FYI: problem associated w/ camber kit install (upper control arm, fenderwell)

[GreenMadness]

My ball joints smack like crazy... there is a cirlce dent on one side not the other. once again many problems are pointing me in the same direction.

Suspension dynamics, i think our cars have an underlying problem somewhere and it may be a video camera installed in the wheel wells that find it.

[aznpnoyracer]

okay, I havent tried it yet but Im gonna givve a solution to some of the people here. if your wondering how to bang the inner fender wall with a hammer well this is what I would do. remove tires, turn steering wheel so the rotor are out of the way, then get a nice medium sized METAL malet not Rubber,lol. then I'd get a thick metal pipe not sure how long since I havent done it yet but just enough so you can reach the fender with one end and hit the other with good momentum with the other side with the malet. be carefull, make sure your car is on jack stands and chaulk the tires since theres gonna be a rough under the skirt pounding with your girl(cb7).lol okay if you guys try tis and doesnt work tell me what does without having to buy more expensive parts.

[203Cree]

The only problem I see with your idea is you're talking about deforming the area where the strut mounts to the tower, lol. Using a pipe, you're not gonna be able to see exactly where you're hitting or how much movement you're getting. That's a real easy way to move to far on something we shouldn't fuck with in the first place, lol.

We had this problem with Tommi's car, and I gave it a little heat with a propane torch, used a 3lb sledge and gave it a couple good hits. Didn't deform it very much at all really, just enough to clear the UCA's. Took the UCA's and cleaned off the stamping there on the ends on a bench grinder as well. Took probably an 1/8th of material off each one. IIRC it cleared just fine after that.


I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say what causes all this is suspension load and bushing flex. With the weight off the car I could clear the tower perfectly all day long with no modifications, but once we put it all back together we noticed some rub. I dunno if it's the tower it's self flexing a bit and letting the UCA's mover outboard a little or if it's the UCA bushings allowing too much flex and that's what causes it, but one thing is certain and that's the suspension geometry is getting out of whack when weight is put back on it.

I'm not too sure how a guy could remedy that problem either. I mean obviously, you can raise the car back up to fix the clearance issuse, but there shouldn't be that much movement in that particular spot of the suspension.

[GreenMadness]

^ agreed. i am considering this a real problem because i have the ball joint kits and the coencentric bolt is smacking. i am considering tire size as a problem also, because even though i am only lowered 1.5'' i lost close to that when i went to a 195/50/15. i really only looked at the stiffer sidewalls and increase in acceleration, although the increase in accel didn't really work because i was missing the powerband.... but it lowered the car ALOT more making the bottom of my car alot lower than i wanted, maintaing a HUGE wheel gap.

[westsideaccord]

Your tire choice should not cause the uca to rub, only if you start to change suspension, lowering your car, camber kit, bad alignment etc.

1.0 degrees of neg camber is great, as this will help cornering, lower the risk of uca smack, and most importantly it will not affect the life of your tires nearly as quickly as -2 or greater negative camber

your tire choice is not a great one, if you were wanting to get a stiffer sidewall and keep the 15" rim size you should have went with 205 55 or at least a 205 50, (there are online calculators to figure these out), so your gap would be smaller and rotation would be similar to oe. With a better than oe tire quality your sidewall will be stiffer. Like a kumho ecsta 711/712, as they are speed rated and stickier and overall better compound!
When you drop diameter in tire size, you risk reducing ride quality and cornering ability, but if you use a size wider when doing so you actually gain contact patch which in turn increases ride and cornering ability.
ex; 195 60 15 stock
new 205 55 15

[GreenMadness]

yeah, i know about the tires. They do work, great actually... i was warned that going 205/55/15 on a 5.5'' could give me alot of sidewall flex even with stiffer sidewalls. since i was auto-x and road racing the accord i just went with the super low sidewalls... they rolled over at the auto-x but on the track they held good temp evenly accorss and didn't roll over, so i was happy.

the reason i suspect tire is because i have already modified everything. i disassembled my front end... INCLUDING CROSSMEMBERS... and then put all the shit i wanted on it.
i could have more than 1 problem like many having these issues.

it could be the ball joint camber kit/ radius rod bushings/ wrong caster/frame alignment/ tire size....

but considering with stock tires i could still jack my car at all points... and with the smaller tire i can't jack it anywhere.... it wont even clear the front bumper (not lip)

[Cam]

Yeah, the tyres shouldn't make the uca hit. It's only the height of the spring/shock setup and the alignment that will effect it. The problem with the ball joint types is that if the locking bolts are going to hit they will hit at whatever camber you set them to. Making the camber more negative won't make a difference because they stay in the same place.

[westsideaccord]

yeah, i know about the tires. They do work, great actually... i was warned that going 205/55/15 on a 5.5'' could give me alot of sidewall flex even with stiffer sidewalls. since i was auto-x and road racing the accord i just went with the super low sidewalls... they rolled over at the auto-x but on the track they held good temp evenly accorss and didn't roll over, so i was happy. ........
but considering with stock tires i could still jack my car at all points... and with the smaller tire i can't jack it anywhere.... it wont even clear the front bumper (not lip)

There are alot of members on here running a 205 50 15 incl myself, reason being is its way easier/cheaper to buy performance tires cause thats what integras and civic etc use. Also stock size for our cars on 15" alloys is 195 60 15.
So if you go 195 50 15, you only took 10mm out of the diameter of the tire, which will barely increase your sidewall stiffness, unless you go with a high performance tire too boot! Still 10mm less contact patch though. Also shorter diameter means more rotations which inturn causes more wear!
To keep a similar tire gap to stock and to gain a stiffer sidewall, you should go with 205 50 15 because as the tire gets wider generally it increases in overall diameter also! 205 55 15 would be a tiny bit taller than stock diameter, meanwhile the 205 50 15 will only be a tiny bit shorter diameter than stock.
205 50 15 is 4.5% too fast rotation
meanwhile 195 50 15 is 6.3% too fast.
While being almost 2% faster rotating, it also limits cornering and accel and decel operations by the width(contact patch of the tire)
Say you go with a 215 50 15, this will be ideal as it will still happilly mount on our stock rims, but also is wider and only 3.1% too fast!
LINK TO ONLINE TIRE CALCULATOR!
http://www.miata.net/garage/tirecalc.html

[tig3rpaw]

one of yall put up this site (chassistech.com) and i found camber kits, they have a whole control arm wit the balljoint. like skunk2 built for civics and acuras. was wondering if it will work on our cb7 without the BANGING!!! or if wanna yall purchase this part?

[tig3rpaw]

????

[tig3rpaw]

i guess not!

[tig3rpaw]

anybody?

[GreenMadness]

can you post a link. I don't know that just because its a whole arm that is wont hit. the skunk 2 has been designed with profile in mind, and up untill they moved the screws to the underside there was still a chance of banging depending on the drop.

i can't see how it would be hard to design and upper control arm, is just manufacturing it that would stop someone from doing it.

[tig3rpaw]

<a href="http://s236.photobucket.com/albums/ff192/J_1982/?action=view&current=cambers.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff192/J_1982/cambers.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

yall think or any of yall have this on yall cb7? u think it well work? it looks good da me. bang inner fender or no? let me know. site T.A.S AUTO PARTS

[203Cree]

Looks like a stock A-Arm with poly bushings and adjustable balljoints in it, along with some fancy stickers thrown on. I don't see how it'd be any different than running one of the balljoint kits that are already availiable.