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S13 alignments (rear specifically)

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twastheglow

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Discussion starter · #1 ·
How much adjustment does the rear in the S13 have for both two and camber? I have an appointment on Saturday morning to get my car aligned now that I have my new wheels and tires (since I don't want brand new tires whooped right off the bat like my old ones). I have a decent amount of negative camber that I want corrected and I actually have tow in on both rear wheels that I NEED corrected. The car has been lowered but still has roughly 3/4"-1" of space between the rear tires and the fender. That can be corrected right? Or do I need to buy a special kit? Please someone help me out so I don't waste money on an alignment that isn't going to help!!!
*mike*
 
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#2 ·
twastheglow said:
How much adjustment does the rear in the S13 have for both two and camber? I have an appointment on Saturday morning to get my car aligned now that I have my new wheels and tires (since I don't want brand new tires whooped right off the bat like my old ones). I have a decent amount of negative camber that I want corrected and I actually have tow in on both rear wheels that I NEED corrected. The car has been lowered but still has roughly 3/4"-1" of space between the rear tires and the fender. That can be corrected right? Or do I need to buy a special kit? Please someone help me out so I don't waste money on an alignment that isn't going to help!!!
*mike*
Click to expand...
how much do u have your car lowered? and with what?
 
#4 ·
The stock 240 has toe-in, .020-.177 in., most manufactors have rear toe-in built into the rear suspension, it makes for understeer, which is safer. I would adjust to minimum toe, and drive it, see how you like it. Don't even think about adjusting in rear toe-out, i've done this by mistake, and unless you want a car that will drift every curve, whether you want to or not, don't do it.
 
Discussion starter · #5 ·
Maybe it's just more noticeable because my wheels aren't sunken in anymore and are out flush with the wheelwell. So if I have them adjust to minimum toe in, that won't be a problem? How about the camber? How adjustable is that? I have quite a bit of negative and I want to correct it as much as possible. I'm just concerned with wearing my tires out like I did the last pair of shitty ones I had...and those weren't nearly as soft as the Proxes T1R that I have now.
*mike*
 
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#6 ·
The 240 also list 1.3-.36 deg. neg camber, but since you've lowered the car I don't know how much the stock adjustment can take out, I would go for .5 deg neg., if you can get it without the tires rubbing the wheelwells. I live in a very curvy, mountain area, I run 1 deg neg. front and rear, get no uneven tire wire cause i'm usually going around curves. If I drove mostly city or level country with just occassional curves i'd probably have to run less neg. camber, so it just depends on where you do most of your driving, and how you drive. No one alignment specs are suited for everybody.
 
Discussion starter · #7 ·
Right, right. I definately do mostly city/highway driving. I don't have the luxury of winding roads. :dancingwt You're probably right on with the .5 deg. of negative camber. How much can the rear usually adjust with it being lowered? Will an alignment shop be able to squeeze that much adjustment out of it? Like I said before, it's not slammed, I just took out the ridiculous wheelgap that it had. As far as the tow, I was definately concerned because when I look straight down at the wheel, it is NOT parallel with the fender at all! I guess I just don't know how much is normal now that I can actually see it, you know?
*mike*
 
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#8 ·
You've never said how much you lowered the car and how you lowered it. Just lowering a car changes the camber, as the suspension goes thru it's range of motion the camber changes. How much can be adjusted out depends on the adjustment range in the stock components, which isn't much. You can get aftermarket suspension arms that have a much larger adjustment range, you may need them.
 
Discussion starter · #9 ·
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#10 ·
I made the same mistake, after using KYB and GR-2 shock/spring setup for a long time, I got some K-sports and lower the car at about the same numbers as yours....now my camber adjustment (car's OEM) is maxed out and I need RUCAS. So I got the RUCAS (SPL ones..$$$) and need another alignment (around 80 dollars..)so is costing me more because I thought I was going to be able to adjust rear camber without RUCAS....and no my car is not slammed (I have about 1/2 inch of wheel gap). Use this as a rule, (trust me...) anytime you lower your car more than 2 inches from stock, you are going to need RUCAS in order to be able to adjust your rear camber within specifications, as in saving your rear tires during normal driving....hope this helps and save you some money:thumbsup ....get some RUCAS and then get the alignment....:crazyrant :crossfing
 
#12 ·
Camber doesnt really wear out your tires, its toe that wears them out. When you lower the car, the camber and the toe is changed. When you buy RUCA's they help you to adjust camber within spec AND this will pull your toe back into spec also. So while adjusting the camber via the ruca, your also changing the amount of avalible toe change.
I run -2* camber front and -1.5* rear with about 1 1/16" toe-in in the rear (0 toe in the front). I have no issuse with premature wear and most will not. (stock toe arms and traction rods and you can see how low my car is in the link in my sig)

You should buy ruca's because stock really cant do anything when you lower your car more than 2" (like amolao said).

Get adjustable ruca's and once they are installed, go get an alignment! (might as well do it right the first time so your not wasting $ to get two alignments when you find out the stock ruca's suck)
 
Discussion starter · #14 ·
Sorry this sounds so stupid. Alignments are just something I know very little about. So are you saying that toe cannot be adjusted without adjustable rucas? If that's what's wearing my tires out that is.
*mike*
 
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#15 ·
Jack up your car and look at you rear suspension. You'll notice the ruca (rear upper control arm) has a cam bolt, the inner bolt, there's only a limited amount of adjustment in it, if your car is lowered too much there's not enough adjustment in that cam bolt too get it back to close to the camber you need. Too much off camber WILL wear tires, but nowhere as fast as having the toe wrong will wear them. The rearmost link in your suspension adjusts the toe, again the inner bolt is a cam bolt with only limited adjustment possibilities. When you change camber, that rear link is about 1/3 up on the wheel, you change your toe even without touching the toe link. If you look at your rear suspension and just think how each link moves your alignment around, you'll understand what has to be done a lot better.
 
Discussion starter · #18 ·
Well, I was acutally able to have the front perfected, the rear toe perfected and the rear camber straightened to 2 degrees negative and all of that with stock settings. I am very pleased with the results. I think I will at some point still buy rucas...but I think that can probably wait until the spring time now. Damn was my car OUT OF WHACK!!! The rear toe was sooo bad that it wouldn't even register on the computer. LOL We ended up raising the rear about 1/2" and not it looks and rides awesome!!! I will post pics tomorrow if it's not still raining here. I just thought I'd give you guys an update.
*mike*
 
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#19 ·
2 deg is still a little up there but thats about what you'll see with it lowered. Z32's (300zx) sucks when coming to alignments, camber will most likely be out for front and rear. If you plan on lowering the car more get RUCA's and toe rods. I got my car pretty low, my rear camber spec is at about neg. 3.7 deg keeping my toe in spec. I got rucas but if I get it to factory specs my toe will be out cause you can only adjust so much with the crappy essentrics on there. Bright side is I work for nissan so I do my alignments as needed whenever.
 
#20 ·
I circle track race a 240, and help some guys that race also, together we have the equipment to do alignments ourself. It's not as accurate as the high dollar alignment machines, I don't think I could really say i've put it within 1/16in., but I can experiment with settings myself on my daily driver. 2 degrees neg camber will slowly wear the insides of your tires down, sure the car will really turn well, but if most of your driving is city and freeway, you're going to get some uneven wear, nothing like the wear you'd get from you toe being out though.
 
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