go karting with him

CivicSiRacer

0 degree for the street? No. You want some negative camber or you will wear out the shoulders of the tires which is not good. I'd say -1.0 degree front and rear is good for street, but more is better for autocross.

mtbprelude

FWIW Myself, my g/f, and a couple of my friends have run upwards of -1.5 degrees camber with no adverse tire wear on the street.

CivicSiRacer

What wears tires quicker is toe. But a combination of alot of toe and alot of camber will destroy tires