rear camber

mkenz711

New Member
hey guys, i just bought my first civic yesterday and am trying to get it in good running order. i noticed that the alignment was off after driving it and visually the rear drivers wheels is further in at the top of the wheel well then at the ground. i took it to a firestone dealer to get an alignment which they told me that the front drivers ball joint was bad and needed replaced. after replacing the ball joint the front seems to be aligned nice but they called me out to the garage to look at something. the technician told me that the rear drivers wheel is out of camber about 1degree and there is no more adjustment. the passenger side is fine and standing straight as it should. the car is not lowered, nothing appears to be bent and there is no rot. he suggested i take it to a bodyshop and have them look it over(more$$$$$) and bring it back. has anybody had the same problem or know what might be causing it? my car is a 95 civic ex coupe completely stock.also,has any body bought any of the exhaust systems on ebay? i am looking for a cheap header that will bolt up to my cat and factory exhaust with no modifications? i need the o2 sensors and cat intact because we have centralized emissions where i live. thanks alot
 

JohnS.

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I'm pretty sure all cars come with a tiny bit of negative camber. It helps with handling. But -1º isn't that bad. I have around -2º to -2.5º in the back. Toe is what you want to worry about. Toe is worse than camber and wears your tires faster. Also the type of wear creates a very noisy ride.

Are your tires wearing unevenly? If they're wearing fine and it's not effecting your car, I would say leave your camber alone. If you do want to fix it, you can try the rear washer trick (add a couple of washers to where the camber arm bolts to the car, you'll need longer bolts as well). There could be multiple factors that are leading to excessive negative camber. Check the bushings, camber arm itself, etc.

I wouldn't dial in to 0º because having a tire that is perfectly straight up and down is actually worse for your handling. In a turn, whichever tire is receiving the most load, the bottom of the tire will want to "roll under" the car. If you have negative camber dialed in, when the tire goes to "roll under" the car, it negates the negative camber and evenly distributes the weight across a full contact patch. If you go into a turn with 0º camber, you're actually creating even more camber. If literally 99% of your driving was in a straight line, 0º is completely fine.

Regarding a header and exhaust, I recommend you save your money. D-Series engines don't respond well to bolt-on's and you'll gain 1-3HP on a good day and a lot of noise every day.
 


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