Really bad inside wear from front and year.. Need Help.

[jlgeclipsegsx]

Ok here is the deal, I bought my awd gsx with no name coilovers and I been getting really bad inside wear. You can look at my car from behind or up front and my wheels are at an angle. The coilovers seem to be as low as they can and to add that the right side sits a little higher then the left. I want to know what I do to change this or what I. I dont care if I have to get a whole new suspension, but I dont know much for suspension so i wouldnt know the first thing i would need to get if I had to get a whole diff suspension, thanks

and to be more specific, its has a neg. camber and the front is towed- out. I been to places and they make up the excuse that my car is to low to put on there machine to look and such. so i been having no luck.

 

[snowborder714]

Fix the toe, as that is what causes tire wear.

I assume that the excuses they are using are keeping you from getting actual alignment specs? Or do you happen to have them?

Tell them to get boards to help you get the car up on the rack. Or call up your local performance shop who aligns/tunes race cars and see if they can help you out.

 

[jlgeclipsegsx]

The only excuse they have is that my car is too low to go on the lift and that my bumper would be wrecked, so I decided to go home and take my bumper off and returned back to see what they would say and there next excuse was, oh we dont work on aftermarket parts. I already been to 8 places, and I live 3 and a half hours from an actual performance shop, so either I drive all the way there and see if they will work on it or I have to do everything by myself which seems to happen alot. That sounds like a good idea though. I will try again and i will let you know what they say, thanks

 

[snowborder714]

Your car can't be too much lower than mine, or you'd be scraping while driving around. But removing your bumper is a great way to keep them from giving you the "it's too low" bull. Tell them they will not be working on your aftermarket parts, but just checking what your alignment specs currently are. Drive up on rack, mount alignment tools, gather data, print results.

Also, it sounds like you don't have any aftermarket parts that would be able to be adjusted to fix your alignment (specifically camber and caster), so the only one they can, and should adjust for you is toe. This is the only alignment spec that can be changed on a stock car.

Then, once you get the results, you can see where your car currently sits, and can take it from there as to what actions to take.


Or, if you don't care if your car sits that low, raise the coilovers up a bit all around. This might help their complaining about it being too low.

 

[jlgeclipsegsx]

Ok, thanks for the useful information. So should I not worry about the negative camber until I get the toe fixed? And since I have negative camber, I would have to buy some type of part to fix it?

 

[snowborder714]

Toe is the last thing that should be changed, so if you want to fix camber, it needs to be done before toe is fixed. Negative camber will not cause nearly as much tire wear as toe will. It will all depend on how much negative camber you actually have right now and how much you'd like. But if your toe is really far out, I'd get it adjusted unless you plan on taking care of the camber very soon, especially if you drive your car a lot.

To fix camber, you will need to purchase aftermarket parts...or raise the car. Most people use adjustable ball joints to fix front camber, and longer bolts (highest grade you can find - 10 preferably, but if not, 8.8 will work) and washers for the rear.

 

[Calan]

Or, if you don't care if your car sits that low, raise the coilovers up a bit all around. This might help their complaining about it being too low.

And help with the excessive camber at the same time.

*********

If you have some jack stands, non-stretchy twine, and a measuring tape...you can adjust the toe yourself to be at least a little better than what you apparently have now.

It's basically just a matter of aligning the string to be perfectly parallel with the wheel track (tie it to jack stands at each end of the car...a few inches away from, and centered on the wheel hubs), and then adjusting the tie rod ends until the distance from the string to the front and back sides of each front wheel are equal. You just need to know your front and rear wheel track width...the string will probably be an inch or two closer to the front hubs than at the rear, since the front track is wider than the rear; at least on the 1G's.

It's old-school and it's accuracy depends on your measuring ability... but it gets you within the ball-park in a pinch.

Here's a video I found on Google:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZoL1gaWedA

And an article with some useful information:

http://www.hotrod.com/techarticles/chassis/hrdp_0411_wheel_alignment_guide/index.html

Just search on "DIY wheel alignment"...there's a bunch of info on it.