Adjustable rear control arms???

[jet150]

So today I got my coilovers fitted and the dudes at CENTRELINE SUSPENSION in Melbourne asked if there are adjustable lower control arms available for our cars. They recomended that I fix the rear camber issue due to lowering the car for longterm life of the tires.

I have read some of the threads on the forum but found no fixs to the issue. Just want to know has anyone found a solution yet???

Does CUSCO make adjustable rear control arms?

 

[unclepaulie]

no rear control arms available, spacing the top a-arm out is the best option

 

[BCX]

i had a shit load of laser cut spacers to fix the rear camber on my car. just havent got off my ass to sell them as a kit.

 

[jet150]

They told me to adjust the bottom arm rather than the top so I will have more clearance between the wheel and the guard.

 

[mills_88]

That is some pretty average advice. That would throw out track as well as cause problems with the driveshafts as they would then be too long I would imagine. plus it would be very difficult as the lower arms are bolted laterally rather than longitudinally to the direction of the arm.

 

[steveP]

Adjusting the lower control arm will give more positive offset, which would be aids.

Use the guide on here to space out the top arm. Many of us have done it with success.

 

[slickd1]

i had a shit load of laser cut spacers to fix the rear camber on my car. just havent got off my ass to sell them as a kit.

haha reviving an old thread, did you still have these laser cut spacers? I get some crazy tyre wear

 

[BCX]

yeah for sure, will need to look for them... I saw them a few months ago when I moved to VIC.

How many degrees are you looking to correct the rear wheels by? this determines how many spacers/size of spacers you rougly need.

Example, 10mm spacer corrected my camber by ~1.2 degrees. I still have a bit over 1degree, but at least it's not chewing tyres.

 

[Smurph]

Or I went to a bolt store in QLD and I got the right high tensile bolts and also, very precise high tensile washers which are exactly 10mm thick. And only cost around $10 no issues to date

EDIT: Correction, they are exactly 6mm thick and I'm running them in pairs

 

[BCX]

The spacers allow quick adjustment and installation.

I used to use washers, but it was annoying when I wanted to change.

Installation is replace each bolt with longer one, one at a time, then slip spacers in and out as you need.

 

[TME_Steve]

Just don't go past about 10mm or you'll run out of toe adjustment and end up toeing out at the rear. Rear toe out is kinda unstable

 

[whats_doing]

But fun. ;-)

 

[jungle]

Just don't go past about 10mm or you'll run out of toe adjustment and end up toeing out at the rear. Rear toe out is kinda unstable

Fully sik drifta
Camber bushes?

 

[slickd1]

yeah for sure, will need to look for them... I saw them a few months ago when I moved to VIC.

How many degrees are you looking to correct the rear wheels by? this determines how many spacers/size of spacers you rougly need.

Example, 10mm spacer corrected my camber by ~1.2 degrees. I still have a bit over 1degree, but at least it's not chewing tyres.

Yeah that'd be perfect! it handled amazingly with the rear camber I'm running, just cant deal with tyre wear that poor.

I've upgraded to a cusco rear swaybar and rear strut-brace now, so hopefully wont need quite as much camber through the corners.

I actually just found some washers on the parts car we had so that might be the easiest solution for me... also replaced rear control arms, did wheel alignment by eye... and can confirm, rear toe-out is kinda unstable... to say the least.

 

[karl_2ltgc]

Has anyone got a wheel alignment post lowering. Height adjustment means a large toe change that actually wears tyres. Its not the camber but the big toe change that kills tyres.

 

[jungle]

Both increase wear

Has anyone got a wheel alignment post lowering. Height adjustment means a large toe change that actually wears tyres. Its not the camber but the big toe change that kills tyres.

Both increase wear rate, -2.0 of camber will wear inside of tyre more than +5mm of toe.

 

[karl_2ltgc]

5mm toe out total (2.5mm rear each side), sounds about stock actually. Camber wear only wears the very edge of the tyre (like 5mm), 9x out of 10, toe wear is misinterpreted as camber wear.
You can not change any single setting in a wheel alignment without affecting all others. So any change from stock (height for example) will see a shift in camber, but more importantly a shift in toe angle. Its even more critical in the rear due to the forward arm that will move the rear hub longways on the vehicle (due to its arc and angle body to hub), such that the rear toe will be out of spec.
If you had 5mm of toe on both sides for a total of 10mm of toe and zero camber, your gonna kill tyres in 10k highway kays.
If you had say 3mm total toe (1.5 each side) and 2* camber, I would expect tyres to wear as per stock settings, say 30-40k depending on the tyre/driver.

There is a reason that the toe is the last setting adjusted in a wheel alignment, its because its by far the most important for tyre wear.

 

[TME_Steve]

I'm not sure of your point. You're questioning whether people have ever had a wheel allignment after they've lowered their car? Surely your not serious. Doesn't everyone know that they need an alignment after any change to suspension geometry?

My point was that with the top spaced out you will effectively shorten the toe arms so if you go past about 10mm spacer as you won't be able to recover the toe angle from toeing out with the adjustment of the arm maxxed toward toeing in.

I'd agree with most of what you said though i actually laugh a little about camber being the cause of tyre where, i found i tend to wear outside from cornering hard (needs more camber) and the inside from driving straight with some camber. When i had a vr4 i was running 1mm toe out on the front both sides (probably too much for some) and zero toe rear. Can't remember camber but something like -2 on the front. -1 on the rear. Needed more at the front but without shorter arms the camber kits could only do so much. Handled pretty close to where i wanted it though.

@slickd1 you mean your car gripped well, unless you like understeer because preventing the rear from sliding by adding negative camber (well subtracting technically making it more negative) would be the opposite to what id want in my vr4 handling wise.

 

[slickd1]

@slickd1 you mean your car gripped well, unless you like understeer because preventing the rear from sliding by adding negative camber (well subtracting technically making it more negative) would be the opposite to what id want in my vr4 handling wise.

nah, I had shit tyres on the rear for a while there, was always tail happy with them on, needed the grip at the rear.

now with cusco rear and stock front swaybar, along with the LSD I'm pretty happy with the handling at the moment.

 

[karl_2ltgc]

I have about 3.2* neg on the front. I'l look to get a custom adjustable upper control arm made up with thready bits for adjustments. But my dodgey re-drilled holes work well on the track.