Camber kit or alignment?

[deeze30]

Went to get my car aligned at a shop sitting on some joms and 15s on 205/50. The guy said i would need a camber kit to fix my camber because theyre not able to do so. The only thing they were to adjust and fix are my tie rods for the fronts because they said the rears cant be adjusted. Is this true?

[Herr Faust Schinken]

yeah the rear end of the e30 has no alignment adjustment unless you weld a kit in, the only things adjustable in the front are the tie rods for toe

[I8UR911]

Why does the rear camber needs to be fixed? What are the specs?

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[deeze30]

Why does the rear camber needs to be fixed? What are the specs?

Sent from my XT907 using Tapatalk 2

Sorry i meant the front cambers. Specs of coil height at the moment? When we installed the joms we just left the rears to its highest setting and the fronts about 2 inches from the bottom of the bottom adjuster nut. Im guessin camber can only be fixed through a camber kit then for lowered cars?

[BoxDriver86]

He's asking what your camber specs are. If camber differs from one side to the other, you could have pull issues and of course tire wear issues. If you're on coilovers, there is a chance that your ride height is different at each corner, causing the system to tell them your camber is way out of spec.

The answer to your question is BOTH.

If they have a decent Hunter alignment (nothing else is decent) system, you can give them your own custom specs once you get your camber kit up front. They are most commonly called camber plates in our world, where as most shops call them "camber correction kits."

Vorshlag, Turner, Ireland, Ground Control and others make really nice front kits that allow corrections of -.05 - -3 degrees on average.

Dungeon motorsport makes a rear camber kit that requires removal of the rear subframe, and modification of the rear trailing arm mouting tabs. I have not yet put this on my car nor aligned one with it installed so I am not sure what degree of adjustment you get.

There is also someone selling a different style subfreme bushing that changes the distance of the subframe from the body changing camber as well.

Hopefully someone will chime in and help you out with the rear camber stuff.

[deeze30]

He's asking what your camber specs are. If camber differs from one side to the other, you could have pull issues and of course tire wear issues. If you're on coilovers, there is a chance that your ride height is different at each corner, causing the system to tell them your camber is way out of spec.

The answer to your question is BOTH.

If they have a decent Hunter alignment (nothing else is decent) system, you can give them your own custom specs once you get your camber kit up front. They are most commonly called camber plates in our world, where as most shops call them "camber correction kits."

Vorshlag, Turner, Ireland, Ground Control and others make really nice front kits that allow corrections of -.05 - -3 degrees on average.

Dungeon motorsport makes a rear camber kit that requires removal of the rear subframe, and modification of the rear trailing arm mouting tabs. I have not yet put this on my car nor aligned one with it installed so I am not sure what degree of adjustment you get.

There is also someone selling a different style subfreme bushing that changes the distance of the subframe from the body changing camber as well.

Hopefully someone will chime in and help you out with the rear camber stuff.

Okay i see what you are saying. The place i got my car aligned was okay. I mean it was only $50 but i guess i couldve went to a better shop. Here's a picture of the print out they gave me. What would be a decent camber plate should i get coming from you guys' experience?

[deeze30]

here's a pic of the car as well. rears looks lower than fronts. I have the coil sleeve set to the highest point and the fronts about 2inches from the bottom collar nut to the top nut

[BoxDriver86]

Thanks for posting that printout, it helps a lot. First, a soapbox moment:

Typical printout for a garbage alignment system. Your thrust angle measurement is not coherent with your rear toe specs. The front of your car will track straight while the rear of the car is trying to track to the right. With the measurements they have there, your thrust angle should be .15, not -.2. Instead of correcting thrust angle by setting front toe to counter act with rear toe, they just set front toe to spec and left rear toe to drag your tires to pieces. This is common not only with a cheap aligner, but an alignment tech who doesn't take the time to do the job right. You get what you pay for I guess.

That being said, this is pretty good news for you. Basic alignment knowledge (that your tech should have figured out in just shy of half a second) is that ride height affects every angle of alignment. Since there is technically no adjustment in the rear of an e30 stock, ride height is the only way to correct any deviation from right to left. Having adjustable collars in the rear means you can correct a lot of your issues.

Since your passenger side toe and camber are less negative than your driver's side, that tells me your ride height is uneven in the rear. My guess is that your passenger rear is higher than your driver side rear.

Take your car to a reputable shop that has a HAWKEYE ELITE alignment system. This is important: Tell them that you have an adjustable coilover system on your car and you need a live ride height measurement using WinAlign tuner. This will give them the chance to adjust your suspension accurately and will likely even out your rear toe and camber.

Your caster is fine for a lowered e30. High caster is not a tire wear angle, but does promote stiffer steering and better high speed stability. E30s with M3 offset bushings will show anywhere from +10 to +12 degrees of caster.

Your front camber of -2 to -2.5 is fine as well. I'm actually surprised to see that much negative camber without camber plates installed, which makes me question the accuracy of that alignment machine.

Front toe should be closer to 0, rather than factory specified as they have done. When your car is lowered the suspension does not move nearly as much in dynamic as it would stock, so 0 toe would be better for you. The only caveat is if your spend a lot of time highway driving, which would mean you need to stay closer to stock specs. At higher speeds, your suspension will open up more creating toe wear. This is known as dynamic where as a suspension at rest is known as static.

The most important thing to note is that you want toe and camber to be as even as possible on both sides. When you have different measurements from left to right, this is the biggest killer of tires. I would recommend a camber correction kit for the rear before camber plates up front...unless the readings on that alignment are crap and your next shop tells something different.

If you want to drop the cash on camber plates for the front, go with Ground Control or Vorshlag. If you're on a tight budget and just want basic correction, Cosmo Racing makes an acceptable plate that should last about a year or more with regular driving.

Hope that wasn't too much info! Feel free to PM me if you need anything else.

[deeze30]

Wow lots of info there. Thanks. Didnt think alignment was that complicated but it all makes sense. You are on the money about my rear setting. From what i remember when we installed the joms we left out the passenger side rubber mount for the top and kept the drivrs side so that probably affected it also and i do notice that my car tends to want to go to the right when i let go of the wheel. Now would my current setting.. Would this be ok as far as wear goes on tires until i get a set of camber plates? Also some folks says to just remove the adjuster sleeve on the back and just use spring as it is.

[deeze30]

I forgot to mention that when I drove the car today to work when I got there I touched the inner tire of the rears and they were warm compared to the outer which leads me to think that only the inner part are touching the ground. As far for camber plates, joms sells them for 27 each for the front and 20 for rears.

[BoxDriver86]

The entire tire is touching ground, it's just seeing much higher load on the inside.

I couldn't find anything on the JOM plates and the super low price makes me question what they are selling.

[deeze30]

The entire tire is touching ground, it's just seeing much higher load on the inside.

I couldn't find anything on the JOM plates and the super low price makes me question what they are selling.

What do you say about the weld on with eccentric bolts to subframe that i see for sale? would those help? just seems a lot of work to be done. By the way i posted up the wrong print out of the alignment.

this one was before the alignment



and this one was after