?Bending suspension parts?

I'm calling around my city trying to find the best prices for a front end alignment, but no one around here does camber adjustments because i lowered my car. All the other shops keep refering me to the same place. So i call them and ask the price and he says they'll do the camber adjustment, but it might require bending some part (spindles i think). I read somewhere that this was a bad thing to do. Has anyone had this done? I thought the camber could be fixed w/ the prelude control arms? I didn't know i had to bend stuff!

I, too was referred to a frame shop for bending due to my camber being at -1.4 degrees from the factory. They wanted $250 to do it. The camber kits are cheaper and offer the advantage of being adjustable later if you change the amount of drop (or hit something!).

Camber kits do the trick, DO NOT have them bend your parts, thats dumb and unneeded.

Nate.

Bending spindles? That's crazy. Those parts are cast. They're so brittle I'd expect them to fracture before bending much.

So they should be able to adjust my camber w/ the prelude control arms i have on there? I really don't want to bend the spindles but i will if that's my only alternative.

Yes they should be able to fix the majority of it. If they tell you no, then they are just dumb. Show them how to adjust them. They can watch the machine and more or less figure it out for themselves. I showed the alignment guy how to do mine and he understood how to do it right away.

Nate.

yeah seriously, just say NO to bending parts. That's what we all try to avoid, not pay to have someone do intentionally. The 'lude arms should be fine for correcting that camber. If they can't get it perfect, it'll at least be close. Good luck! Don't bend!

Thanks guys!
i won't let them bend anything! I've adjusted the prelude control arms all the way out (away from engine) shouldn't this have corrected my camber? What are the people at the shop going to do that i can't?

yeah thas beter than nothin. (movin the arms all the way out.)
but it also probrably affects something else when u move the arms out (toe maybe).
That alignment stuff is pretty precise ya know, cant be eyeballed.
But what u did is good.
Leave the arms all the way out like u have them, then take it in for an alignment. Besides, when the arms are all the way out, thas the most correction u can make without buyin more parts or modifyin the arms.
Tell us what the camber is when u go get an alignment wit the arms all the way out

There are other adjustments then just camber. When you lower your car, front and rear alignment are effected. You CANNOT eye ball it. They use lasers for a reason. Its so precise, if you ever watch them do it, then you would understand. Take it and pay to have it done, or you can not have any tires in 6 months.

Nate.

OHhh...your supposed to use lasr when you do this? These assholes said they use a bubble gauge. I'm assuming that this is not very accurate, huh? Everyone around here is scared to touch it. There is only one speed shop in town, but they charge an arm and a leg! Guess you gotta pay the cost, to be the boss:pimp:

Correcting suspension geometry for a lowered car is difficult and most ppl will go back and bitch about it later. That's why you don't see alot of the shops doing alignment for lowered vehicles. But bigger tire shops should be able to handle it as long as you tell them to do their best and you won't go back to bitch about it :D

There is a local shop here that has one place and I took my car the first time for the alignment, I stood in their large garage and watched them do it......the guy looked puzzled so I walked over and showed him how the camber was adjusted. He could watch the computer screen and adjust it as well as he could underneath the car. He said "Thats all shes gonna go" and I knew then that my camber was going to be perfect with the ingalls kit. It was off like .6 degrees, which isnt bad, but isnt perfect. I knew going into it what the camber meant, how much he was going to be able to adjust it, and since I installed the arms myself, I knew exactly how they were going to need to be adjusted.

There are also different parts of the alignment that they need to perform that cannot be performed with a bubble gauge (wtf, thats like ghetto alignment). The arms up front that control the caster and toe are up front and need to be adjusted too. Anytime that you remove your struts from the front or the rear, an alignment HAS to be performed. No matter how much you think they are fine after doing a suspension swap, they arent. I thought mine were fine, watched the computer screen after installing my konis and found out that the alignment was about as out of wack as it can be.

There is NO possible way you can look at a car and go "that car is out of align". Unless it has major camber issues, its not visible to the naked eye. The slight change of the angle of the tire means a world of difference when you think about how many times that tire is rotating underneath a 2000lb car.

Although the guys arent happy to do it sometimes (the guy that did mine didnt look to happy) I tried to make a joke out of it, and let him know that I appreciated him getting under there, learning how to do it and adjusting it for me. There appreciative for your $ of course, but a little bit of appreciation goes a long way whenever you are letting them know that you understand that they cant fix all of your camber issues. Not all of them can be fixed, so dont expect them to be. The rear can be fixed with a 2.25" drop just fine (withou camber kits), the front is a different story.

/End of rant.

Nate.

I've installed camber kits on plenty of Hondas to solve this problem. You can get them from any parts store. Easy too. Have to have it aligned right away and no hiway driving if you do it yourself.

Sean

O.K. I have Prelude adjustable control arms, will they bring my camber back to 0? If they won't then an ingall's camber kit will right? Cause these dicks around here keep telling me it won't happen and i'll have to raise my car back upto get a 0 camber. I'm just gonna go up there w/ the confidence that my control arms/ingall's kit will correct my camber to factory specs.:rant: