I can set toe, and I can set camber … have a problem trying to set caster …
plus I have a great tire shop, the alignment guy is pres. of out local a-x club
I can set toe, and I can set camber … have a problem trying to set caster …
plus I have a great tire shop, the alignment guy is pres. of out local a-x club
Camber and toe are pretty easy. I've never had to set caster, but I'd imagine it's not too terribly hard. I'll be able to get this "close enough." I adjusted my Miata's 10 years ago by turning the tie rod, driving around the block, adjust, drive, adjust, drive, adjust, drive, repeat. Took me a couple of hours, but was relatively simple and that thing was pretty set. I don't even think I used a tape measure.
There's a few buddies of mine that work at tire/alignment places, I'm sure they'd let me sit in and have the wrench jockey dial in what I want for an extra $20 or so.
I just have no idea of how to go about it .. much less measure it
with the D2's on my Integra I knew how to set caster
and with the adjustable radius arms on the CRX I can adjust caster, but still don't know how to measure for it
I'm still up in the air with what to do with the radius rod arms. I know I can adjust mine with some washers, but the bushings themselves are probably pretty trashed. Are poly kits or spherical bearings helpful on CRX's for the radius rod bushings? Being in FSP, pretty sure I can't swap out to a "traction bar" style front cross member.
don't know about the "traction bar" style .. and as for FSP…again I don't know about spherical bearings … I know for STS I can't use them
it's my understanding that adding caster (Hasbro can step in here if he wants) helps maintain static camber during cornering
I can easily get that by going with 88-91 Civic or 90-93 Integra uppers, but I'd gain a TON of camber. Something along the lines of 3deg per side. I thought about buying a pair to swap out at events since its pretty easy to do, but I'd still need r-comps to play with the big boys.
This is the traction bar I'm talking about. Works for preludes/accords of similar vintage. Replaces the front cross member and radius rods. Nice unit, but probably not even SM friendly. http://www.innovativemounts.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=50110
http://kingpinmachine.com/store/products/bb4bb6-prelude-front-radius-rod-bearings/
Those are pretty. And expensive. Going with the traction bar would help with header clearance, which is pretty tight as it is and would allow me to use a modified long tube H22 header without notching the cross member.
before I raised my CRX back up a bit, I was running with -3 1/2° front camber, now since the angle of the UCA has changed, the most I can get is a bit over -2° … time to elongate the slots 
What control arms are you running?
Revo Technica (purchased through these guys … http://www.ipgparts.com/store/ )
http://www.revotechnica.com/camber_kits.htm
I think this thing is trying to kill me. New wheel bearing, axle, and MAYBE a hub going on tomorrow. When I did the last stuff, the wheel bearing was going to need replaced. Definitely needs it now. Bearing is so worn and getting so hot that it backed off three lug nuts and one stud sheared on my way home tonight. Wheel almost came off and made the steering wheel shake BAD. The axle and the wheel bearing are nothing, I can get them at the autozone down the street. The hub will be more difficult to source since I bought the car with a ROH setup from a CL, so I'll have to call around to junkyards and parts stores tomorrow to try to source one. Just glad I didn't die, the wheel is undamaged, and I was able to get the car home in one piece.
Sigh....
All fixed, drives great. Reused the hub, replaced all four wheel studs, the axle, and the bearing.
What's an roh setup?
Rotor over hub. Stock, the 90-97 Accords have a STUPID captive(hub over rotor) setup, where the rotor, hub, and bearing have to be pressed out as a unit.
not stupid as far as Honda's concerned … they sell more parts that way 
I had to deal with that on my very first Accord(it was a '91) almost 15 years ago. Never again. I'm going to hoard clean 90-97 Accords and convert them all to 5-lug and ROH. I would've gone that route with this pile, if it didn't already have the 11" rotor conversion, and wasn't such a pile.
Drawn outside after a snow, and rain, storm this morning, with the promise of more E36 M3ty weather(OH goodie! I love Ohio!) I decided that for the first time in 4 months, I'd actually wash my car. Lurking below that crusty salt/dirt layer was....
The dirtbag! Even rustier than before, so much that I don't dare take a picture of the driver side door, or any sort of close up shot for fear of it oxidizing into nothing out of spiteful shame. Luckily, I know it's all superficial and not structural, whoever bought the car new had the thing undercoated, thankfully.
Needs a wax, badly, but I'm gonna give it to my buddy when he has a weekend off so he can go nuts detailing it. I'll have to pull my carpet before that and give it a good powerwashing/steam clean. Probably just take the carpet and seats out to the car wash in the back of the truck and spray them off. I think our gas powered power washer would blast them apart. I've come pretty close to cutting floormats in half with the damn thing, and stripped paint off a fender before. Too gnarly for cleaning.
I've been on a kick to get stuff done with this thing, whether it's dialing in the alignment, cleaning it, or just doing little stuff. I woke up too late to make it to the first cars and coffee meet this morning, so I decided to use the afternoon putting the 225's up front and the 205's in the rear. While I had them off, I plastidipped the wheels flat black, along with the red accents on the wheels. Looks a TON better, IMO, I really love it. Next up is to plastidip the chrome trim along the windows and rear H badge, as well as remove the chrome strip above the rear license plate.
I'll eventually get some depo SIR style headlights and corners and figure out a way to smoke the stock front turn indicators in the bumper. Black bumper indicators are offered, but I'm not a big fan of how they look. I've always liked the contrast of the orange and black, but after seeing this video by /Drive on YouTube(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddRAbC0Mkb8), I'm really in love with the way that Dart is blacked out with minimal contrast. That car pulls off the blacked out look REALLY well, and I'm going to try to emulate it, to an extent.
Also, with the 205's on the front, this thing was WAY more responsive. I don't know if it's because the S02's sidewall is stiffer, or because the 225's are just WIDE on a 7" wheel, but the front end is less responsive for sure. The rear feels like it follows the front a lot better now that the 205 S02's are on the rear. I'll probably dish out the dough for a set of 215/45/16 BFG Rivals(finally) later this summer as these tires are getting pretty low on tread life. I'm hoping that splitting the difference in width and going with a shorter sidewall will kind of balance out the responsiveness and F to R stability. I still have yet to install my coilovers, but seeing as I have next Sunday off, it may be the day I do it if I don't get punked by the weather.
Two weeks ago
Took a flapwheel to the E36 M3ty repair welds on the header, sanded it down, and hit it with some 2000 degree paint.
Last week
Picked this little cubby with a door up at the junkyard this morning and threw it in. I didn't grab the brackets(dumb) so I had to kinda rig it into place with some homemade brackets. I'll have to make another trip out sometime next week to see if I can grab some. If I could find a single din factory ish radio with an aux input, I'd be golden. I have an aftermarket headunit downstairs, but I just don't like the way they look vs a stock radio. It cleaned up the center stack a surprising amount, I can't recall if I pulled it out of a 6th gen Accord or from an 02-05 Civic.
And now today!
It was raining on/off today, but I had enough garage space to get the front end of the car indoors and drill out TWO broken exhaust studs(find the bolts! haha!), and replace the header. Feels like it lost some top end over 5500, but gained a good amount of low-end and mid-range, which is more important IMO for autocross. I can gain the top end back with tuning and after I finish porting/gutting my spare intake manifold. Header has some pinhole leaks which sound loud as berkeley, so I'll probably be taking the lower section off to re-repair timbo's badass flux core MIG skills once I can nail down who can do it on the cheap and quick. Used a Honda OEM upper manifold gasket and a Percy's mid-gasket, donut gasket still looked good.
Also replaced both gaskets in the VTEC solenoid, they were crusty as FUHHH and the upper one had broke in one spot. Replaced the outer distributor oil seal, too. Seems to have solved the oil leaks. I think it's leaking a little bit of coolant at the water crossover tube in the rear, as well as where the thermostat housing meets the intake- I bought all new gaskets from Honda to do these jobs. The VTEC solenoid is a total pain, glad I won't have to do that again. I'll save the coolant ones for another day.
I might have time to do the coilovers tomorrow, and got them set to the freelength I want front(10") and rear(12"); the rear is adjust out to about as far as it'll go, which I think should be OK, but I'll see once they're on the car. Really only looking for maybe about another inch lower at this point.
Threw on the stock 96-97 Grill that I cleared the middle crossbar out of and painted the chrome trim black. I like it a bit more.
Onto pictures!
Looks good. I really like those wheels.
Smeared a bunch of exhaust cement onto/into all the holes I could find. Water tested the new lower section and found a TON of holes in it. Seems to have quieted it up enough for now. I cut my old lower section into pieces and mocked it up with some tape, and it's only about 2" short at the collector, as well as has a slightly different clocking at the flange. Going to have my buddy re-weld up the old lower section and add a 2" section of 2" pipe after the collector this weekend.
Where are they running this weekend? I was thinking about running the 5.
NWOR? Next event is May 17th at Toledo airport.
Finally. My friend Ethan who went to nationals last year(black/blue EP Thunderbird Turbocoupe) picked me up these GRM stickers while there. Finally got them last night when I hung out with him.
(don't mind the 5" of pollen on the car)
I'm official!
This was a fun fix. Was pulling out of my parent's neighborhood on my way to work and they broke. Surprised the tank didn't fall out. $30 for the straps from autozone, but 5 hours to fix, just about every nut and bolt was rusted and rounded off. Had to take a grinder to the rear bolts holding the straps on and grind off the heads, then used an air chisel to punch the studs out and break the spot welds. Dropped in some short bolts from the backside and that was that. More pissed about having to call off work than having to fix this.
Some other pics. Got a little silly a couple of times being so frustrated.
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