Alignment Settings? - Honda Prelude Forum

JHall250 · 08-15-2008, 02:14 AM

So I finally got my entire setup dialed in and corner weighted...except I have 6.5 mm of toe-in on the rear of the car and almost 4mm of toe-in on the front (I know it's horrible, you should see my tires). Anyway, my question is on a Prelude SH what alignment settings do you guys recommend for a my setup, Ground Controls with springs rates of 600F and 700R with about a 1.75 inch front drop and a 1.5 inch rear drop? Also if anyone knows how to get a little extra negative camber that would be helpful too.

Thanks for the help,

Justin

paulyg · 08-18-2008, 11:05 AM

Hi Justin,

When I was autocrossing my Prelude I had a little bit of toe out in front (say 2mm) and a little bit of toe in in the rear (2mm again). You could get more aggressive with the front toe out for better turn in. I wouldn't go above 3mm for a car that sees regular street use.

As for camber since you have an SH you can swap in base model upper front control arms for more camber. I'm not sure how much you'll get but I think it will be between 0.5 to 1.0 extra degree. Or get a camber kit. I have the Progress ones. SPC ones are OK too and offer more adjustability with the downside of sticking up a little bit more then the progress ones. FWIW I ended up denting the wheel well area with the camber kits anyway. But I only had 400 lb springs. Yours are stiffer so the suspension shouldn't compress as much.

JHall250 · 08-21-2008, 12:19 AM

Thanks for the advice, my plan is to try 0 toe in the front and rear and go from there. As for the camber kit, the Koni's I'm running have short bodies. There are two areas to mount the front shock fork, I'm on the tallest setting and I'm still barking the left front wheel well. I'm thinking about adding a full bump stop because the shortened ones aren't cutting it.
The SH may not have as much negative camber as the base but from what I've seen it has a buttload more caster which is also very beneficial. I didn't know you could swap a base model upper arm onto an SH. Have you seen it done?

vinuneuro · 08-21-2008, 02:09 AM

The Base and SH have an identical amount of camber from the factory, look at your helms. If he swapped in Base uca's he'd loose a lot of the extra caster the SH has, and hence all that dynamic camber.

For an autox car, you'd want some rear toe-out too. You don't need the stability for slowing down from long straights like you would on a track.

JHall250 · 08-21-2008, 01:06 PM

Though the static camber is the same I'm pretty sure the SH front suspension geometry does not have a camber curve that contains as much negative camber as the base due to the extra amount of caster. I'm not 100% positive about that but it would make sense.

vinuneuro · 08-21-2008, 02:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JHall250

Though the static camber is the same I'm pretty sure the SH front suspension geometry does not have a camber curve that contains as much negative camber as the base due to the extra amount of caster. I'm not 100% positive about that but it would make sense.

More caster= more dynamic camber.

flyingnut40 · 01-03-2009, 05:33 PM

Any idea which way the castor would change if you did the swap? And by "dynanic camber", do you mean "negative camber gain on compression"?

Thanks Dennis

JHall250 · 01-06-2009, 12:06 AM

The SH specs at 4*20' whereas the base specs at 2*40' so you're gaining almost a 2 degrees in most cases. The SH has more gain on negative camber over the course of compression while the wheel is turned due to the suspension geometry.

flyingnut40 · 01-07-2009, 07:03 AM

Just for clarification, is that camber or caster differences we are seeing with the different upper control arms. I don't want to get confused between the two.... is the ball joint offset or is the arm length different? If so which one is longer? and if it is caster you are referring to... thould those numbers not be positive? Thanks for clearing up my confusion. Dennis

Jacques · 01-08-2009, 10:46 AM

Just saw this thread...pretty interesting. I never considered swapping out my upper control arms for the base model, but I think I'm getting enough camber and caster to not worry about it too much. On my SH, I have 0 toe all around, with a GC setup of 600 F/600R springs on revalved/shortened Konis, Progress rear sway (set to middle stiffness), Spoon strut bars F/R. Planning on swapping the GC/Koni setup for TEIN HA's, and having those sent out to be revalved/resprung. Haven't decided yet on spring rates, but it'll be at least the same, if not higher than my current setup.

JHall250, how has your SH handle with those spring rates? Have you had any other suspension mods done?

JHall250 · 04-13-2009, 01:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jacques

Just saw this thread...pretty interesting. I never considered swapping out my upper control arms for the base model, but I think I'm getting enough camber and caster to not worry about it too much. On my SH, I have 0 toe all around, with a GC setup of 600 F/600R springs on revalved/shortened Konis, Progress rear sway (set to middle stiffness), Spoon strut bars F/R. Planning on swapping the GC/Koni setup for TEIN HA's, and having those sent out to be revalved/resprung. Haven't decided yet on spring rates, but it'll be at least the same, if not higher than my current setup.

JHall250, how has your SH handle with those spring rates? Have you had any other suspension mods done?

I was at the track the other day and I know I wasn't getting enough negative camber from the pictures and from the wear on the tires themselves. I plan on getting base model upper arms and hopefully adding some well needed negative camber. My SH handles great, it actually blew me away at the track, as for my setup I have Koni Yellows that have been tuned to SPSS3, shortened bodies by 25mm, high-speed compression adjusters in the feet of the shocks, and multiple lower body mounts for the damper fork to attach to to control the negative travel. I also have the Progress rear sway bar on the stiffest setting. As for the alignment I run 2mm out in the front and 1.5mm out in the rear, I absolutely love toe out gives the car a really responsive, snappy feel. Why are you switching Koni's out for Tein anything?

Jacques · 04-17-2009, 12:22 PM

I used to have mine with the toe out in the front (0 in the rear) by 1/16th's. I resorted back to 0 toe all around because I felt though I was getting a little more responsiveness on turns, it seemed it came at a sacrifice on straightaway speeds.

As for doing the switch from Konis/GC's to TEIN's, I want to try something different. The HA's have been used pretty well with some of the autocross crowd even in OTS form (I know of a few National champions that ran on OTS HA's), so I want to try it out after I get the fronts refreshed and the rears revalved/resprung to my specs. If I don't like how it handles, I can always switch back to my "old" setup. I'll probably keep my Konis/GC set for a little while before I decide if my new setup works as good or better.

Incidentally, the HA's were TEIN's most aggressive coilover set, but has since been discontinued. The SS that replaced it is considerably softer in comparison.

JHall250 · 04-20-2009, 04:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jacques

I used to have mine with the toe out in the front (0 in the rear) by 1/16th's. I resorted back to 0 toe all around because I felt though I was getting a little more responsiveness on turns, it seemed it came at a sacrifice on straightaway speeds.

As for doing the switch from Konis/GC's to TEIN's, I want to try something different. The HA's have been used pretty well with some of the autocross crowd even in OTS form (I know of a few National champions that ran on OTS HA's), so I want to try it out after I get the fronts refreshed and the rears revalved/resprung to my specs. If I don't like how it handles, I can always switch back to my "old" setup. I'll probably keep my Konis/GC set for a little while before I decide if my new setup works as good or better.

Incidentally, the HA's were TEIN's most aggressive coilover set, but has since been discontinued. The SS that replaced it is considerably softer in comparison.

Just seems like a downgrade to me. The tuning system on Tein has lots of non-beneficial crosstalk by default as it's supposed to tune rebound and compression at the same time.

As for camber deal I'm getting base model control arms tomorrow so we'll see that happens with those. I'm expecting around 2.6 degree of static negative camber and a steeper curve. I am going to plot the camber/toe curve of my stock SH suspension as well as the camber/toe curve after installation of the base model arms to do a comparison.