Alignment after H&R lowering springs...Thinking of getting ball joints and camber arms rear.

[Tuna_de5]

Hey folks, lowering my ITS soon. I pulled the front strut pins and have about -2.0 in the front. But since I am lowering on H&R would it be worth it to be able to dial in some negative camber for the front and some less for the rear? Really irks me seeing that the car can have more negative camber in the front than rear when lowering. I am talking about very spirited driving and am worried that this is going to introduce a massive amount of understeer.

Thank you.

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[MERAKIAUTOWORKS]

I did that with my coilovers, I thought it was worth it. We did SPC in the Rear, whiteline in the front.

-Josh

 

[Tuna_de5]

I did that with my coilovers, I thought it was worth it. We did SPC in the Rear, whiteline in the front.

-Josh

Yeah it seems like a must if you are going to do any hard driving. Thanks for getting back to me.

 

[MERAKIAUTOWORKS]

Yeah it seems like a must if you are going to do any hard driving. Thanks for getting back to me.

Yes we have them in stock.

-Josh

 

[ModJPB]

When you lower the car, all four corners would get even more negative camber. If the front is at -2 already you're going to get something like -3.... You want even more!?! Wait until after lowering and then get an alignment to know what/if you need/want to get adjustable camber arms.

Over/understeer changes won't make a "massive" difference by alignment. If it does, it'll be from the change of spring rate ratio between front and rear of the H&R springs. If over/understeer is an issue, changing a sway bar will affect it the most. Then springs. Shocks/struts will affect over/understeer during entry/exit of corners. Fine tuning is alignment and tire pressure.

 

[optronix]

When you lower the car, all four corners would get even more negative camber. If the front is at -2 already you're going to get something like -3.... You want even more!?! Wait until after lowering and then get an alignment to know what/if you need/want to get adjustable camber arms.

Over/understeer changes won't make a "massive" difference by alignment. If it does, it'll be from the change of spring rate ratio between front and rear of the H&R springs. If over/understeer is an issue, changing a sway bar will affect it the most. Then springs. Shocks/struts will affect over/understeer during entry/exit of corners. Fine tuning is alignment and tire pressure.

This is generally accurate, but there are a few nuances with this platform I've learned from personal experience.

First, my numbers post-lowering (without strut pin hack): -1.5 degrees front, -2.5 degrees rear. McStrut front and multi-link rear will net you more static camber gain in the rear than the front. That's what happened when I lowered my car, and it was generally fine for normal driving- but NOT OK for autocross. I went from being moderately competitive (on PS4S at the time) to plowing through turns, no matter what I did with the tire pressure.

Lower ball joints set to -3.5 fixed everything. Even on PS4S, understeer vanished and the car felt like it should have from the factory*.

*This is my subjective take. Some would call it "darty". I autocross pretty regularly and having this setup is essential for my use case. Even backroads driving though, the way the car turns in now might be more than necessary for the street.

FWIW I can't claim any significant impact on tire wear- aside from the fact that I can destroy a set of PS4S in a single outing. I don't think camber helps or hurts that much honestly... normal driving doesn't seem to introduce any extra wear to my experience, even at -3.5.

So where does that leave OP? Realistically, you should expect about .5 degree change in the front, and -1-1.5 degrees in the rear. Since you've already taken the measure of adding more camber via strut pin removal, you're probably ok; that would put you somewhere around ~2.5-2.8 post-drop which would be about in line with OEM spec of having roughly equivalent camber bias front/rear. I don't think the understeer will be nearly as tragic as it was for me, especially if you're not trying to autocross seriously.

You could also get a rear camber kit to bring the rear back close to OEM spec, and enjoy the extra camber in the front for more oversteery bias without a rear bar or dicking with tire pressures in the grid.

That said, there are other elements to consider. The spring rates are pretty close to OEM honestly... what you may want to consider is trying to correct the roll center geometry. SO MANY people overlook this. There are a few companies who make the roll center adjusters (Spoon, Hardrace, Whiteline to name a few). Also I just learned the other day that Powerflex makes an anti-lift kit (i.e., compliance bushings for the LCA) that will also help. I have yet to track down tie rod ends for bump steer though.

If none of this is familiar to you, check out this video:

https://motoiq.com/watch-lowering-y...center-bump-steer-more-for-ultimate-handling/

 

[Tuna_de5]

This is generally accurate, but there are a few nuances with this platform I've learned from personal experience.

First, my numbers post-lowering (without strut pin hack): -1.5 degrees front, -2.5 degrees rear. McStrut front and multi-link rear will net you more static camber gain in the rear than the front. That's what happened when I lowered my car, and it was generally fine for normal driving- but NOT OK for autocross. I went from being moderately competitive (on PS4S at the time) to plowing through turns, no matter what I did with the tire pressure.

