um ok.. so back to the topic.. Right now I have 19K on my car. The tires soon will be needed to replace (I think).

Heres the deal. If i keep the GF210 and get new rims/tires... I'll get an alignment.. How do I crrect the rear toe? what do I need to fix it.. what do i tell the alignment shop? Any recommendation in the VA/DC/MD area for a shop to fix?

 

from what i gather, the rear toe does not need any adjusting.

 

I worked at Honda, the rear is not going anywhere. There is something going around with the engineers there, but they are not going to do anything. As far as the front, you have some options, the alignment shop will know what to do with the front, no worries there. If you are looking for more camber in the front, have some camber plates made for the tops of your struts up front, you can really work with them then. I would only use this if you are heavy into auto x though.

 

Cool. Im just going to keep these springs.. and once i get new tires/rims ill get alignment ASAP then rotate tires every 3000miles or so. Thanks all!

 

Good choice, those are sexy rims.

 

i lowered the car on skunk2 springs when i was at just a little over 5 thousand miles, never got an alignment and drove to and from work and went on a canyon run once a day just about 6 days out of the week. i just had to replace my two front tires at 16 thousand miles because the inside of them both was past the point of being bald. i was riding on the wires for about two weeks. oh and i didnt rotate them once the whole time because i am dumb.

i went to discount tire co. in hopes of getting two new front tires but when i was quoted their cheapest at 88 a piece not including mounting, balancing, tpms rebuild kit, tire disposal fee or tax i asked what they had in 195/50-15 and they had kumho ecsta ast for 60 a piece i decided to replace all four. i really like how the car drives now and am getting an alignment asap to avoid this happening again.

 

Where do you purchase the shims for the rear to fix the toe?

 

yes it's always a good idea to get an alignment after you lower your car or do any type of suspension work that would affect the alignment.

 

As far as I know you need to fabricate them at a machine shop or use washers. However before you set toe with shims you must be sure your axle is squared off with the front, that is, the two axles are parallel. If your one side is toed out and the other side is toed in that is the problem.

 

you dont have to fab them up your self. there a a few companies who manufactur universal camber bolts and shim kits for alignment. SPC also makes vehicle specoific alignment kits for the fit here is the link...
Welcome to SPC Performance - Performance Suspension Tuning for Sport Compacts, Racing, Hod Rods, Muscle Cars and More!
you can buy them here...
NOPI Online Store

 

well the link for spc was supposed to take you straight to the fits parts but it doesnt so just go to the applications and search for thge fit and you will find it.

 

Its not like camber bolts. You have to make the shims in order to find out what thicknesses are needed. If you pre-order be prepared to oder a bunch of shims from .5 to 2 mm in .1 mm steps. Easier and cheaper to file thick washers. And of course, do the calculations first based on as-is alignment toe and camber ON A SQUARED UP AXLE.
The shims we had to use were far easier fabricated ourselves rather than buying them. First, finding the correct thickness on each of the 4 bolts is tedious and very time consuming (calculations are merely approximate) and in order to get the toe and camber right the shims had to be fabricated then, alignment checked, refiled and alignment rechecked, several times, and involved filing washers to finally getting the right thicknesses. That has to be done for each of the 8 bolts (4 per side), and expect to take 2-3 hours per side Until the toe and camber are correct you have to measure, check, and change the shim thicknesses til its right.) Once you know the desired shim thicknesses you can order them if you like, now that you know the correct thicknesses to order. But why, since you already hae them?
Once you have fabricated the washer shims you or a someone else can then fabricate a plate shim to mate the whole surface (best) at a machine shop, or just use the fabricated thickness washers you already have. And that doesn't require ordering shims.
If there's a simpler way to do that I'd like to know to save a lot of work.

 

ANY time you lower the a car, the suspension geometry changes. When the geometry changes, both the camber angles and the toe alignment change.

 

cojaro you seem to know alot about suspension. do you think the factory alignment settings are suitable for aggressive driving?

 

They usually aren't that great. I'm not totally sure what the stock specs are, especially the toe. I'm going to guess 0"±1/32" and 0°±1/2° up front and probably 0"±1/32" and 1°±1/2° in the back.

It all depends how often you're going to track the car, if at all. I'm not sure what sort of toe setting you would want, but I do know that you'd want about 1° of camber in the front and 1/2° in the rear. That is, if the car's your daily driver, too. If the car is track-only, then you would want to go much more aggressive, something like 2°+ front and 1°+ rear.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that a good toe setting would be 1/32" up front and 0" out back. Again, I'm not sure what a nice toe setting is.

[Keep in mind that the more aggressive these settings are, the more tire wear you'll have. 2° of camber or 1/16" of toe will eat your tires in the morning, in the evening, even at supper time. ]

If you got any doubts, I'm sure HighRev1 can fill you in. I'm not sure if he lurks around here anymore but he's pretty active over on 8thCivic.com. Also, take a look at the Suspension Theory and Suspension Theory extended threads.

 

So basically its going to be a pain in the ass or very expensive to fix the toe for the rears. Here are the #'s I got on my car after about 45 miles on the springs. Fronts were fine, just the rears where the issue is.

REAR:LEFT
Camber: (Actual -2deg) (Before -2deg) (Specified Range -2.5deg -.5deg)
Toe: (Actual .19deg) (Before .18deg) (Specified Range .00deg 0.20deg)

REAR:LEFT
Camber: (Actual -1.6deg) (Before -1.6deg) (Specified Range -2.5deg -.5deg)
Toe: (Actual .27deg) (Before .25deg) (Specified Range .0deg .2deg)

Rear:
Cross Camber (Actual -.4deg) (Before -.4deg)
Total Toe (Actual .46deg) (Before .43deg) (Specified Range .0deg .39deg)
Thrust Angle (Actual -.04deg) (Before -.03deg)

 

Good data. I presume your toe is toe-in and not toe-out.
I have a sneaking suspecion that the rear axle is not
square (rear axle not parallel to the front). If you align the rear axle you may be good to go.

 

figured i'd correct that for you real quick. so from what i've gathered there is a little too much toe in for street use but it could be benificial for turn in and handeling??? I'm sure if I rotated my tires I could have gotten alot more life from them. your numbers are pretty similar to mine so its your call. we can try those spc shims if you like? but looking at that japanese site its not too fun.

has anyone here actually shimed the rear to 0' toe? any noticable difference in handeling? tire wear?