Installed NEW Skunk2 Upper A-Arm Front Camber Kits! NICE!!!
B18C5-EH2
Moderator
First of all I want to tell everyone that I paid regular retail or so for these arms from a retailer, not any sort of hook-up from Skunk 2, and my post here is literally shooting straight with no alterior motives. Skunk2 isn't hooking me up to sing the praises of this product. I am just extremely pleased with the results and wanted to share with fellow EFers.
As some of you may or may not know for years EF owners have had to deal with inferior sliding ball joint or upper "knuckle" or "anchor bolt" camber kits. The inherent problem with these kits were that either the 1.5 kits were limited in how much camber they corrected, and the anchor bolt kits are PITA to ever adjust, or the 3 degree kits caused clearance issues that made the upper a arm or the sliding balljoint kit itself slam into the pinch welds in the fender well area.
Sliding balljoint kits also added suspension height to an already very tight fender well that EFs have.
Anyways I will be doing a complete install topic later, but for now i've got a few pretty pics and just overall impressions to share, enjoy:
Compact design adds minimal height to suspension and provides clearnce as to not smash the shock towers:
As you can see they completely revised the upper balljoint area, and the adjustment bolts and mount for the upper balljoint is a much sturdier design that the first-gen EG/DC/EK kits.
On the car:
My 1990 Wagovan sits pretty freaking low as pics will show, and at this height the front negative camber was definately enough to wear insides of tires, regardless of what others may try to chime in and call BS.
I turned these kits all the way out and ended up with -1.3 degrees of front camber - this is a daily driven car on softer-than-usual full coil-overs that allow a lot of travel to soak up bumps, so in turns the camber goes much more negative than a lot of others' really stiff set-ups. Ideally I like about -1.5 to -1.0 degrees of front camber on a DD car with softer suspensions. Agressive, really stiff suspensions can get away with radically negative front camber and show minimal tire wear - I intentionally set my 1992 EG Civic's front camber at -2 with it's much stiffer suspension.
Anyways here's a few pics to illstrate the low ride height, and minimal front negative camber:
Sitting:
Rolling with me and a front passenger:
Front camber at only -1.3 degrees:
Again, another angle:
I've hit some pretty big bumps/potholes and not an ounce of contact has occured up front. This may be due to my car being a wagovan with extra under fender clearance, but honestly I think the edge of my tire would hit my fender arch well before these camber kits would ever hit my shock towers, even on an EF hatch.
As long as the allen heads are properly tightened with an 8mm allen socket or longer allen wrench there should be no reason these will slip or fail in any way since the design is much beefier than the first-gen kits on the EG/DC/EK.
I truly hope the Skunk2 haters won't try and turn this into a debate, and also the "you don't ever need a camber kit" guys please feel free to skip this topic altogether.
I've been aligning lowered Hondas/Acuras for over 8 years now, and I've never been the "you need a camber kit if you lower your car at all" guy so please don't think I'm saying that. For guys with EFs lowered more than 2 inches, especially on softer spring rates/dampeners I'd be willing to bet a camber kit would help ease inside edge wear on tires.
Lastly I want to make something very clear to anyone looking to purchase and install a camber kit:
TOE KILLS TIRES WORSE THAN CAMBER, AND IF YOU ONLY INSTALL A CAMBER KIT WITHOUT HAVING A PROPER ALIGNMENT, INCLUDING TOE ADJUSTMENTS, YOU WILL KILL TIRES MUCH WORSE THAN HAVING NO CAMBER KIT AND PROPER TOE SETTINGS!!!
Adding positive camber toes the front tires out at a very high rate. Adding a few degrees of positive camber can add 3+ degrees of front toe outPER WHEEL, which will murder tires and make the car very unsafe to drive. Keep this in mind when planning on a camber kit install.
Thanks all for looking!
As some of you may or may not know for years EF owners have had to deal with inferior sliding ball joint or upper "knuckle" or "anchor bolt" camber kits. The inherent problem with these kits were that either the 1.5 kits were limited in how much camber they corrected, and the anchor bolt kits are PITA to ever adjust, or the 3 degree kits caused clearance issues that made the upper a arm or the sliding balljoint kit itself slam into the pinch welds in the fender well area.
Sliding balljoint kits also added suspension height to an already very tight fender well that EFs have.
Anyways I will be doing a complete install topic later, but for now i've got a few pretty pics and just overall impressions to share, enjoy:
Compact design adds minimal height to suspension and provides clearnce as to not smash the shock towers:
As you can see they completely revised the upper balljoint area, and the adjustment bolts and mount for the upper balljoint is a much sturdier design that the first-gen EG/DC/EK kits.
On the car:
My 1990 Wagovan sits pretty freaking low as pics will show, and at this height the front negative camber was definately enough to wear insides of tires, regardless of what others may try to chime in and call BS.
I turned these kits all the way out and ended up with -1.3 degrees of front camber - this is a daily driven car on softer-than-usual full coil-overs that allow a lot of travel to soak up bumps, so in turns the camber goes much more negative than a lot of others' really stiff set-ups. Ideally I like about -1.5 to -1.0 degrees of front camber on a DD car with softer suspensions. Agressive, really stiff suspensions can get away with radically negative front camber and show minimal tire wear - I intentionally set my 1992 EG Civic's front camber at -2 with it's much stiffer suspension.
