> If I lower my SE-R can an alignment correct a severe
> camber problem. I checked, and the Stillen camber plates
> are only available for the front wheels, which makes me
> wonder if their is another way to a just the camber on the
> car.
Here's a quote taken from one of Sam Strano's last postings, a
snippet about lowering springs and camber plates:
"The second thing is that he was sold camber plates by
[deleted]. Something he didn't need. They told him that he has to get his camber back to
spec or he'll ruin tires. If he had 3 or 4 degrees [of negative camber], then he would,
but lowering a car doesn't give such a change. Generally it is about 1 degree. Most of you
would kill for negative camber. The point a lot of you miss is that when the car gets
lowered the [negative] camber increases, BUT the toe settings also change. The toe is what
rips the tires up, not the camber! I can't state this enough. You have to get the car
aligned after lowering whatever. If you want to put it back toward stock specs go ahead.
And BTW, even non-adjustable cars a little room for camber adjustment especially after
lowering them. I'm not blowing smoke here. Anthony Saeli's '92 SE-R has Eibachs and
springs etc. on it. When we did that stuff we didn't have time to align it. He drove for a
month before he got it done and destroyed a new set of RE71's. After we aligned it (and
kept -1.1 degrees in front and -.8 in the rear) he had no tire wear problems at all. You
see when lowered the length of the tie-rods doesn't change and causes toe-out, of which he
had about 1/2 inch, a lot. You end up dragging you tires down the road a bit sideways. It
looks like the camber is at fault because the tire is running more on the inside, but if
you had 0 camber and that much toe a tire would wear just as fast."
Thrust angle is determined by measuring the toe angle on the back
wheels (something like this - \/ if the wheels are "toed out" or /\ if they're
"toed in"). A bisecting line is drawn to this angle ( \|/ or /|\ ) to determine
thrust angle. If this line doesn't run straight up the middle of the car (or close to it)
the rear tires will "steer" the car in the direction of this line. A good (but
extreme) example is that rusted-out '79 Chevy pickup truck you get stuck behind. The thing
goes down the road at an angle (I believe they call it "dog walking") because
the axle is askew - in a sense it's thrust angle is way off. Being that it has a beam-type
rear axle, I don't know whether the toe angle on the 200 is adjustable or not (the Chevy
truck's isn't, though you *could* give the axle a couple of hard whacks with a 50 pound
sledgehammer to put it back into place... don't laugh, I've seen it done!).
I don't really see how the toe could go out of a spec on a beam axle
(if it's non-adjustable) unless it experienced some kind of damage, so it's probably not
something to worry about.
[Editorial Note: Dan is correct on the 200SX's beam axle, the beam is
totally non-adjustable. On the 200SX you can ONLY adjust the toe on the front
wheels]
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