Lower ball joints set to -3.5 fixed everything. Even on PS4S, understeer vanished and the car felt like it should have from the factory*.

*This is my subjective take. Some would call it "darty". I autocross pretty regularly and having this setup is essential for my use case. Even backroads driving though, the way the car turns in now might be more than necessary for the street.

FWIW I can't claim any significant impact on tire wear- aside from the fact that I can destroy a set of PS4S in a single outing. I don't think camber helps or hurts that much honestly... normal driving doesn't seem to introduce any extra wear to my experience, even at -3.5.

So where does that leave OP? Realistically, you should expect about .5 degree change in the front, and -1-1.5 degrees in the rear. Since you've already taken the measure of adding more camber via strut pin removal, you're probably ok; that would put you somewhere around ~2.5-2.8 post-drop which would be about in line with OEM spec of having roughly equivalent camber bias front/rear. I don't think the understeer will be nearly as tragic as it was for me, especially if you're not trying to autocross seriously.

You could also get a rear camber kit to bring the rear back close to OEM spec, and enjoy the extra camber in the front for more oversteery bias without a rear bar or dicking with tire pressures in the grid.

That said, there are other elements to consider. The spring rates are pretty close to OEM honestly... what you may want to consider is trying to correct the roll center geometry. SO MANY people overlook this. There are a few companies who make the roll center adjusters (Spoon, Hardrace, Whiteline to name a few). Also I just learned the other day that Powerflex makes an anti-lift kit (i.e., compliance bushings for the LCA) that will also help. I have yet to track down tie rod ends for bump steer though.

If none of this is familiar to you, check out this video:

https://motoiq.com/watch-lowering-y...center-bump-steer-more-for-ultimate-handling/

Thank you so much for this thorough response. I've seen many of your posts on the forum and have found them extremely helpful. I am also installing the white line 22mm rear bar with two settings for now. I guess I will see what my cambers will look like. If anything is off, I will probably end up doing both ball joints and rear camber arms just to gain maximum adjustability. I know these cars have some weirdness when lowered so that answered exactly what I was wondering. I am one of those people that will absolutely notice the additional understeer. I feel as though there is no point in lowering the car if I'm losing any dynamics.

I'll update this forum when I get the work done. Ironically I am going exactly against my word by doing 275-35-r19 indy500 v2 on a 19x9.5 +45 wheel (too tall tire) but if it ends up driving like crap I'll just go back down to the 275-30 I'm currently running. I'll update this and post my alignment settings once I get it done. I found a pretty good shop to help me out with this so fingers crossed my rear negative camber isn't too high as this is my main concern.

 

[Tuna_de5]

This is generally accurate, but there are a few nuances with this platform I've learned from personal experience.

First, my numbers post-lowering (without strut pin hack): -1.5 degrees front, -2.5 degrees rear. McStrut front and multi-link rear will net you more static camber gain in the rear than the front. That's what happened when I lowered my car, and it was generally fine for normal driving- but NOT OK for autocross. I went from being moderately competitive (on PS4S at the time) to plowing through turns, no matter what I did with the tire pressure.

Lower ball joints set to -3.5 fixed everything. Even on PS4S, understeer vanished and the car felt like it should have from the factory*.

*This is my subjective take. Some would call it "darty". I autocross pretty regularly and having this setup is essential for my use case. Even backroads driving though, the way the car turns in now might be more than necessary for the street.

FWIW I can't claim any significant impact on tire wear- aside from the fact that I can destroy a set of PS4S in a single outing. I don't think camber helps or hurts that much honestly... normal driving doesn't seem to introduce any extra wear to my experience, even at -3.5.

So where does that leave OP? Realistically, you should expect about .5 degree change in the front, and -1-1.5 degrees in the rear. Since you've already taken the measure of adding more camber via strut pin removal, you're probably ok; that would put you somewhere around ~2.5-2.8 post-drop which would be about in line with OEM spec of having roughly equivalent camber bias front/rear. I don't think the understeer will be nearly as tragic as it was for me, especially if you're not trying to autocross seriously.

You could also get a rear camber kit to bring the rear back close to OEM spec, and enjoy the extra camber in the front for more oversteery bias without a rear bar or dicking with tire pressures in the grid.

That said, there are other elements to consider. The spring rates are pretty close to OEM honestly... what you may want to consider is trying to correct the roll center geometry. SO MANY people overlook this. There are a few companies who make the roll center adjusters (Spoon, Hardrace, Whiteline to name a few). Also I just learned the other day that Powerflex makes an anti-lift kit (i.e., compliance bushings for the LCA) that will also help. I have yet to track down tie rod ends for bump steer though.

If none of this is familiar to you, check out this video:

https://motoiq.com/watch-lowering-y...center-bump-steer-more-for-ultimate-handling/

Convinced me, got the Whiteline bump steer correction kit. Now let’s see where cambers end up…

 

[optronix]

Yeah some would try to discourage you from lowering altogether, and that philosophy is a legitimate approach. Arguably a better approach... but I value aesthetics too and just love the way the car looks lowered, especially with aggressive offset wheels. I have had to jump through the various hoops to get my setup tolerable to my tastes; i.e., I ruined it a little bit when I lowered it lol. But the way it's set up now is pretty good. I've had it out to two autocrosses with the current wheel/tire combo and it feels pretty damn great- and I still feel like I have several things left to do to make it better. My setup is still pretty half-assed at the moment TBH.

Good luck with your approach, and yes I'm very curious about testimonials from folks who do the roll center adjustment. There aren't many who've done it- including myself. It's on the very very short list; in fact I'm hoping to get the roll centers and anti-lift done in a month or so, just have to find a window I'm not traveling.

 

[Tuna_de5]

Yeah some would try to discourage you from lowering altogether, and that philosophy is a legitimate approach. Arguably a better approach... but I value aesthetics too and just love the way the car looks lowered, especially with aggressive offset wheels. I have had to jump through the various hoops to get my setup tolerable to my tastes; i.e., I ruined it a little bit when I lowered it lol. But the way it's set up now is pretty good. I've had it out to two autocrosses with the current wheel/tire combo and it feels pretty damn great- and I still feel like I have several things left to do to make it better. My setup is still pretty half-assed at the moment TBH.

Good luck with your approach, and yes I'm very curious about testimonials from folks who do the roll center adjustment. There aren't many who've done it- including myself. It's on the very very short list; in fact I'm hoping to get the roll centers and anti-lift done in a month or so, just have to find a window I'm not traveling.

Agreed, everytime you muck with anything especially chassis related. You have to expect that you’re messing with perfection. But that’s where people like us come in

 

[Tuna_de5]

So it has been done. I think I am sort of venturing into fairly unknown territory but so far for hard road driving the car feels wonderful with the addition of the whiteline rear sway bar. But as I expected the rear camber went WAY too high. I'm sitting around -2.2 (pins pulled) in the front and -2.8 in the rear. I completely accept this as my fault because I'm running a huge tire. I think I will downsize to a 265-35 rather than a 275-35. But I'm not getting any rub with hard driving and crappy California back roads. I did not trim the bumpstops but I do notice I am hitting the rear a smidge bit but its nothing horrible. The front end feels wonderful though, very complaint. I just ran some errands with three people in the car and the ride quality didn't change. If anyone has questions feel free to ask.

I want to mention my full setup is:
Apex VS5RS 19x9.5 +45
Firestone Indy500 V2 275-35r19 I'll try to give update on these tires since they just came out in April.
H&R Lowering springs
Whiteline 22m adjustable rear bar (soft setting on stock end links)

I have ordered rear camber arms so it is going to be a little bit before I put them on. But I'm doing bump steer correction as well. I thought since I'm only doing street driving I'll just fix the rear camber and get the roll center corrected.

ONE MORE THING I want to mention that a few people have done this setup and the results are all over the place in terms of stance and rub. It completely depends on your tire compound and wheel combo. DO NOT do this setup on anything under +45 or on any 200tw tire as it will rub. I have heard that it isn't major, but I'm trying to look for something that works completely fine with daily driving.

I got extremely lucky and with this very specific setup I have no rub, nothing during full lock, suspension compression, hard bumps, and pulling into steep driveways.

 

[Tuna_de5]

So it has been done. I think I am sort of venturing into fairly unknown territory but so far for hard road driving the car feels wonderful with the addition of the whiteline rear sway bar. But as I expected the rear camber went WAY too high. I'm sitting around -2.2 (pins pulled) in the front and -2.8 in the rear. I completely accept this as my fault because I'm running a huge tire. I think I will downsize to a 265-35 rather than a 275-35. But I'm not getting any rub with hard driving and crappy California back roads. I did not trim the bumpstops but I do notice I am hitting the rear a smidge bit but its nothing horrible. The front end feels wonderful though, very complaint. I just ran some errands with three people in the car and the ride quality didn't change. If anyone has questions feel free to ask.

I want to mention my full setup is:
Apex VS5RS 19x9.5 +45
Firestone Indy500 V2 275-35r19 I'll try to give update on these tires since they just came out in April.
H&R Lowering springs
Whiteline 22m adjustable rear bar (soft setting on stock end links)

I have ordered rear camber arms so it is going to be a little bit before I put them on. But I'm doing bump steer correction as well. I thought since I'm only doing street driving I'll just fix the rear camber and get the roll center corrected.

Also I just want to give a shoutout to Pop's tire shop. If you're in the San Francisco Bay Area a need a shop to work on anything suspension related reach out to them. Wonderful group of guys that are total car guys. Couldn't have a greater group of people to work with. After getting ghosted by multiple shops they got back to me instantly.

https://popstireshop.com

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