Anyways here's a few pics to illstrate the low ride height, and minimal front negative camber:
Sitting:
Rolling with me and a front passenger:
Front camber at only -1.3 degrees:
Again, another angle:
I've hit some pretty big bumps/potholes and not an ounce of contact has occured up front. This may be due to my car being a wagovan with extra under fender clearance, but honestly I think the edge of my tire would hit my fender arch well before these camber kits would ever hit my shock towers, even on an EF hatch.
As long as the allen heads are properly tightened with an 8mm allen socket or longer allen wrench there should be no reason these will slip or fail in any way since the design is much beefier than the first-gen kits on the EG/DC/EK.
I truly hope the Skunk2 haters won't try and turn this into a debate, and also the "you don't ever need a camber kit" guys please feel free to skip this topic altogether.
I've been aligning lowered Hondas/Acuras for over 8 years now, and I've never been the "you need a camber kit if you lower your car at all" guy so please don't think I'm saying that. For guys with EFs lowered more than 2 inches, especially on softer spring rates/dampeners I'd be willing to bet a camber kit would help ease inside edge wear on tires.
Lastly I want to make something very clear to anyone looking to purchase and install a camber kit:
TOE KILLS TIRES WORSE THAN CAMBER, AND IF YOU ONLY INSTALL A CAMBER KIT WITHOUT HAVING A PROPER ALIGNMENT, INCLUDING TOE ADJUSTMENTS, YOU WILL KILL TIRES MUCH WORSE THAN HAVING NO CAMBER KIT AND PROPER TOE SETTINGS!!!
Adding positive camber toes the front tires out at a very high rate. Adding a few degrees of positive camber can add 3+ degrees of front toe outPER WHEEL, which will murder tires and make the car very unsafe to drive. Keep this in mind when planning on a camber kit install.
Thanks all for looking!
Comments
edit: The lowered wags LOOK the best, I like the attitude, the stance. I just drive too many dirt roads
im sold on the skunk2 as well.
im going to see what i can get for them.
how much did you pay?
949, I'd recommend Francis, he's advertising on HT marketplace (suspension) and goes by the handle of forcemotorsports1 ... I bought Skunk2 frt/rear tower bars and lca's for my eg at a great price. They're a new distributor for Skunk2 so pricing is more competitive and he's outside of Cali, so NO sales tax!! good luck
for the skunk2.com website, i tried to find the rears and front to verify it. i got this part number can anyone tell me if its correct?
516-05-0500 rears
????? front
i looked for the fronts on skunk2 but i cant find the right picture and part number of the item you got.
the only number i got was 916-05-0660.
and that isnt correct. those are for the camber bolts.
Im a big fan of skunk2 and as soon as I get rims for my wago you better belive im getting that camber kit.
thanx :!:
I will attempt to retry and this time I'll copy/paste my post before hitting "submit."
:x
There is a much cheaper, and just as effective trick to correcting rear camber by using longer bolts and adding washers in between the chassis/fender well of the car and the rear upper control arm.
I’ll attempt to explain this by referencing an exploded diagram of the rear suspension for our wagons.
Basically look at the bolts, #27. Two #27s secure the rear upper control arm (#21/24) to the chassis/fender well area and go through the #22 part of the upper control arm #21/24.
You replace the #27 bolts with longer ones, and place washers in between #22 and the chassis.
What this does is moves the top of the wheel outward just like an expensive camber kit does, all for much less money. A trip to your local hardware store will supply the bolts and washers needed.
I will be sure to post the exact bolt length, thread pitch, and washers I used when I get back to the shop on Monday.
one day i'll do a itty-bitty "write-up" on how to do your own alighnment
http://www.hondacivicwagon.com/board/viewtopic.php?p=31233#31233
Anyone tried that?
I don't like the way B/J is held by 4 machine screws...Questionable IMO...
personally i have suspension with four screws on them like this and it holds up very well. this is on my camber plates on another car.
i also have seen some knockoff of this with only 2 screws. four would seem to be a very good upgrade to the two.
i didnt pay much for them so i didnt care but i couldnt believe the guy was trying to pass those off for skunk 2. even got them in a nice skunk 2 box.
Thanks B18c5 for the tip on the rear camber im gunna try to run to the hardware store today.
Sliding ball joint kits suck for the 88-91 Civic because they smash into the pinch welds where the fender meets the unibody. They are too tall, and add suspension height to an already very cramped fender well area. Skunk2 completely redesigned their already proven 92-00 Civic/94-01 Integra kits to be shorter/more compact to keep them from hitting the undersides of the EF/EE/ED shock towers.
The four allen bolts are a non issue IMO. I've ran Skunk2 camber kits on my other car, a 1992 Civic for SIX+ years with zero issues.
OGWAGON:
Those are the old style Skunk 2 kits where the balljoint plates are not reinforced. I've ran those same kits on my 1992 Civic that has been auto-x'd numerous times, and they've never given me problems. I did do the balljoint upgrade that Skunk2 offered a few years back, but again mine never failed on me.